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I was never going to get out of this cycle.
But I was choosing to ignore that for reasons that didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense to me.
Maybe because I was still new to the club, because I wasn’t sure they’d have my back when they knew I’d been keeping shit from them.
It wouldn’t exactly be unheard of for the president to say “Hey, you’re on your own. Handle your own shit. But we are here if shit is looking really bad.”
Wasn’t that, essentially, what Fallon had told Cary at the beginning of the shit with his girl?
It was likely what he would tell me too.
So I was just cutting out the middle man until it became clear that I had to get some backup from the club.
I balled up my cut and stuck it in the compartment on my bike before climbing on and heading out.
I didn’t want anyone to associate the club with the other people I was about to be involved with.
It wasn’t an overly long drive from Navesink Bank to a town just outside of New York City where the plan was supposed to go down. But the hour gave me a lot of time alone with my thoughts.
I didn’t think about the coming job, though.
Oh, no.
I thought about her.
The missing woman who, if I were being honest with myself, I’d never actually gotten over. I’d never really even tried. I’d just left her. And let her continue to be a part of me, to have a hold on me. Through the miles and the years.
It was always Louana.
It would alwaysbeLouana.
I think, to an extent, I’d told myself that, eventually, I was going to go back to Navesink Bank, patch in, then get myself a steady life going. From there, I’d just find myself the woman that I would love second best. Because there was no knocking Lulu out of her place in my heart.
I’d even convinced myself that it wasn’t sad to make that decision, that people did it every day.
They did.
I think most people had that big fucking all-consuming love. But it was at the wrong time. Or it was just… too much. Too big, too strong, too terrifying.
So they make a choice.
To step away.
To move on.
But a huge part of them would only ever belong to that one person. There would always be parts of them that no one else could touch.
That didn’t mean that they couldn’t go on to live great lives. To find someone, marry, settle down, raise kids, and live a different version of happily ever after.
They might even be able to convince themselves for weeks or months or even years at a time that the life they chose was everything they could ever want. But at some point, in those quiet moments just before sleep, or when a particular song comes on, or you see someone who reminds you of them, they would be reminded of that lost big love. And all the potential it had.
I figured that would be my life.
I would find someone.
We would love each other.
But sometimes, Louana would pop into my mind, and I would once again need to mourn the loss of everything that could have been.
