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If she’d gotten into trouble, why hadn’t she trusted him enough to come to him for help? It really hurt to realize that perhaps shehadn’ttrusted him at all.
“I’m going home,” he said, suddenly needing to be by himself as he dealt with all the emotions drowning him. As he walked past Janessa, she reached out to grab his arm. He stopped, taking a moment before he turned his head to look at her. “I need to go, Nessa.”
Her eyes grew damp, then she nodded. “Please call me if you hear anything.”
“I will. And you let me know if she contacts you, too.”
After Janessa agreed, she released his arm, and Gareth made his way to his car, detouring for only a moment to grab Aria’s note off the kitchen floor. Though he wanted to crumple it up and throw it away, he carefully set the paper on the passenger seat before starting up the car and driving home.
He’d been worried about her being sick, but now he wondered if she’d been sick at all. Looking back, he thought of how she’d held him off from hugging her before he left. If she hadn’t really been sick, had she just not wanted to hug him one last time?
The thought made him sick, and the conflicted feelings inside him grew. He honestly didn’t know what to feel. All of this felt like he’d been alone in his feelings and like such a betrayal.
When he got to his house, he sat in his vehicle for a moment, suddenly feeling completely drained. All the exhilaration he’d felt from Cole’s team winning the state championship was gone.
Finally, he got out of the car and headed inside, determined to get some answers, though he had no idea how.
***
Aria might not have actually caught the bug Janessa had, but she felt as tired and achy as if she had. After leaving the house in Serenity, she’d headed south and just kept going, driving for ten hours before exhaustion had forced her to find a place to stay.
Now she was sitting on a lumpy mattress in a cheap motel room, too tired to even think. Which was fine, because for the past ten hours she’d done nothingbutthink.
She hadn’t wanted to dwell on what she was leaving behind. All the hopes and dreams that had grown in her new life in Serenity. The friendships. The love…
Gareth.
She’d tried to listen to audio books or podcasts to distract her from her thoughts and feelings, but to no avail.
Before she’d left Serenity, she’d turned off her cell and data service so that she wouldn’t receive anymore of Gareth’s or Janessa’s texts or phone calls. She didn’t think she was strong enough to resist reading and responding to them.
Looking at the pictures they’d sent had been hard enough. The desire to be with them had been so strong. And when she’d read the one about Cole’s team winning, tears had come to her eyes, and she’d wished more than anything that she could have been there to celebrate with all of them.
Her favorite pictures, however, had been the ones of Gareth. In them, he’d been grinning, and her heart had cracked a little more with each one he sent. Then he’d sent her a video of him in the midst of all the celebrations.
I miss you so much and wish you were here. I can’t wait to see you tomorrow. Sleep well. I hope you’re feeling better.
He’d blown her a kiss, then the video had ended, and the pain in her heart had taken her breath away.
She’d spent some time wondering if there had been another way to handle things. But the bottom line was, that by not revealing her past, she’d shown a lack of honesty that could have negatively affected the clinic. Plus, it shamed her to have to admit her poor judgment in not only drinking far more than she should have, but in going to work in that state.
It was easy to blame her actions on her grief, but even her mom wouldn’t have accepted that excuse. It had been so much more than her grief that had propelled her to make those poor decisions, but nothing changed the fact that, even though she hadn’t treated anyone before her supervisor realized she was drunk, she had been prepared to put patients at risk.
Getting to her feet, Aria went to the desk and picked up the chair. She carried it over to the door and hooked it under the doorknob. Though the motel looked run-down, it hadn’t looked super sketchy, so she hoped her car was safe for the night.
Come morning, she’d have to make a plan. She couldn’t just keep driving aimlessly, though that was tempting. But making plans was like acknowledging she was never going to see Gareth again, and her heart didn’t want to accept that yet.
A short time later, she slid beneath the covers on the bed, hoping that they were at least clean. They smelled like they were, so hopefully that wasn’t just some air freshener they’d sprayed on dirty sheets.
In the darkness of the room, Aria gripped her phone, wanting more than anything to turn it on. But she knew she couldn’t. She wasn’t strong enough to read the messages or listen to the voicemails she undoubtedly had. Not just from Gareth, but likely from Janessa as well.
Her heart hurt at the knowledge that she’d caused them both pain. The relationships she’d been forging with them had been genuine on all their parts, so she knew they would be hurt by her actions. Not just in choosing to leave, but also in not revealing what she’d done.
Tears slipped free from her eyes, soaking into the pillow. The memory of being in Gareth’s arms and now realizing that would never happen again hit her hard, and her tears turned to sobs.
How was she supposed to survive this? She’d tried so hard to hang on after her mom had died, but for what? Just more and more heartache?
When would it end?
