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“Speaking of not gay…”
Mac caught me up on the latest gossip in our friend’s group. Then she mentioned Zander, and I focused on the gentle sounds of the water in front of me to keep my cool.
“He and Sophia moved in together.”
“How wonderful for them,” I said, clenching my jaw. “May they have a lifetime of blissful happiness.”
“Are you still trying that radical positivity thing? Because it’s okay to hope she gets explosive diarrhea while they’re having sex or that he can’t get it up. It’s fine.”
I laughed, feeling grateful to have a friend like Mackenzie on my side. She always lightened my mood, even when giving me shitty news about my recent ex moving in with the woman he’d cheated on me with.
“Okay. I hope she shits herself during sex and he has chronic limpdick. Just for a while.”
“Feel better?”
“Yeah. Honestly, I’m not even that bothered anymore. Mostly just angry that he lied about her instead of coming clean the first time I said something.”
Mac scoffed. “You’re really more pissed about the lie than the cheating?”
“Pretty much. Does that make me crazy?”
“No. It makes you jaded, Cal. And I don’t want that for you.”
I guess Iwasjaded. Being cheated on had gotten so familiar, I hadn’t even been surprised to find Zander had done it too. Men were faithless, selfish horndogs for the most part, always sniffing for something different. Before Zander, I’d decided to give up on relationships and just have fun instead. But he’d been so sweet, so sincere and loving, that I’d fallen pretty fast.
I didn’t think I was in love with him, but I thought maybe I could be someday.
If I hadn’t been staying over for a couple of days and gone to hug him when he got home before he’d hurried into the shower, I’d never have smelled the floral, very feminine perfume that still clung to his skin.
It made me angry to think that if that hadn’t clued me in, I’d probably still be with him thinking maybe he’d be with me forever. All while he was banging a woman named Sophia Potts.
“I said, youaregoing to make it, aren’t you?”
“Sorry.” I’d gone off into my own thoughts and hadn’t been fully listening. “I am absolutely going to be at your wedding, Mac. I don’t care how long I have to stay here. There’s no way I’m missing that.”
“What if he won’t let you come?”
“There’s no ‘he won’t let me’ here. I’m not a prisoner. He can’t keep me here against my will. If I insisted on leaving, I don’t think he’d try to hold me captive.”
Would he? I couldn’t imagine that. But I could imagine him trying to put his foot down and acting as if I didn’t have a choice.
“Have you asked him about it?”
“No, because there’s probably no need. This will be over before your wedding. If that changes, I’ll mention it. Don’t worry. I’m going to be there to watch you cry off your mascara and get cake smashed in your face so we can relive those moments when we’re eighty and shouting insults at each other across the room in a nursing home.”
“A true friend,” she said with a chuckle. “Any more thoughts about your career, since all you get to do there is think?”
That was a drawback of too much time on my own. I started to question my decisions too much. “I still keep thinking about teaching. I know I’d enjoy it, but I worked so hard to get where I am. I love performing, and the thought of giving that up, Mac, it just feels bad. All the time my mentors devoted to me, all the encouragement and the hard work, it feels like almost like a betrayal to shift to teaching.”
“Do you think your dance teachers felt that way when they chose to be teachers? If nobody taught, there’d be no one to perform, Callie. I think you should do what you want based on what you really want, not what you think someone else will feel about it.”
I knew she was right, but I guessed I wasn’t ready to make that kind of decision yet.
As I got up to walk back into the house, I glanced to my left at a more open area next to the stand of dense trees. And I saw what looked like the start of a well-worn path on my side of the stream.
I really wanted to go for a run. It would help me clear my head and feel less penned in. I’d been cooped up for days now and I felt like I was going insane. I’d be back in fifteen minutes, tops. Blake wouldn’t even know I was gone.
I quickly went inside and put my shorts and running shoes on, rushing to head outside so I could make sure I’d be back long before Blake would get home. Then I took off on the trail, letting it lead me deeper into the rural Texas countryside.
