I’m seeing, and I don’t like it. I knew things were too good to last. I’m not that lucky.”
“I lost a case in court yesterday,” he admitted as he put on his coat and pulled the hood up. “A good man went to jail for something he didn’t do.”
“And you’re taking it out on me and Queenie?” She could almost feel fire shooting from her eyes.
“No, but I’m leaving before I say or do something else wrong,” he said.
Teresa saw red when Noah walked out of the house, got into his truck, and drove away. She had put up with Luis leaving her alone and running off to a bar to get drunk, and by damn, she wasn’t going through that again. She still had a vehicle of her own, even if she hadn’t started the old rusted-out truck in a while. She’d put four new tires on it, and it had gas in the tank.
She got into it, slapped the steering wheel a couple of times, fired it up, and started driving south toward Sulphur Springs, hoping that maybe he’d gone to the Dairy Queen for ice cream to cool his temper. When she arrived, she drove around the lot twice but didn’t see his truck, so she went to the park, pulled to the side of the road, and sat listening to country music for half an hour in the pouring-down rain. Every blasted song seemed to speak right to her, as if the words had been written with her and Noah in mind.
She should’ve known that the only place “happily ever after” happened was in romance books and movies. She thought she had learned that from Luis, but she’d let her guard down and found out that all men were alike, after all.
The rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun that afternoon, and when she drove through town, she passed an area where trick-or-treaters were out in full force. Little ghosts, goblins, and princesses ran up and down the streets with sacks and plastic pumpkins in their greedy little hands, expecting candy and treats. She remembered going out on Halloween night when she was a little girl, and what happened afterward. Angel let her have a few pieces of candy and took the rest. Teresa never saw any of it again. Her mother got the munchies pretty often and had a terrible sweet tooth.
She went back to the park, got out of the truck, and kicked at the wet leaves that had fallen on the ground, but even that didn’t help ease her anger. Halfway to the swings, she realized she needed to talk to someone, so she sat down on a picnic table with her feet on the bench and called Kayla.
“Hello, what’s going on?” Kayla whispered.
“Are you with Will?” Now, in addition to being angry, Teresa felt guilty.
“We’re at a movie. I’ll step out into the lobby so we can talk,” Kayla said.
“No, don’t do that,” Teresa whispered, even though there wasn’t another person in the entire park to overhear.
“Already on my way,” Kayla said. “Talk to me. Are you all right?”
“No, I’m not,” Teresa answered. “Noah and I had our first fight, and he left, and he’s not at the Dairy Queen, and I’m afraid he might have gone to a bar, and I’ll feel terrible if I drove him to drinking again.” She sucked in a lungful of air. “What did you do when you and Will had your first argument?”
“First of all, we agreed to step back and let our tempers cool down, and then we sat down and talked it through.” She giggled. “After that we had makeup sex. What did you fight about?”
“Our dog, Queenie,” Teresa sighed. “She’s afraid of storms, and she made a mess on the living room floor. Noah yelled at her and put her on the back porch. He bought her one of those igloo doghouses for out there, but I know she’s scared to death. We argued, and he said he was doing her a favor letting her stay on the porch at his house.”
Kayla laughed out loud. “That’s a stupid thing to fight about.”
“I can see that now, but I got really mad when he set his jaw and said his house. And his tone reminded me of Luis when he was angry, so we had an argument,” Teresa said. “What do I do?”
“Cool down and talk it out like adults. I bet this is the tip of the iceberg about what’s really