Page 51 of Unbreakable
So I was there for Andy. I boosted him up. I listened to him while he vented and grappled with how his future might now hinge on caring for his mom.
It was a future I’d decided wasn’t for me long before we found out his mom was sick. I had to do what was best for me, and not what was best for my little brother’s best friend who was obsessed with me.
When I went back to school in the fall, I told him we weren’t meant for the long haul. I always felt guilty about it, but at the time, I was still trying to become an actor. You can’t do that while you’re tethered to the boy back home.
He begged, told me he’d wait for me. I told him not to. He pleaded, told me I was cruel if I left him when he was goingthrough such a hard time. I did feel a pang of guilt about it, mostly because that life could have potentially been a happy one.
But I was holding out for something more than accepting someone’s love. I wanted to engage in love with someone, to feel that push and pull of care and desire.
I held out for something bigger, and I found it in Dylan.
Still, the “what if” hung over me in dark times.
These were dark times.
I would have had a mother-in-law who liked me. My kids would grow up running in the vineyard like I did, with their grandparents a few farms down. It would have been a nice quiet life.
But it wasn’t the life I chose. My kids were Dyl’s kids, not Andy’s.
“Mom, there’s a name for that and I think it’s ‘emotional affair,’” I moaned. “Andy doesn’t need to be caught up in my family drama. Dylan and I are going to work it out.”
I just didn’t know how yet.
TWENTY-TWO
DYLAN
NOW | DECEMBER
I know you probably don’t want to hear from me, but I miss you and I’m sorry
“She left?”Even Jack Leroy knew to keep his voice down, having been to the end of the road with marital trouble.
Except his ended in divorce, and I was absolutely not letting that happen. But then again, he remarried in a short period of time, so what did I know?
I loaded up my squat bar. “Yep. Went to stay with her parents in Temecula.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Weren’t you the one who talked about her pulling ‘the old bag trick,’ like she packs a bag when she’s mad at you?”
I winced. “Yep.”
“And you didn’t convince her to stay?”
“Not this time.”
“Must be serious,” Lindberg said. “How often does she pack a bag?”
“Not very often,” I groaned, putting a clip on the end of my weights. I peeked at the clock on the wall. “I better hurry up. I’m going to have to get Bella from school soon.”
“You aren’t going to run after her?” Leroy asked.
“I want to. I’d already be there if my mom was here and we didn’t have games.”
“What’s this?” Coach cut in.
“Mrs. Pickles ran off to California. She wants Dylly to run after her,” Lindberg said so very casually, like it wasn’t the most excruciating detail of my life. I made such a point to not talk shit about Jeanine to the guys, because it didn’t seem fair to her. I knew she probably vented about me to Rachel, but I just felt like I’d be betraying her if I said something bad about her. It’s not like she acted irrationally all the time. Jeanine was an excellent partner and she deserved the benefit of the doubt from me.
But I was struggling with all of it. Did Jeanine know how much of a rock she was for me? I needed her so badly, but I didn’t have the balls to ask for her. What do you do when both partners are going through a tough time and neither of you has the capacity to be there for the other?
