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A rushed intake of breath yanks my eyes to its source. Wrapped in the frame of the door, like a lost soul, Hollie gapes. In an instant, a glassy sheen coats her gentle blue eyes.
“Hollie.”
Like a summer spin-up, she wheels around and leaves me to disaster. Disaster of my own making.
Jury…exhibit A.
Chapter 33
John
The river ripples and rolls its way south, lazy and peaceful. Afternoon sun splashes across it, zinging back up to the sky. Beneath the trees, its warmth doesn’t find me.
I long for the blazing sun in my life. The peace. The joy. Between me, myself, and I, the only ones here, I might as well admit my longing for all the things I don’t have and never will. For the things I’ve destroyed and can’t get back.
Does my harsh pronouncement ring in Hollie’s mind as it does my own?
Like every wrong action in my life, my own words ricochet back to me, brash and ugly.Iknow what I meant was not what Hollie heard. No one has a bigger basket of issues than I do. I’d take on every last one of hers and be a happier man for it. And yes, I’d marry her in half a heartbeat if I didn’t know to the pit of my ugly soul that I’d only ruin her. As they say, the past and the future are linked.
Besides, how many times can a man screw up and still hope forbetter?
Seventy-times seven.
No. That cannot apply here. Surely not.
Sometimes, a guy just has to live with the consequences of his own arrogant, bullish ways. Do-overs run out. If ever there was a window for me to start fresh, that window has closed. Status: expired.
How do I know? Among other things, Hollie disappeared like a ghost at sunrise, by design and almost supernatural in its execution. Not thirty seconds behind her and I still lost her trail. Waited in the hallway for half an hour lest she’d taken refuge in the ladies’ room. When I finally asked a female officer to check for me, I learned I’d wasted my time, time she used to hike out of my life.
Smooth, John.
Another thirty minutes cruising up and down Chandor’s streets got me nothing. No Jacob either. Both vaporized like the distant memory they were always destined to become.
I rise from the stone bench where Hollie listened to my twisted tale, and walk to the shore. It’s mostly grassy, with a narrow strip of rock and debris separating the water from dry land. I scoop up the first rock my hand finds and skip it across the water. One. Two. Three.
Sink.
About right. Three strikes and I. Am. Out.
Seventy times seven? Maybe for some.
I rub my shirt, pressing away the whisper stirring in my chest. Nope. Back to the real world. My real life.
Alone.
It’s in everyone’s best interest.
I’m used to alone. How bad can it be now?
Is the way it was the way it has to be?
I find another rock. One. Two.
And down it goes.
An electronic tone ignores the river’s lazy mood. Forget skipping, I’d like to sink the blasted phone with one giant, targeted hurl.
I check the screen, and sure enough, work sniffed out my moment of crisis, resenting my personal life honing in on its territory. I groan as I listen to my assistant. Apparently, my John Henry is required on a deposition needed for a trial bright and early tomorrow.
