Page 116 of Confessions of the Funny Fat Friend

After a restless night, I got up to go to work. Not because I needed to, but because I had no idea what else to do. I went to my desk, began drafting the script that was now required of me to write and turn in before every potential tenant toured the building. It was humiliating and tedious, just like Janessa wanted.

Taking a deep breath, I looked out my window, seeing the signs of spring. Buds were blooming on the trees, and the grass had greened up nicely. It was probably time for me to go to the store and see if there were any clearance annuals I could put in the flower box outside my office window that overlooked the small courtyard between apartment buildings.

I studied it, expecting to see plain dirt, but instead...

My mouth fell open, and I pushed up from my desk, running outside. I hurried around the building to the box outside my window. And then I saw them.

Tulips.

The flowers had opened into a beautiful shade of pink petals. My eyebrows drew together. How had they gotten there? I knew there was no way the grounds crew had planted them...

But then I remembered a conversation I had with Tyler only days after he moved here. Would he have remembered that? It was the only thing that made sense.

Forgetting my hesitation from the night before, I took a picture of the blooms and sent it to him.

Henrietta: Did you plant these?

I looked at my phone for a moment, wishing he would reply, but the sound of Janessa’s voice interrupted me.

“What are you doing out here?” she asked, her pointy heels sinking into the grass as she walked toward me. “Shouldn’t you be working? You know, you are on probation. If we see you lazing around, there’s a good chance...”

I didn’t hear the rest of her words because my phone vibrated. I stared at the screen.

Tyler: I hope they made you smile.

My heart filled, and I covered my mouth, tears stinging my eyes. It wasn’t a confession of love, but it was a glimmer of hope. The last shred I had left.

“Henrietta!” Janessa trilled. “Are you really on your phone while I’m trying to talk to you?”

I looked up at her from my phone. “I quit.”

“What?”

I gripped my phone in one hand, holding it at my side. “You heard me. I quit. I amdoneworking under a jealous, controlling,vileperson.” I clenched my jaw in anger. “You had an incredible worker in Tyler. This new guy doesn’t care half as much about his crew as Tyler did—that’s why turnover has almostquadrupledsince he left and why production is already a month behind. And now you’ll see how much I did for this place.” I walked past her, going straight for the office. “Have a nice life.”

She followed behind me as I grabbed the few belongings I kept here and threw them into my purse.

“If you walk out that door, there’s no coming back,” Janessa threatened.

I stood in the doorway, looking at the office. At the kitschy paintings my mom had done for me, at my flourishing hanging plants, and I realized none of it mattered to me. Not if I couldn’t spend my time with the people, the person, I truly loved. “The plants need watered twice a week,” I said, and then I walked out the door.

72

Tyler

“Something from a job?” Dad asked as we drove down the pasture to build a temporary fence around some corn stalks. We’d move the heifers there once the fence was built to get them some extra nutrition.

I only shook my head. That hollow feeling in my chest was stronger than ever as I realized Henrietta wasn’t going to reply. Just like Rhett had said, I moved that pain to a part of me, right at my sternum, but it bloomed now, threatening to take over again. I’d forgotten that I planted those bulbs after our conversation when she told me she liked them.

But the fact that she had texted me after months of silence… I’d been so excited. And now I just wanted to go back to the house and hide all over again.

I’d done well since my talk with Rhett a couple weeks ago, doing gig work with farmers and ranchers in the area while I decided my next move. I wanted to work in construction again, but a lot of employers thought I wouldn’t be a good grunt worker since I’d spent so much time in management. And Jim was a big name in construction around Dallas. The second any employer saw my name on an application for a higher-up position, they called him, and I never heard from them again.

Gage offered me a job on one of his maintenance crews—he wanted to fix everything for me—but my pride turned him down. I’d been the one to mess up my career, and I was the one who needed to put it back together. How? I had no fucking clue.

I felt stuck. Trapped. I wished I would have fought with Hen to stay in Emerson. Rented an apartment and worked whatever job I could get. But it was too late. Months stood between us now. Months and a single text message. And that fact haunted me every single day.

Even home didn’t feel like home. It all reminded me of Henrietta, the joy in her eyes as she saw everything for the first time. I knew in my heart she belonged here. That we belonged together.

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