Page 35 of Worth the Risk
“I’m not going to leave here with you like this.” I move to pull her to me but she puts her hands up. “I’m sorry for whatever I said or did that’s upset you. How can I fix this?”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for. It’s my fault I’m upset. I should be passed this…”
“Passed what, darlin’? You’ve lost me.”
“Enough with the darlin’, Rhett. We left all that behind eight years ago and I don’t even know why I’m upset. I’m not offering you anything.” She’s rambling but I’m pretty sure I’m following now and I need to let her know that she’s got it all wrong.
“Do you know how I feel about you, Winnie?”
“Why are you making me say this, Rhett?” Tears are flowing freely now. She has no idea. No idea that I’ve been forcing myself to hold back. That I’ve had to fight every instinct in my body to grab her and kiss her so many times over the years I’ve lost count.
“I want to know what you think I feel about you.”
“I’m a memory, Rhett. Maybe a good one, but just a memory.”
“Is that really all you think I feel for you, Winnie? That you’re just something from my past?”
“I know it is.”What?That stops me.
“When? When did I ever say that to you?” I know that I didn’t, because it would have been a lie and I’ve never lied to her.
“When I went to see you!” Her shouting stuns me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this angry. She blows out a breath, trying to calm down… “…about two years ago after you got hurt at a game.” I think back, wracking my brain trying to remember which game she’s talking about. Two years ago…that was here in Colorado. I had gotten tossed into the boards and ended up with a dislocated shoulder, but she wasn’t there. No one had been there because Hazel was being born, it had taken mom six hours to get there, insisting she needed to be there. “I…I went to the game. Alone. I was going to ask you to give us another chance, tell you that I had missed you.” Her voice is low now, so quiet I’m straining to hear her. She had come? “You ended up at the hospital.” She looks like she’s in pain just talking about this, her lip is quivering and the sight is breaking me. “I didn’t want to go in but I was worried about you.” She swallows. “So I went in and just sat in the waiting room.” I know how hard that must have been for her. Her anxiety around hospitals was still bad and she had been there alone. I cringe. Why wouldn’t she tell me she was there?
“You were there? I didn’t know. Why were you there? Why didn’t you come see me? I would have made sure you stayed with me.” She gives me an incredulous look.
“I tried to.” Now she’s angry again. “I texted you, remember?” No, she didn’t.
“No, you didn’t. I would remember that, Winnie.”
“Yes. I did. I remember the exchange vividly.”
“I did not get a message from you that night.” She looks at me with rage now.
“That’s enough, Rhett. Why are you being like this?” She huffs, indignantly and takes off for her bedroom. I’m afraid she’s going to lock me out but when I reach the door she’s walking towards me with her phone in her hand, scrolling.
“What are you doing, Winnie?” She stares at her phone and starts reciting lie after lie.
“Let me refresh your memory since I guess you’ve taken too many hits to head out on the ice. You said you didn’t need me there, you already had someone to take care of you and as adorable as it was that I followed you around like a puppy, I really needed to move on. Then you finished with the big finale, ‘We had fun, but that’s all it was, Winnie. Sorry.’” She looks up at me then. “I still have the messages on my phone as embarrassing as that is.”
“Let me see them.”
“Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack. I didn’t text you that night.” She hands her phone to me and I’m not quite understanding until I reread the part about someone taking care of me.
Ah.Lacey.Lacey had been there with me. I wince. Lacey and I had a very brief, very superficial relationship. We weren’t even together at that time but she had insisted on coming to see me at the hospital.
“I was so mortified, so I waited for your mom to get there and went home.”
“Winnie. I didn’t say those things.”
“What? Would you stop? You know you sent them and I have the messages right there on my phone.”
“It wasn’t me though. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It was an ex of mine. She showed up at the hospital and tried to get back together with me. She asked to use my phone while she was there and I didn’t think anything of it. I never got your message, Winnie. I would have…” She holds her hands up.
“You don’t have to do that, Rhett. In fact I would really prefer you didn’t. I’m a big girl and it was a long time ago and it’s not your fault that I had some idea in my head and expected you to reciprocate.”
“But I would have. I did.” She opens her mouth but I keep going. “I wasn’t over you, Winnie. I don’t think I’ll ever be over you.”
