Page 75 of Sunshine
Case:
I need to explain. My life is more complicated than I let on. Answer your phone. This is taking longer than I thought here and I can’t leave. I’ll explain everything if you just call me back.
Case:
I miss you. I hate that I let you down. But it’s important I speak with you. Please pick up the phone.
Case:
Christ. Tessa, answer the phone. I fucked up, I know. But nothing’s changed between us. I still feel the same way about you. I need to talk to you.
And finally, after getting no response to those, he leaves a voice message telling me that a private investigator has photos of us — intimate ones— and he needs my help to keep them from going public. But his most recent message, as of late last night, says he’s back from River’s End. And he’ll bust down my door if I don’t call him back.
I block his number and for good measure, prop kitchen chairs beneath the doorknobs at the front and back of the cottage.
Attempting to swallow the lump in my throat that seems to be permanent now, I remember the picture on his phone, the happy family picture. And the message that came with it. The words pre-term labor sit like cinder blocks on my chest.
Oh, Mack came by the day after I saw the picture, and in as few words as possible, and with plenty of disdain, told me Case had a family emergency and that he’d lost his phone. Mack also made it very clear he didn’t like me.
“Is the baby okay? Case’s wife? Case?”
Mack had looked surprised by my question but answered with a simple,“Case is handling things. He’s where he should be right now,” confirming my suspicions that Case had another family—that it wasn’t just some misunderstanding.
I stayed in bed, Jake by my side, along with three boxes worth of soggy tear-soaked tissues for three days after that because I was the home wrecker this time and maybe the cause of Case’s wife’s preterm labor. And as if all that wasn’t bad enough, I was in love the bastard.
And being in love is the worst feeling in the world. I didn’t think romantic love was real before Case. How could I? I’d never experienced it. Contentment and complacency, yes. I had that with Gary. But love? I had no idea. And if I could go back to being blind to it, I would. Because damn it, it isn’t worth it.
My pity party had ended two weeks ago now. But no matter how hard I try to forget what it felt like these last few months with Case, the feelings overtake my mind sometimes, and then the hurt is fresh all over again. The woman who hadn’t cried in years, suddenly can’t stop.
Wiping my eyes, I gather a deep cleansing breath and focus again on the good.
The End.Those perfect words. The last and final installment of my contracted book series with my publisher is done. I’m ready to cut ties and start fresh, with what I don’t know.
About to click open my video chat app, I notice an email from my divorce attorney and open it instead. Apparently there’s more good news. My accounts are unfrozen, but closed. The financial babysitter has transferred the money we each get into separate accounts, setting up automatic payments for Gary’s alimony and cancelling all shared credit cards. And all I have to do is go to the local bank branch to get myself set up.
My financial freedom is back, which also means I can go home.
Home doesn’t seem like the right word anymore but at least I can leave the island and my neighbor before he moves his family in. My eyes start to burn so I close the email, and go back to my video app.
Breathing in and out slowly getting my emotions under control, I call Paige. It’s an hour earlier in Ontario, which means it’s only 5 am there, but I can see she’s already online.
“What’s wrong? Is your dad okay?” I say before she can even say hello. Her makeup is smudged, and her eyes are puffy. I’m sure mine look just as bad but my lack of makeup hides it better.
“Good morning, Tess,” she replies. “Nothing is wrong. Dad is fine. The hip surgery was weeks ago, remember?”
“Did you fall asleep at the office with your makeup on? Forget your monthly allergy shot? Poke yourself in the eyes?”
She sighs. “Just a bad day. And you don’t look all that good either.”
“Paige, the day has barely begun. And I have a peckerhead that wakes me at the crack of dawn so of course I look puffy.” It isn’t a lie. “Time for a best friend intervention… Tell me what happened, or I won’t tell you why I called in the first place. And believe me, you want to know why I called.”
“God, you’re a brat. Fine! You remember the client I told you about when we went to lunch? The one I was fighting with?”
I look skyward remembering her words. “You said they were a bigger diva than me.”
“No I said, ‘believe it or not, you’re not the most stubborn client I have’.”
“I was paraphrasing, but okay.” I frown. “Do I have to have a diva-to-diva chat with this woman?”
