Page 92 of Make it Real
“Yeah,” he said, his voice quiet. “Sounds pretty fake to me.”
I glared. “Don’t. I can’t do this right now.”
My heart felt like it’d been through a blender—I couldn’t stop to examine all the broken bits, too.
“Help me understand, then. It started out fake, what’s to stop you from carrying on for real? You obviously care about her.”
“I can’t give her what she deserves. You’ve seen me with commitments. I don’t let anything stick. I don’t have plans for next month let alone years down the line. Pop doesn’t even think I can handle the farm, how can I promise her anything?”
“Do you want to be with her?”
The question burned through me, its answer just as painful.
“More than I can say. But what I want and what I get aren’t the same.”
He just kept watching me with that calm curiosity, picking me apart with his eyes. Kind of wished I’d chosen the fistfight.
“I don’t think you’re looking at this right.”
“Good thing I’m not paying you to think, I’m paying you to pick fruit.” Rude, but this conversation had only served to pour a healthy splash of lemon on my flayed heart.
“You’re not paying me at all.” He assessed me, and honestly, I didn’t want to know what he saw. “I feel like there’s more going on here.”
Nope, that was the end of the conversation. Thank you, goodbye. Would not try to explain about Zach and Mom. He’d just use his logical brain on me, and I wasn’t in the mood to hear it. I picked up the fruit box again and headed up the ladder.
Wade’s phone rang in his pocket. “You’re going to run from this?”
“There’s nothing to run from. It’s already over.”
Those words left me broken and raw, but I couldn’t see a way past it. Callie deserved forever, and I couldn’t be the one to give it to her.
“We’re not done talking about this.” He brought his phone to his ear. “Hey, Marilyn. What’s—” He paused, listening, everything in his body language going stiff. “When?”
My instincts kicked in, and I climbed back down. Dread unfurled in my ribcage like a black flag pointing to danger.Please, God, no.
“Okay. Okay.” Wade had gone pale. “I understand. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”
He thumbed off the phone. When he looked at me, I knew.
“Pop’s had a heart attack.”
* * *
I sat in the Magnolia Ridge Medical Center waiting room, one foot tapping on the floor. Marilyn didn’t have much information, only that Pop had experienced some distress in town and they’d called for an ambulance. Doctors hadn’t said much more than to wait. So we did.
Marilyn spun beads on a bracelet until I thought she might rub their shine clean off, stopping now and then to text her daughters what little we knew. Annie had dropped the kids with her parents and turned up not long after Wade and I. He had his arm around her, pulling her in close like he needed the anchor.
And me? I sat alone, eaten up whole by dread. Tried to call on my training, my experiences in combat when I’d had to face desperate uncertainty, but I found myself clinging to a rock wall, and fear kept slamming into me in waves, dragging me down.
I hated this place, mentally, emotionally—even literally, this place where my mom had passed away. I’d been on the other side of the world, but she’d died right here. For the last three years, I’d hated myself for being away from her, but I found I hated being here in person just as much. And now, I might lose my Pop.
I couldn’t think that way, but I couldn’t seem to rein those thoughts in. The noise they made proved deafening, a clanging echo that wouldn’t quit. They ran and scattered like spilled BBs, and nothing I did could bring them under control.
“Your dad’s a fighter.” Marilyn nodded over at me. “He’s going to come through this.”
I wasn’t sure how she could believe that when she’d lost her first husband to a heart attack, too. Maybe she had to believe, because the alternative would be falling to pieces the way I wanted to.
“There’s coffee in the cafeteria. Do you need anything? Wade? Jed?”
