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She needed to know that she was actually loveable.
When I found out he didn’t, it broke me. I haven’t felt like anyone can like me or love me besides my family and my Supper Club, and I just need a lot of reassurance right now. If you’re going to break up with me, well, I’d rather you just said it here, and we can skip the takeout and the talk.
Sage opened her fun-size bag of chips with shaking hands, but she wasn’t going to back away from how she felt anymore. She popped a chip into her mouth and picked up her phone again.
I thought I could hide behind fun beachy things, like whale watching and luaus and walking Gypsy along the sand every morning, but I can’t. I’m trying to find myself, Ty. I swear I am. I don’t want to lose you, but I understand if you need me to be in a better place before you’re ready to…I don’t know what. I don’t want to hurt you, so if you need to be done, it’s okay.
It wasn’t really okay, and she swallowed and stared at the words blurring on her phone. She tapped quickly to send the message, her fingers already flying again.
I mean, it’s not really okay, because I like you a whole lot, and I don’t want to be done. But I’ll respect your decision if that’s what it is.
She couldn’t eat another chip, and she wiped her eyes as the door opened again and someone else entered. The notification that her alarm would go off in fifteen minutes popped up, asking her if she wanted to silence it for today. She did not, because it was her signal to get up, go to the bathroom, and clean up her station, so she could be ready for her next client.
Can you talk for a minute?
She practically dove at her phone when that simple message from Ty came in.
I have ten minutes.She got up and headed for the exit, because she didn’t want to have this conversation in the salon. Her phone rang as she walked past her station, and she waited to swipe on the call until she was pushing through the glass door and into the sunshine.
“Hey,” she said, that single word full of emotion.
“Sage.” Ty’s voice came through the line softly, meekly. “My beautiful Sage.” If she hadn’t just typed out everything she had, she might think he was flirting with her. “I’m not going to break up with you. I don’twantto break up with you. I just want…I want us to be us again, and I want to hold you and tell you how likeable and loveable you are. I’ll even order from Wagyu’s.”
The last sentence did carry a bit of teasing, but everything else had been spoken with pure truth. Sage could feel it in her gut, and she couldn’t stop the small smile as it curved her lips. Her head had been bent down, and she lifted it. “Will you get the mac and cheese bites?”
“As many as you want,” he whispered back.
“So I didn’t break us?”
“Sage.” He sighed. “I’m not working the rest of the day, and you know what? I honestly don’t know what to do with myself. I’m at home, wearing gym shorts and just sort of wandering around the house. Brother and Sherman keep looking at me like I have something great planned, but I don’t. It’s…I have nothing planned. That’s the something great.”
“You’ve been trying to work less on the weekends,” she said. “That’s a good thing.”
“Yeah, but not if it makes me anxious.”
“Is that why you want me to come over?”
“I need a haircut,” he said coolly. “And I can’t say what I want to say when I’m at the salon.”
“I can be there about six,” she said.
“Perfect,” he said. “See you then.”
“Yeah, see you tonight.” She lowered the phone and tilted her head back so she could fully absorb the full shine of the sun. She wanted to fly really close to it, feel the full weight of the heat of it, the gravity of it, and maybe then, she’d feel like she hadn’t been ignored her whole marriage.
Why does he get to have so much power over you?
The thought filled her mind, and she wasn’t sure why. Jerry had never been cruel. He hadn’t cheated on her or ever really done anything mean. He simply hadn’t loved her, and he’d been extremely hands-off for their whole marriage. He didn’t care about what she said, thought, or did, and Sage hadn’t realized it. She’d just thought he was passive, quiet, and conflict-averse.
He was all of those things, and he’d tied her to the ground for decades.
She didn’t want to be caged any longer, but her alarm went off, and Sage returned to the salon to finish her clients.
By the time she pulled up to Ty’s with Gypsy in the back of her SUV, it was several minutes past six. She’d texted him when she’d left the salon, and again when she’d left her house, so he knew she wasn’t dead on the road somewhere.
In fact, the man came out his front door before Sage had even turned off the ignition. The sight of him in those casual gym shorts and a perfectly normal T-shirt had her fleeing the car and forgetting to get Gypsy out.
He chuckled as he trotted down the steps, and he caught Sage as she barreled into him. “I’m so sorry,” she said, though she wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for. For…being her? For not being quite ready to have him, but also not wanting to cut him loose?
