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“Yeah. Um…I’ve never done this before,” I said, feeling totally out of my depth. “But, Mom…Dad…this is Heidi. She’s, uh…well, a friend. Actually, she broke my heart, but I love her so much that I wanted to introduce her to you anyway.”
“Landon…”
“Stop saying my name like that,” I said, turning to face her. “You sound so dejected when you say it like that. I want to remember the way you said it when you were moaning it on top of me.”
She jerked her head to the side and took a deep breath. “I should go.”
“Heidi, I understand why you blame me for this.”
“You don’t seem like you get it,” she said. Her hands were clenched at her sides.
“I do. I get it because it’s my fault.” I sighed. “Jensen is looking into who sent the videos to the company, and my guess is, it was Miranda. And, if I’m right, then you’re right. It is my fault that all of this happened. Because my bitch ex is trying to get back at me.”
“You think Miranda took those videos?”
“I think it’s a real possibility that she would want you to get fired after finding out we were together.”
“But wouldn’t she have sent them to Jensen?”
I laughed humorlessly. “No. She hates my family. All of them. She would know that Jensen would side with me and keep this quiet. And, you know, I should have seen this about her all along. You asked me once, ‘Why her?’ Why did I marry her?” I shook my head and glanced at my father’s gravestone. “I’ve been saying for a long time that it was because she wasn’t this person when we met and I thought she loved me. I don’t think I was willing to see what I’d actually done.”
“What do you mean? That you married a psycho?” She crossed her arms.
“Yes. I thought I was making the right choice. My dad wanted me to be with someone worthy of the Wright name. That’s why he didn’t want me with Emery. He didn’t think she was good enough. So, when I met Miranda out of college, she came from old money, worked as a nurse on the Tour, seemed to know the ins and outs of golf, and fit right into my life. I thought…I thought it was what my dad would have wanted. Even after I found out her parents were bankrupt and I helped them get out of debt, I was still blinded.”
“You paid off her parent’s debts?” Heidi gasped.
“Yeah. No one knows. I thought it was the right thing to do at the time. I had married their daughter after all. But, if I’d just realized then how crazy she was and how much she was using me, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Heidi said.
“I don’t want to talk about Miranda or think about the person I was when I was with her. I only want to be exactly who I am when I’m with you.”
She closed her eyes and turned her head to the stars. She was shaking slightly from the chill. Lubbock was so windy all the time that it would make nights cold. I slipped off the North Face I’d put on earlier and slung it around her shoulders. She looked like she wanted to protest but was too cold to do so.
“Thanks.” Her eyes dropped to the ground and then back up to mine. “I’m sorry for yelling at you the other day.”
My jaw nearly hit the ground. “You are?”
“I was angry and frustrated and so, so pissed off. I took all of that out on you. Whether or not you think it’s your fault, you didn’t deserve how I treated you.”
“Heidi, my firecracker,” I said with a chuckle, “I could never love you less for yelling at me.”
I took a step toward her, and she took one back.
“But I can’t do this.”
“What?” I asked, my voice coming out harsher than I’d intended. “What do you mean?”
“What I’m feeling is crippling,” she told me. “Completely physically debilitating. It is turning my entire world upside down, and I’m trying to find where I still fit in. I lost my job and my identity all in one fell swoop.”
“Don’t you think that I, of all people, understand what that’s like?” I asked. “When I injured my back, golf was gone. Something I had been doing my entire life. The only job I had ever known. And not just that, but I was physically limited from that point on. I was half the man that I had been all because of one bad swing. I think I can understand what it feels like to have an identity crisis.”
“Fuck, I know. I do know that you have been here before. And I’m sorry that I yelled at you, but it doesn’t really change how I feel. It doesn’t change the fact that what happened…I associate with you and your family. So, it makes this hard.” She gestured between us.
“Being with me?”
“Being near you,” she corrected. “Seeing you and knowing that I love you and that I can’t let this go. That I can’t forgive and forget. That, right now, I hate the Wrights and everything they fucking stand for. Because I lost myself, got caught up in you, and did exactly what I’d sworn I wouldn’t do. Now, I’m fucked.”
