Chapter 29 - Dominic
I turn away from the couple as they walk down Main Street. I’ve seen enough. I’d recognize Mara’s fiancé anywhere, with his crisp clothing and his slicked-back hair. Seeing Mara with him is like a knife straight to the heart.
“Just take me home,” I say to Ethan. He turns the car around and we drive in silence towards my house. When he stops the car, he looks at me without saying a word. I snort and chuckle bitterly.
“Like mother like daughter, hey?” I say, glancing at my brother. He looks away from me and grips the steering wheel a little bit harder.
“Maybe it wasn’t what it looked like,” he says.
I shake my head. “I don’t know.” It looked like she was having a romantic stroll with her ex-fiancé. Ethan nods to me and purses his lips. I nod back and open the door. I don’t look back as I walk towards my little house. I hear him drive off, but all I do is walk into my tiny house and slam the door behind me.
Everything is a mess. I can’t think. I walk straight to the refrigerator and crack open a beer. It’s empty in a few seconds, and I crush the can in my hand and toss it in the trash. I falls into the bag with a soft thud, and I grab another one before slumping down onto the couch.
I turn the television on just to get some noise to drown out my thoughts.
Why was she with him?
What happened between her mother and my father?
What is happening between us?
Should I be doing this?
Every thought I have turns back towards the image of Mara and her ex on Main Street. They were a couple blocks away, but I couldn’t mistake who he was. Not with that hair and those clothes. She didn’t seem upset to be with him, not from where I was sitting.
The hot betrayal pierces through me and I guzzle some more beer. How could she? The very same day that her mother finds out I’m the one supplying the furniture, she runs back to her ex? Do I really mean so little to her?
I pace up and down my small house. The anger is bubbling up inside me and I try to hold it down. I try to control myself – to not get carried away. The anger just builds and builds and builds until I can’t take it anymore.
I push my door open and stalk towards the workshop. There are half a dozen unfinished pieces for the hotel in there, and I look at them with disgust.
I’m a sellout.
I took her money and slept with her. For what?
I should have had more integrity. I’m no better than she is. I’m no better than her mother. What did my dad ever see in her anyway? For my entire life, I thought he was devoted to my mother – even after her death. But now it turns out he was sleeping with Margaret McCoy of all people?
I grab on of the nightstands that I finished this morning and carry it outside. I hurl it across the yard and it lands with a crunch. I walk to it and rip one of the legs off, throwing it off towards the trees. I stomp on the rest of the side table as it collapses under my weight. My lips curl into a snarl and I grunt as I smash the nightstand to kindling. I’m not thinking anymore, I’m just throwing and kicking and stomping until the sweat is dripping down my forehead.
I take a step back and look at the broken piece of furniture. It took me four days to make and ten minutes to destroy. My chest is heaving up and down. My fists are clenching and unclenching as I stand there, looking at the destruction in my front yard.
There are bits of timber all over the grass. One of the legs of the table is near the edge of the trees, and the rest is unrecognizable. I sit on the grass and put my head in my hands, my chest still heaving up and down as I pant.
Before I know what’s happening, tears are streaming down my face. I haven’t cried in ten years – not since I was a teenager watching my father die before my eyes. I haven’t cried since that day, but somehow today feels worse.
I thought I had something with Mara. I thought I meant something to her, in the way that she means to me. I thought I’d filled the hole in my heart and that I’d be able to find something more in these mountains.
I thought I could be happy.
I was an idiot. As my breathing turns to sobbing and the tears flow from my eyes, all I feel is betrayal. The tears burn my cheeks as they pour down my face, and I curl my hands into my hair, pulling it out as I rock back and forth.
Finally, I uncurl myself and stand up. My body feels stiff and sore as I make my way back towards my house. Before stepping through the doorway, I cast one last glance across my front yard. The stinging in my heart dulls as I look at the destruction I’ve wreaked on my own work.
I take a deep breath and turn my back on the broken furniture. I can’t clean it up right now. I can’t even look at it.
Everything reminds me of her. Everything reminds me of my dad, and the accident, and all the things that I never knew for all these years.
I don’t know who my dad was, or who Margaret McCoy is, or why she still hates us. I don’t know who Mara is, or if anything between us was even real.
All I know is that there’s a hole in my heart and I can’t think of anything except dulling the pain in my chest. I slam the door closed as I walk through it and forget about the carnage in the front yard. I go straight to the fridge and crack open another beer, ready to drown myself into oblivion.
I want to forget about it all. I want to turn back time and tell Mara to stay away from me. I want to forget what it feels like to have her body next to mine, and forget what she smells like. I want to forget her touch and her taste and her voice and her laugh. I want to forget everything.
I slump on the couch and drink until forgetting seems possible, and then I drink some more.