AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I should be okay. I’ll text you in the morning if I’m not.”
He nodded. “Have a good evening.”
Meg helped clean up, said good-bye to Baylee, and began her walk home. She pretty much walked everywhere in Silver Bay, even though she had a car; it wasn’t a big town and she enjoyed the exercise. As she turned down Seapoint Boulevard though, she regretted her decision. Her ankle hurt, but not for the reasons Chet thought.
Her apartment was only a few blocks from the diner. The small space and location were perfect for her.
She locked the door behind her and headed straight for the bathroom to fill the tub. A long soak would cure what ailed her. In her bedroom, she peeled off her sweater then sat down to gently remove her jeans. There was a full-length mirror beside her bed. She looked at her reflection, the right side of her right leg glaring back at her as it always did. With a deep breath in, she rubbed her hand down her leg.
During her time in the burn unit, multiple nurses had told her the scars would not be as noticeable as Meg feared. She grunted. To them they weren’t bad. They didn’t have to live with the pain that came with them, or the questions in the warmer months of the year about why she didn’t wear shorts.
She studied her reflection. The jagged, discolored skin went from midthigh to ankle, a strip about six inches wide. As if the scars on her heart weren’t bad enough, these had become a daily reminder of what she’d been through. A reminder of all that she’d lost.
The scars on her heart were much easier to conceal. Physical ones, not so much.
Looking closer, she could see that her ankle was mildly irritated by the bump and rubbing of the hay bale. Without burn scars, it would have been simple, a nonevent. For her, it meant she had to care for her skin a little more in that area than she already did.
She melted into the water, careful to leave her leg sticking out. It was good to be careful.
As the water rose over her body, she let the tears fall. She’d cried more in the past two days than she had in a long time. The physical pain she endured was nothing compared to the emotional pain. Up until a few weeks ago, she’d kept it all compartmentalized. Neat. Tidy. In control.
And kept it to herself.
Allowing people to get close was messy. It hurt. And she’d had enough of that to last a lifetime.
After her bath, she curled up in her favorite blanket. Tired from the day’s labor, and exhausted from crying, all she wanted was to fall asleep. Maybe tomorrow she could get back to life the way she liked it.
Steady. Routine. Safe.
Those three words caused Chet to come to mind, which bothered her. He seemed like a steady, routine-loving, safe kind of guy, and in another life, he might be someone she’d be interested in. But his job was a deal breaker.
No firemen.
Not even steady, safe ones who were easy on the eyes and too nice for their own good. She had talked herself out of dating other guys. She could talk herself out of this attraction to Chet. Couldn’t she?
Her mind agreed, but each tap of her heart against her chest was like a little finger of doubt. For so long, she’d convinced herself that safe was all she needed to feel. It had been her against the world and that had worked.
Until she opened up to Rachel.
Until Franklin talked of a life alone.
Until Chet.
As Rachel said, there was living alone and living a lonely life. Meg didn’t mind being alone. What she was beginning to dislike was being lonely.
*
Chet sat onhis back porch to watch the sun go down. It had been a full, physical day and his body was fatigued, but his mind was full throttle. Dottie lay beside him on her big pillow bed. Out of habit, he reached down and rubbed her back. He’d read thathaving a dog had a soothing effect and he believed it. Just being near Dottie calmed him. There was something reassuring about the unconditional love a person received from a dog. Unaware of their size, Danes were known snugglers, too, and Dottie was all Dane. Sometimes she even sat her back end on Chet’s lap. He looked down at her and smiled. She was a huge heart covered with fur, and he couldn’t love her more.
He took a swig from the water bottle and glanced at the time. Eva was coming over. The family was going to do another call, and they thought it best to be together like last time. None of the siblings had heard from their mother, and certainly not from their father, besides the usual texts and check-ins that had become their habitual form of communication.
Chet hadn’t given a whole lot of thought to what his mother had said during the last video call. Not that he didn’t care about his dad. Far from it. It just wasn’t his MO to sit and worry about something based on speculation. He preferred to have hard facts, to know precisely what they were dealing with, then think it through and research what needed to be done. It drove his sisters crazy, especially Angelica. As the baby, she tended to fight to be heard and didn’t want to be left out of anything. For some reason, she thought the other three chatted constantly and didn’t tell her everything. Nothing was further from the truth.
Chet hated his phone and only had it on him for work. He talked to Eva in person so he didn’t see the point in texting her. Dominic kept his phone on him most of the time for work, but it wasn’t as if the two of them chitchatted all day like middle school girls. They were grown men, with lives. Something Angelica struggled to wrap her head around.
It was also tough for her to understand that none of her siblings were worrying about all the things thatcouldbe wrong with their dad. Even Eva told Chet she was concerned, but thebakery was really busy and she didn’t have time to sit around and fret over non-news, as she called it.
Chet watched as the sun slid behind the trees. Always on the warm side, he was comfortable in his sweatshirt and jeans even as the temperature made an almost immediate dive.
