FEBRUARY 19, 2016
THE PAST
I WOKE TO A HARD thumping sound against my wall. My eyes were heavy with sleep as I sat up in my bed, trying to rub the confusion away. It was late, and I’d fallen asleep with a book across my chest.
“Stop throwing shit at me,” I heard my father yell from somewhere near the door. The anger in his voice felt like cold water being dumped on me.
Not again, I thought as I closed my book and set it on the nightstand.
“You can’t just leave us, George,” Mom yelled back, followed by another thumping sound against the wall. Mom always threw things when they argued. I’d find a shoe here or a book there the next morning, and quietly put them back before they’d wake.
“I’ve had enough of this shit,” Dad said. I heard his heavy footsteps carrying him down the stairs, followed by Mom’s chasing after him.
“Run. Run back to your whore,” Mom yelled, her voice littered with tears.
This was third time this week they fought like this. I wasn’t scared of it. It was a regular occurrence growing up, but this time felt different. They sounded different.
“Please,” I heard Mom beg from downstairs. “Don’t go.”
I got up and tiptoed to my door, cracking it open. Dad was standing with his hand on the doorknob of the front door, looking straight ahead as Mom held onto his arm, weeping.
“It’s been over, and you know it.” His voice was even and unfeeling.
“And what about Hartley? How am I supposed to explain to her that her father is moving away to be with another woman? She doesn’t deserve this.”
Moving away?
His jaw flexed. “I can’t live my life being unhappy. I’ve tried. I have to take this chance. One day, she’ll understand that.”
I didn’t understand what he was saying. I didn’t want to. My heart was thundering in my ears. I had this terrible feeling that something really bad was happening. I never said anything when they fought. I’d just cover my ears with a pillow and try to go back to sleep before school.
But this time…
Mom yanked her hand away. Took a step back so she was out of his way. “The only thing she’ll understand is that her father was a coward and put his own happiness before hers.”
Dad opened the door. “If that’s what you choose to tell her, so be it.”
“Daddy,” I said as I ran to the edge of the stairs. “Please don’t leave me.”
He paused, keeping his back to me. “Everyone leaves everyone at some point.”
And then he was gone.
“DAYS LIKE THESE ARE WHY I love living in Florida,” Hudson said as he applied another layer of sunscreen to my back.
The waves were lapping against the shore in a lazy cadence I could fall asleep to. The sun hid behind big, puffy clouds. It was a perfect day. A leisure day.
He laid next to me on the sheet, propped up on his elbows. A young girl, no older than eight, ran back and forth, screaming with laughter as her dad chased her. He then lifted her up, spinning her in circles.
“I want a family one day. A big one, with at least five kids.”
I laughed. “Good luck with that.”
“You don’t want kids?” he asked, used to how I brushed talk of the future off.
“No. I never saw myself as a mother. You should have seen me in health class. When we had to bring the robot baby home… the one that cries every two seconds… I ended up failing, having to take it back in and get the teacher to reset it because I had somehow killed it.”
He chuckled. “I think you’d make a great mom. You’re just jaded, is all.”
I rolled my eyes even though my heart filled with butterflies at the thought. I was serious when I said I never wanted kids… but having Hudson’s kids? Gazing into his eyes as I handed him the child we shared… maybe it was something I could want.
My phone buzzed beside me, pulling me from the daydream. I reached into my bag, and then pulled it out. It was the email I’d been expecting from James.
I sat up.
Three days. He wanted me to head West in three days.
“What is it?” Hudson asked, sitting up with me.
I shoved my phone back in my bag. “Nothing.”
He turned to face me more. “Don’t say nothing. I see it on your face. Something’s up.”
Where did the breeze go? I chewed on the inside of my cheek as heat seared behind my eyes. I felt like I was melting beneath the sun. It was pressing down on me, shrinking me before him.
“What is it, Hartley? You know you can talk to me. I know you’ve been acting differently lately. Is it something I—”
“I have to leave on Monday,” I blurted out.
He flinched back. “Leave?”
“I’m driving to Oregon to start a new project with that company I submitted to. They want me to be the lead editor.”
Light filled his eyes as he scooped my hands up in his. “That’s amazing news, Hartley. You worked so hard. How long is the project?”
This was the hard part.
“Projects,” I said, eying his hands. “They want to hire me full time, which means I need to relocate to wherever they are. Filming the first project will be around three months, but editing sometimes takes longer. It depends.”
His eyes got big. He swallowed, and then blinked. “Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“But it isn’t forever, though,” he said, trying to find the good in it.
“I signed a contract with them, Hudson. I’ll have to move to California where they’re based out of.”
He jerked back like I’d slapped him. “How long?”
“I don’t know. It depends on how quickly we move between—”
“No,” he cut me off, his tone dropping a few octaves. “I mean, how long have you known?”
I swallowed. “A week.”
He nodded, his lips pulling taut. “So that’s why you’ve been so distant and weird lately. I knew something was up. I thought it was because I told you how I felt about you, but here it was because you’ve been keeping a secret from me the whole time.”
“I wasn’t keeping a secr—”
“When were you going to tell me?”
I could cut myself on the sharp-edged anger in his eyes.
Every muscle in my body tensed, nose flaring. “I’m telling you now, aren’t I?”
He shook his head and stood, putting the empty cans back into the cooler. “So your honesty policy—it was bullshit, wasn’t it?”
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. “I’ve never lied to you. You knew this day was coming. I have to work. It’s my livelihood.”
He spun, standing over me, his looming figure shielding the sun from my eyes. “I get it, Hartley, but why take a job hundreds of miles away when what we have is the most real thing either of us has ever felt?” He jammed his hands inside his hair, pulling taut. “Maybe I got it wrong. I thought you felt it, too. I thought if I could…”
He shook his head and turned away from me, staring out at the ocean.
“I told you… this is a dream company to work for.” I felt like the world was shattering around me. “This isn’t about us. What I feel for you is real, but my job has to come first. I have to—”
“Run. You have to run, Hartley. This is too real for you, and you don’t want to admit it. You don’t want to face that maybe you’re the cat licking those wounds until they burst open.”
I felt like I’d been slapped.
I grabbed my bag and put it around my arm, pulling the strap over my chest as I tried my hardest to mentally shut down the emotions welling up, threatening to spill over. “I’m not running, Hudson,” I said evenly, calmly. “You told me you couldn’t leave. I told you I couldn’t stay. We agreed, remember? It was always going to be temporary.”
So then why did I feel so hurt by his words?
He sat down. Kept his gaze on the ocean.
“Temporary,” he repeated, blinking, shaking his head. His shoulders straightened out. It was like a whole new Hudson was invading him, the doors closed in his eyes. “You’re right. It was temporary. You should go. This is your dream.” He looked at me. The finality in his tone was deafening. “I’ll drive you home. Help you pack. No conditions, right?”
I didn’t expect the punch-to-the-gut feeling, but when I realized he wasn’t going to put up a fight, that was exactly what happened. I thought I had myself in check, but in that moment, I wanted him to yell at me. Fight for me. To do anything other than plan to get rid of me.
They will only break you.
I realized my mom was wrong.
Hudson didn’t break me.
I broke me.
I STAYED ON THE OTHER side of the house until it was time for me to go. Hudson was out back, shin deep in the lake as rain pelted down on us. Bilbo was at my feet, whimpering.
“I feel the same,” I said as I bent to pet him.
I headed down to the lake, soaked to the bone, feeling like I was drowning.
“I’m proud of you,” Hudson said. He always knew when I was close.
“Hudson, I—”
He turned. “I won’t make the same mistake I did with Silas. I love you, Hartley, and I’ll be here, waiting for when you realize you mean it, too.”
I couldn’t see him through the haze. Couldn’t speak past the remorse building a home in my throat. He turned, staring out into the vast, glittering horizon.
That last, harrowing look in his eyes was one I’d never forget.
I turned, putting on my best brave face. Swallowing back the tears, refusing to let them fall. I had to do this. I had to put myself first. It was what strong, independent women did. And I was the strongest, most independent woman I knew, because I refused to be anything less.
Besides, everyone left everyone eventually.
Why then, did walking away from him feel like I was walking away from sunlight, back into the deep, dark unknown?
Because that was where scarred hearts were meant to live.
It was time my heart went home.