13
Hayden and I seemed to only become further and further apart over the next few days. I was busy continuing with the construction of fortifications around the farm. Hayden was busy patrolling the property and frequently chasing down Warren spies. We usually saw each other only a couple of times a day, and even then, just for a few minutes each time. And during those precious minutes, we tried to devote our attention to Chrissy, who was now being primarily cared for by Carol.
Jen helped, too, when she wasn’t off in Sweetwater, paddle boating and playing paintball with her new grandparents. Her long daily trips required that Trevor be gone from the farm for long stretches to keep an eye on her, and Hayden sometimes lamented the fact that he was perpetually a man down because of this when all hands-on deck were needed.
However, Hayden didn’t try to put a stop to Jen’s daily trips because, in a way, he thought they were good. Not only did they keep Jen busy and out of everyone’s hair, so to speak, but he also thought that when the farm was eventually attacked, Sweetwater was the best place for Jen to be.
It was a blazing hot day in July when I outright yelled at Hayden for the first time. I didn’t raise my voice; I didn’t speak to him in a near-shout; I truly yelled.
I’d just gotten home from a long day of fence-building, and I was dirty, and sweaty, and so hot that I continued to sweat even once in the cool air-conditioning that mercifully flowed through the house. Carol was upstairs giving Chrissy a bath. Thinking I’d take a minute to down a tall cup of cold water before going upstairs to join them, I filled a cup from the sink.
I’d nearly drained it when Hayden came home, stony-faced as usual. His expression did nothing to bolster my kind-of-crabby mood, and when we kissed in greeting, it was just a peck. Going over to the sink to refill my cup of water, I asked him if he wanted one, too, and he didn’t answer right away.
“I don’t drink water, Syd. I’m a vampire. Remember?”
He’d spoken those words to my back, and I now whirled around, suddenly furious, and began shouting.
“Of course, I remember you’re a vampire! Of course, I do! That’s the whole reason we’re in this mess! You’re a vampire; and everyone on this farm is a vampire; and our enemies, who want to kill our precious baby daughter, are vampires! I get it. Of course, I remember. I also remember that because you’re all vampires and part of the supernatural world, I somehow wound up pregnant without my knowledge or consent.
My whole life was turned upside down. And even though I thank God every single day for Chrissy, and even though I thank God every single day for you, even throughout this whole mess, and even though I would never change anything that happened, I still remember how it started.
I still remember that it started because my mom had supernatural powers, and your dad was a vampire, and they both agreed to a pact that would change my life forever, without my knowledge. I still remember all that. So, yes, I still remember that you’re a vampire.”
I’d stopped shouting, but now, after a quick lungful of air, I began again. “You’ll have to forgive me for momentarily forgetting that! I guess after a long, hot day of digging fence posts, I just turned into a complete idiot! I actually forgot that my husband only drinks blood! What a total moron I was to forget!”
Finally, out of steam and a bit breathless, I fell silent to take in a few gulps of air, realizing that at some point during my outburst, Jen had come in the house. She was now tiptoeing very slowly and silently through the kitchen, deliberately picking up one foot at a time, appearing to be doing something like a parody of tiptoeing more than anything. Both folding our arms across our chests, Hayden and I ignored her, and soon she was out of the kitchen and making her way down the hallway.
Having remained stony-faced during my outburst, jaw clenched, Hayden now unclenched it just long enough to speak three words directed at me. “You done shouting?”
I snorted. “You have the floor.”
Hayden snorted in return, something he’d never done to me before. “I just have three things to say. Number one, when our parents made the pact that they did, your life wasn’t the only one that was changed forever, and I think you forget this sometimes. Number two, I think you sometimes forget that you’re not the only one making sacrifices to keep our daughter safe right now. We’re both sacrificing.
Yet, I sometimes get the impression that you somehow think I like the life we’re living right now…that you somehow think I like being away from you and Chrissy all the time. Thing number three, I’m going back out on patrol, and I don’t know when I’ll be back. I was intending to put Chrissy to bed with you, but for some reason, all of a sudden, decapitating Warrens is seeming like a much more pleasant thing than being at home.”
He’d begun striding toward the front door even before he’d finished speaking, and I’d realized that I’d made a huge mistake even before he’d finished speaking. Now just wanting to apologize and make things right, I chased after him, grabbing his arm and telling him to wait.
However, he shook me off without even pausing in his stride. “Please leave me alone, Sydney.”
Not a second later, he was out the door, borderline slamming it behind him.
Now angry again, I shouted at him through the door, not that he probably even heard me. “Fine, then! Just stay out on patrol all night! Just stay gone! Nobody in this house will notice a difference!”
Storming back into the kitchen, I began pacing with my arms tightly folded across my chest, feeling mad, guilty, and heartbroken all at once. I knew I hadn’t been fair to Hayden, and I knew that some of the things he’d said were right. This was no small comfort, though, because I was starting to think that everything about our whole marriage was just plain wrong.
Soon Jen came tiptoeing into the kitchen, asking if I was okay.
Pausing in my pacing, I sighed, slightly embarrassed now that I recalled that she’d been witness to my temper tantrum. “Yes…I’m fine, and thank you for checking, Jen…and I’m sorry you had to come home to see me melting down at Hayden like that. I guess I just kind of lost it for a second.”
Hopping up on a barstool, Jen shrugged. “That’s fine. We all lose it sometimes. Especially on super-hot days like today. There was even a guy who got permanently kicked out of the paintball place today, because the owners said that he was having a bunch of anger issues, and they decided he wasn’t a safe person to allow onto the property anymore, because no one with anger issues should be playing paintball.
The paintball place owners reported him to the police, too. And then one of the owners, whose name is Brian, he said to Bucky, like, ‘It’s this hot, humid weather. Whenever the heat index gets up near a hundred, people just start to lose it.’ And Bucky was like, well, he was just like…‘Yup.’ And then I pretty much just repeated him, and I was just pretty much like, ‘Yup,’ too…just because I wanted to put in my opinion as an adult, too.”
Giving Jen a little smile with my anger finally beginning to ebb, I had a seat on a barstool across from her. “I think it was probably the heat that made me lose it a little today.”
“Well, you should come on into Sweetwater with me tomorrow! Me, Bucky, Phyllis, and Wanted are going paddle boating again, and we’re gonna swim in the lake again. That’s what we did today after paintball, just to cool ourselves down, even though paintball is air-conditioned. We still got hot even just walking from the building to the RV. Wanted was just like, panting.”
Having a sudden thought, I asked Jen where Wanted stayed while she, Bucky, and Phyllis were playing paintball. “Because, they don’t just let him play with you guys, right?”
Jen shook her head. “No. No, sir. Dogs are definitely not allowed in the actual paintball-playing place. It could be very, very bad if Wanted bumped into someone playing paintball and knocked their aim off or something.”
“Well, then, where does he go?”
“Oh, he just stays in the office with this lady named Miss Jeannie. She takes good care of him and even has some dog toys for him to play with, too. And guess what else? She even watches other dogs sometimes, too, because she says she’d rather watch them than have them stay in hot cars; so, sometimes, Wanted even has some playmates in the office. He’s become pretty good friends with this one tiny little chihuahua named Bert, and this one big chocolate lab named Arabella. It’s pretty funny to see when Bert barks so loud that he kind of startles Arabella and Wanted and backs them right into a corner.”
I smiled. “That’s pretty funny.”
“Yup. Bert is only like, five pounds or something, but he’s the boss of all the dogs.”
Feeling significantly cooled off, both in terms of temper and actual physical body temperature, I smiled again, and then got up to go to the sink and refill my water cup. However, while doing so, I had a sudden thought and turned to look at Jen.
“Hey, Jen? Your shirt….”
Her shirt was a white, fitted, cap-sleeved t-shirt with a cotton “lace” overlay on the front and back. And it was not only white, but bright white. There wasn’t a single smidgen of paint on it, despite the fact that Jen had only walked in the house with a bathing suit and a towel slung over one shoulder. Meaning that unless she’d played paintball in her bathing suit, which I thought was pretty doubtful, she’d played paintball in her bright white shirt. Yet hadn’t gotten a drop of paint on it.
And now that I was thinking about it, I couldn’t remember her ever coming home in clothes that were anything less than pristine, or at least fairly pristine except for a few food stains. I’d certainly never seen her walk in the house covered head-to-toe in splotches of bright paint, like it seemed like she should be doing every time she went to play paintball.
Glancing down at her shirt, Jen asked me what about it, and I just studied her for a moment before responding.
“Did you wear that shirt to paintball today? It’s so clean.”
Inexplicably, Jen’s face became a little pink, and she raised her gaze to somewhere just above my eyes, shrugging.
“Oh…that’s just because…well, see…see, they give us these jumpsuit type of things to wear at paintball, right over our normal clothes.”
That made sense, and I suddenly actually laughed, in disbelief that I hadn’t thought of that sooner. Of course, they gave paintball players jumpsuits, probably figuring that sending kids home with ruined, paint-covered clothes would be bad for business.
I told Jen that jumpsuits hadn’t even occurred to me. “I guess the heat is making me angry and completely dense today.”
Just then, Trevor came in the house with Wanted, saying that he was heading out on patrol now that his “surveillance” duties in Sweetwater were over for the day. Almost the moment he left, Carol came downstairs with Chrissy in her arms, asking if everything was okay.
“I thought I heard shouting just a bit ago.”
Embarrassed, I told her everything was fine. “I just kind of raised my voice at Hayden for a second when I got home, just because I was so overheated. But everything’s fine.”
With my focus now off Jen’s adventures and back on my fight with Hayden, I developed a slight, sudden stomachache, knowing that things between us were definitely not fine.