Tangling Hearts - Faleena Hopkins Page 0,41
half-empty glass of water, and the floor-plan Mr. Donovan gave her for the patio. She’d started to take them with her, but I’d told her to leave them. She’d be back, so why not? Walking to them, I go to pick them up, but I can’t touch them. So I let them sit. I crawl into bed and stare at them. When dawn comes the next morning, I’m still awake, still lying here, trying to understand.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Annie
I Want To Run Far, Far Away. Le Barré: won’t close itself. Heart: dead.
Corinne walks over, holding a pint of beer that Taryn must have poured her. Corinne’s date has one, too. “Annie, did I fuck things up again? I don’t understand what just happened!”
I take her glass from her grip, take a sip, and throw the rest of it in her face. “Get out of my bar.”
Lager dripping down chunks of hair, she stares at me with her mouth open.
I step closer, getting really still and quiet. “Get. The Fuck. Out. Of My Bar.”
Her date takes her arm. She throws his hand off her, and walks past me for the exit. He hands me his glass as he follows her. I take a sip, because I’m in shock. Corinne turns and glares at me, wiping her face. “You really need to get a hold of that temper, Annie. Seriously.”
“I don’t think I do, Corinne.” Then I raise my voice loud enough for the whole room to hear. “It’s okay to be mad when someone hurts you. That’s when it’s really A-Okay to lose your temper. Like when your best friend sleeps with the love of your life.”
“I didn’t know!”
“Bullshit!!!”
She huffs out the door, her date following with his tail between his legs, obviously in over his head. I’m pretty sure he’ll get angry sex tonight. If she’s anything like she was, he’s in for a ride.
We close up the place, with me apologizing to the remaining customers as they come up to pay. But they tell me it’s fine, each feeling free to share their own story of similar things that happened to them or someone they know.
Barb’s the last to go. “It sucks, but not everyone can be trusted.”
I nod and smile, “Goodnight Barb. See you tomorrow,” knowing I’ve joined that group of distrustful people. And I have no idea how to make that right.
Now that all the customers have gone, I turn to Taryn and break down crying in her arms. “I fucked up. I should have told him.”
“He’ll forgive you, Annie.” She squeezes me tight.
“I don’t think he will. You didn’t see his face.”
She rocks me a little, from side to side, saying in a comforting voice, “I did see his face, as you guys were leaving. I saw hurt… and people only hurt if they care. And I saw his face the other night, when he kept staring at you. I saw his face then! When someone cares, there’s hope. Okay?”
She squeezes me tightly and I whisper, “God, I hope so.”
That night when I go home, my place is quiet. There are pieces of him everywhere. The hand towel he threw at me yesterday, when we were joking around, is still on the floor where it fell. The two glasses are by my sink. Jaco is still on the couch because when I tried to put him back on the shelf, Brendan did a voice for him: I’m more comfy on the couch. The shelf is too hard.
I walk into my bedroom and fall onto the bed with my clothes still on. All night I stare at the pillow he slept on, now empty. There’s a reason he walked into my bar. He came back into my life. I didn’t have to search for him. The feelings we’ve had for each other since we’ve gotten to know each other are real. I have to believe that there is a way I can make this right. I have to earn his trust, and my own. I want to be someone who is trustworthy. I want that more than I want my pride…
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Brendan
Questions: answered. Pieces: falling into place. Heart: cut to shreds. The same night.
The high grass brushes against my legs with every step I take. There is no calmness in the Italian field this time, or in me. The silence isn’t soothing anymore. More than once I have to hold my head to stop it from killing me. And when I walk, it feels like I’m on the edge