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“Oh, that’s gotta hurt.” Wade grits his teeth and looks at me for a reaction and, I swear, the only thing that's keepin’ me from knocking the clever smirk off his face is my pride.
“She’s free to do what she wants.” I act like it don’t bother me as I lead Rebel into his stable and start taking off his saddle.
“You're so bad at acting like you don’t care.” Wade shakes his head. “And you.” He turns his head to Garrett. “What the fuck are you doin’ out here sleepin’ in the stable? Is this really what I’m supposed to look up to?”
“Well it got a little deeper than Savannah and her bad taste in men.” I can tell by the way Garrett scratches the back of his neck that it isn’t good. “Maisie thinks I blame her for everything that happened with Mom.” He looks between me and Wade guiltily.
“But ya told her that ya don’t, right?” Wade looks concerned.
“Well, not exactly. I… Maybe just for a second, at that moment I did.” He’s got a real guilty look on his face now and I can see how hard he’s finding this to admit. “I’ve made a lot of stupid decisions lately, trusting Mom was my biggest one. I’ve gone over and over it in my head trying to figure out how I dropped my guard and…”
“You liked how it felt to put the blame on someone else for a while,” Wade finishes his sentence for him.
“Shit… I gotta talk to her.” Garrett turns pale and rushes out the door, leavin’ me and Wade alone together.
“You know you got some talkin’ of ya own to do,” Wade points out as he starts to brush Hooter’s back. “Leia tells me that Savannah sent Danny boy back to LA yesterday. She ain’t a problem that’s gonna be goin’ away anytime soon.”
“Well it sounds like she’s not wasting any time movin’ on.” I keep myself busy and try not to let what he’s sayin’ get in my head.
“Don’t be a dick, Cole. You know exactly why she was with Mason last night.”
“I’m not being thedickin this situation.” I storm out and cross the yard to the old storage barn where I know no one will bother me.
My eyes immediately get drawn to the old Cadillac that I fucked Savannah on the hood of a few weeks ago. Everywhere I look seems to be attached to a memory of her these days. She’s somehow engraved herself in to my head and carved her fuckin’ name on my soul. There’s no gettin’ away from it.
I spend the best part of half an hour sitting on an old whiskey crate and letting myself get more and more angry, and not just at her, but at myself. More than anyone right now, I’m mad at fuckin’ Mason. I want the blood of him and his father, and I know there will be no rest in my mind until the pair of them are dead.
All this bullshit about Harvey and his stupid fuckin’ election is getting in the way of that, which makes me want to find the guy and finish him off too.
I find myself heading over to the corner of the room where my grandad’s old riding whip is attached to the beam. When I take it in my hand I can’t help wondering if this is the real reason I felt drawn to come in here. It’s been a while since I’ve done it, and right now I’d take just about any other pain than the one I’m feelin’ in my chest. I slowly take off my jacket and unbutton my shirt, giving myself plenty of time to talk myself out of what I’m about to do and knowing that once I feel the sting on my flesh, it’s gonna be hard to stop.
I think about all the ways I hurt Savannah when I grip the handle tight in my fist, steadying my other hand on the wooden pillar in front of me. I think about Mason taking her to that fuckin’ dance and making her smile like he’s the remedy to allthe damage I caused as I close my eyes and make the first strike over my shoulder.
The leather bites at my flesh, making my eyes water, but the pain is just the distraction I’ve been craving. My mind focuses on that instead of all the shit I’ve been suffering these past few weeks. I grip tighter and make another blow, this time even harder. The scar tissue on my back is already fragile and I know it won’t take much to split it open, but I don’t care. I need to bleed all the anger outta my body so I keep the hits coming.
Holding tight to the wood and biting my lip when the pain becomes harder to bear, I start to feel the blood seep and keep goin’. I keep goin’ I’ve taken as much as I can, then I toss the whip across the floor and drop to my knees, staring at the floor while I feel the throbbing of my fresh wounds.
I don’t know how long I sit there or what I’m waiting for, but eventually, I figure that the pain inside ain’t going away, this is just a quick fix. I withstand the sting of my lashes when I slide my shirt back on, and I struggle into my jacket because the blood is bound to weep through the cotton. Picking the whip up off the floor, I take it with me and hide it under the front seat of my truck. I’ll never know when I might need it again.
“Can I talk with you?” I find Maisie in the dining room, spoon-feeding Brianna in her high chair while both the boys slam their hands on their trays like a pair of wild animals.
“Can’t you see I’m a little busy here?” She looks up at me.
“Leia, take over, will ya?” I call back into the living room where Leia is busy folding a mountain of laundry.
“Of course.” She smiles at us both awkwardly as she takes Maisie’s place, and I wait for my wife to step into my office.
“Look, if you brought me in here to say more shit about my frien?—”
“I brought you in here because we need to talk about what you said last night.” I press both my hands into her shoulders, forcing her into the chair then crouch in front of her.
“Garrett, it’s okay for you to blame me. It’s not okay for us to keep things from each other.” She looks real hurt and I hate that it’s my fault.
“I don’t blame you for what happened,” I admit. “Maybe for just a split-second last night when you gave me a reason not to blame myself, I liked how it felt. But none of what happened is on you.” I take both her hands in mine and squeeze ‘em tight.
“Don’t be in denial, Garrett, I was the one who asked you to give her a chance. I was the one who insisted she stay here…”
“You believed she’d changed, and you wanted to give her a chance to prove that. The fact you always see the best in people is one of the things I fell in love with you for, Maisie Carson. You saw the best in me and you brought that to the surface. And I guess I was hoping the same would happen for her. Hell, we all thought it had.
