Exhaling, I sit at the kitchen table and put my head in my hands, letting out a sigh. She’ll come home. She has to. Her stuff and her cat are here.
I get up to plug my phone in to charge the battery. Pacing around the house, I pick up the black-and-white cat.
“Where would she go?” I ask the cat. “To her parents’? Yeah. That’s the only other place I can think of too.” Tulip follows me into the kitchen, meowing for food. I don’t think Charlie came home to feed her yet, so I open a can of cat food, slop it into a bowl and hurry out of the house.
The old Mustang isn’t parked along the street, but that doesn’t mean much. There’s a covered garage in the back yard, butting up to an alley. I’m starting to freak out a little, and am worried Charlie is hurting, thinking that I blew her off because I don’t want the same thing she did, like she said in her voicemail.
I check my security system activity log and see that no one opened or closed any doors at the house, so she hasn’t gone back there. Too upset to go home and sit in the house by myself, I go to Wes and Scarlet’s place. They’re only a few blocks away anyway. Jackson is outside with Scarlet, and Violet is in the stroller in the shade, fast asleep.
I put on a fake smile, not wanting to freak Jackson out. Scarlet took the kids into the office when the other cops arrived, letting Jackson play games on her phone while I was cuffed and arrested.
“Uncle Owen!” Jackson kicks a soccer ball over to me.
“What’s going on?” Scarlet asks. “Are you okay?”
I slowly shake my head. “Yeah. Fine.”
“Hey, Jackson,” she calls. “Do you want your Kindle time now?”
He gets excited to be able to watch videos and play games on the tablet and runs inside.
“Owen,” Scarlet starts. “What happened?”
“I think I fucked shit up with Charlie.” I sit on the top porch step.
“Why? Because of the fight?”
“Not entirely.”
Scarlet checks on Vi and then sits next to me. “Then why?”
“I broke up with her back in college because she wanted to settle down and I didn’t. I’ve regretted it every damn day, and then she finally gave me a second chance. I was supposed to meet with her for dinner tonight and obviously couldn’t. Now I can’t get a hold of her and I’m not doing a very good job showing her I changed. Getting arrested doesn’t say I’ve grown up and changed, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t. But you have grown up and changed. You have just in the short time I’ve known you. And getting arrested was bullshit. You didn’t do anything wrong, and you have Wes to back you up on that.”
“I know. It feels…it feels like I blew this second chance, though.”
“I get it,” she tells me. “And I know how weird a second chance can feel even when you don’t blow it. I haven’t always made the best choices, as you know.”
“True.”
“Go find her and kiss her and tell her you love her. We all know you do. Acting like you only get one shot is the best way to actually blow your second chance, you know.”
I inhale and feel a little better. “Thanks, Scarlet.”
“Anytime. And Owen?”
“Yeah?”
“You do deserve a second chance. Even if you don’t think so.” Violet starts to fuss, and Scarlet gets up to get the baby. Her words hit me deep, though, and only someone who’s lived the kind of life Scarlet has would see the pain I’ve hidden from myself. I don’t feel like I deserve Charlie, and I’m going back to fucking up just like I did the first time.
Thinking that she’s better off without me because I love her more than I’ll ever love myself.
Taking another breath, I walk down the sidewalk and run down the street. I don’t stop until I’m at Charlie’s parents’ house. This time, the blue Mustang is parked out front. My heart swells in my chest when I see a flash of blonde hair in the fading sunlight. She’s on the porch swing, and I’m going to race up the steps and kiss the breath right out of her.
But then I see that she’s not alone. Todd is sitting on the swing next to her.Chapter 35CharlieA slight breeze rustles my hair, and I look out at the street. My heart is sitting at the bottom of my chest, and all the cracks are starting to separate. It won’t be long until it shatters into a million pieces again, and this time, there’ll be no putting it back together.
My ex-fiancé is sitting on the porch next to me, waiting for his ride to come pick him up. He cheated on me. Embarrassed me. But it’s not him who’s hurting me.