Page 73 of Where I Should’ve Been

My stomach twists. “What does that mean?”

“It means…” He shakes his head on a pause, like he can’t find the right words. “Just…give him a little space, okay, Breezy?”

That’s it. No explanation. No reassurance. Just the word space echoing in my chest like a slammed door.

By the time I drive back up Bennett and Norah’s driveway, I’ve run out of theories, and my hands won’t stop gripping the wheel like I can keep something from falling apart if I hold tight enough.

Inside, Autumn’s giggling in the living room with Norah. The sound should make me smile. Instead, I mumble something about being tired and escape to my room.

The minute the door closes, the silence hits hard.

And when I pull my phone out of my purse, every text and call to Tad is still unanswered.

I tell myself it’s fine. He’s fine. He’s probably off…I don’t know…doing something.

But when the first tear slides down my cheek, I realize I’m lying.

Because the truth is, I’m hurt. And scared. And I don’t really understand why the mere idea of space between Tad and me feels devastating.

Tears clog my throat, and the emotion catches me off guard.

I’m not a crier. If anything, I’m what you’d call a show-no-emotion type of gal.

But when I can’t contain the tears and I start to outright cry, I bury my face in the pillow, breathing in detergent and salt and something that feels a hell of a lot like heartbreak.

Which doesn’t make any sense, given this was just supposed to be a casual fling to pass the time.

But I keep crying for reasons I don’t understand—reasons, deep down, I probably understand way too much.

I’m shaken, and my normally strongly constructed walls are cracked. Clearly, all this turmoil and uncertainty in my life is starting to get to me—maybe even changing me as a person.

You might be too far gone to turn back…

29

Tad

Monday, March 15th

By the time the sun cracks over the ridge, I’m already knee-deep in the barn, trying to outwork my shame.

Every year, I know when the day is coming, and still, it always pulls the fucking rug out from under me.

The barn smells like hay and thawing earth and my own mistakes. My head pounds, my mouth tastes like regret, and my hands ache from gripping a shovel I don’t need to hold this tight.

Randy’s somewhere out back plowing the lower fields. He didn’t say much when I rolled in this morning—just a short nod and a muttered, “Snow’s still heavy in the south pasture. Gonna clear it before the lambs break a leg.”

He knows what yesterday was. And he deals with it by pretending it’s just another day and gives me space. He never asks questions, even though he got a phone call from Clay to pick my drunk ass up from The Country Club at two in the morning. And yesterday, he didn’t try to track me down when I wasn’t at home all day and night and he was left dealing with the farm on his own.

Years ago, that’s not how he would’ve reacted. But now, he doesn’t try to move me out of my own way. He lets me circle the drain quietly.

When I woke up yesterday morning, hungover as fuck and March 14 staring back at me from the screen of my phone, I felt like I was going to crawl out of my fucking skin.

I left the house before seven and started driving. As if the more distance I put between myself and Red Bridge, the more oxygen I’d be able to successfully breathe into my lungs.

I ended up two hundred miles outside of town and made myself pull over and stay in a rickety highway hotel because it felt pretty fucking apt for my current state. Run-down, dusty, seen better days, it wasn’t the kind of place you’d want to take your family.

But it felt like what I deserved.