“I don’t know.” I won’t lie to him. I’ve lied enough already.
He slumps even more and looks off to the side with a sharp laugh. Our waiter walks up with a tray, holding two sparkling drinks, and Hayden holds up a hand.
“I’m so sorry, but something’s come up,” he says to the man.
Hayden stands and paces around his chair, catching the attention of others sitting nearby. He pauses behind his seat and grips the back with both hands as he bends his head down with a derisive chuckle.
“We can go,” I say, jetting to my feet and grabbing my jacket.
“Yeah. Sure,” he says, his focus still on the floor.
I’m too warm to wear my mom’s coat. My skin is on fire, so I layer the jacket over my arm and stand perfectly still, my hands gripping tightly at one another underneath the wool while I stare at Hayden, waiting for him to make his next move. He laughs again, a light, ominous sound tainted with the bad blood between him and Tory.
“I brought my dad’s old guitar, the one he left behind. It’s in the trunk, and after dinner . . . I was going to play that song for you, the one you had me play in the car.” His head pops up and his eyes meet mine. There’s no hiding the red sting and glossiness taking them over. “It was Tory’s idea.”
I gurgle out a small cry, biting hard on my lip to stop it from progressing.
Hayden nods, puzzle pieces coming together. I am a terrible person.
“Come on, let’s get you home, birthday girl,” he says, and even though his voice is still sweet, there’s a note that rests below his tone that carries a brewing mixture of hurt and anger. He’s been dealing with it for some time, but I may have just added the final ingredient. Call me the master chef of broken hearts.
Hayden ushers me out ahead of him, and we are both deathly silent for the elevator ride down. It takes several minutes for the valet to retrieve his car, and I note every five-and ten-dollar bill he’s doled out since we arrived. His eyes remain straight ahead on the road and mine on the blur of life that passes by out my passenger window. The radio is set on some news channel, the volume low so the only sound to pass the time is a mumbling noise that’s broken up by the occasional commercial.
He speeds a little to cut the time, obviously as anxious to leave me as I am him. If I stay in this car with him any longer, I will fold and profess that I was wrong, that I need him and want to be with him, and the only reason would be because I don’t want to see him suffer. But that is not heeding my mom’s advice.
Be selfish.
My mom was never selfish. She stayed with a man who cheated on her numerous times, and made sure he came home to a perfect house, with clean laundry, a hot dinner, and all of the bills paid. My mom was the first to go to college in our family, and her business degree was squandered as a housewife. Most of my dad’s investments turned into money pits. He mortgaged our house—the one my abuelo built—to pay off his own debts, so my mom took on an accounting job to pay it off. It’s in only her name now, but what was once hers free and clear still has more than a hundred thousand owed. All this, yet my dad is the one who feels he’s not getting his due.
My mother was selfless to a fault. She was naïve, and she was a doormat. I don’t think she’s ever really known love. But I—I might.
Hayden pulls into my driveway but stops short. He’s already in far enough. I understand.
“Hey,” he says, stopping me before I get out. I pause with one leg out of the car, my purse and my mother’s coat clutched in my lap. “He’s going to break you, just so you know. My brother?” He shakes his head, his mouth a tight line. “He doesn’t know any other way,” he says. “Happy birthday, Abby.”
I smile and nod, not able to find words to reply to everything he just said. My chest aches and my lungs hunger for me to scream, but I’m too weak.