Page 43 of A Heart So Haunted
She also wasn’t friends with him online. Whereas he still followed her.
Just like he followed me.
“Thank you for shopping at Welsworth Hardware,” the register greeted me.
My thoughts whirled as I scanned my items and stuffed what I could into the bag.
I carried my finds out to my car in a daze.
I could message her. Just to see. But what if I was wrong? She might think I was creepy for even reaching out.
A sinking feeling enveloped me as I crawled into the driver’s seat. I didn’t even start the car, just cooked against the upholstery while staring at the steering wheel.
By messaging her, I would be putting myself out there. Unless I made a burner account.
But I needed to know—had it beenjustme? Was I really chalking everything that had happened up to nothing? Who was I really angry at? Was I mad at Ivan for what he’d done, for how he’d treated me, or was I mad at myself?
I knew Ivan hadn’t loved me. I knew what I’d felt hadn’t been love, either, but a desperation for something he couldn’t give me. And all he’d offered me in return was abuse.
That was what it was: abuse. Because if it wasn’t—all these years, wouldn’t I have healed a bit by now? Wouldn’t I have been able to reconcile with my choices instead of harboring this hatred for what had happened?
No, I couldn’t do it. If I messaged her, too many things could go wrong. What if she told him about me? What if I only ended up embarrassing myself and their relationship had simply ended, not festered like ours had?
I buckled my seatbelt with one broken realization. I was alone in this.
I was the tree that got felled by an ax. The ax might not remember the tree it cut down, but the tree did. And like that haggard stump, I would just keep bleeding from the same place, if only a trickle.
Chapter Nine
Curtains hung open despite the night encroaching up the back lawn. The lower the sun dipped, the sharper Sayer and I’s reflections became in the dining room windows. Shadows from the trees reached over the grass, closer and closer to the light pooling from Harthwait’s lit windows.
Mom never let me open the curtains as a child. “You never know who’s watching,” she’d said.
There was something exciting, almost tantalizing, about doing something she’d told me not to do, even over a decade later.
“… didn’t know what she was thinking with that dress, but—” Sayer leaned back and eyed my food. “You good?”
I broke from my daze with a startle, fork hovering halfway to my mouth. I nodded. “Yeah, just a long day.”
He cleared his throat. Lowered his voice. “You know what I mean.”
And I did.
I ignored the way his eyes danced from my fork to my untouched chicken salad. I took a sip of my water, set my fork down, and wiped my mouth.
“I’m serious,” he said, gentle.
Sayer knew. He’d always known. But still, there lay a painful exposure in the smallest of confessions like this. Especially when it was easier to push them under a rug and act like they weren’t crawling back every few seconds.
If I didn’t answer, he would wait.
“It’s been worse,” I offered. An olive branch—a smidge of acknowledgment without blowing anything out of the water. When Sayer didn’t say anything, I blurted, “I think I’m going to take out that wall upstairs. See if there’s anything behind it.”
He half choked on his water and his eyebrows inched to his hairline. “Which wall?” Aversion successful.
“The one down the hall from my bedroom. I think I could move it back a bit. Maybe build an open closet or shelf space.”
“Remove it, like, a load bearing kind of thing?”
