I took a left onto Main and spotted him two blocks ahead sitting at a stop light. I sped up a bit so I wouldn’t lose him but not so close that he could recognize me. That tingling rush adrenaline gives you tumbled through my veins, but there was a sick feeling in my gut I’d never felt, and I didn’t recognize the source. I chalked it up to the drinking and hitting my head from the night before and ignored the sinking feeling it was something else. Instead, I focused on keeping him in sight.
He approached the light at Third and came to a stop, turning on his blinker to turn left. I drove past him but kept him in my rearview then took a left at the next street and another then came to a stop right before Third so I could watch him. His light turned green and I thought he’d turn left but he made a U-turn instead, and that’s when I knew exactly where he was going. Ceres Bakery. I took a deep, shaky breath. And I also knew who he was with. Because it was her favorite.
I took a left then a right to get back onto Main, drove past his truck and parked in front of the flower shop she and I intended to hire for our wedding a few stores down. My hands shook on the steering wheel as I contemplated my next move. All sorts of awful, strangely appealing scenarios ran through my head, which scared me.
The truck door slammed closed behind me as I reached for my hidden bottle, unscrewed the lid, and took a swig. It burned on its way down, alleviating that sick feeling in my stomach, albeit temporarily.
Slowly, ever so slowly, I walked toward the bakery. I kept as close to the storefronts as possible. When I reached Ceres, I stopped and leaned against the brick beside the window, knowing they couldn’t see me. Carefully, I peered into the window and saw them. Their backs faced me as they ordered at the counter.
“My God,” I breathed.
There she was. It was the first time I’d seen either of them since the day in the forest when she chose him over me. It felt so surreal to me. Her hair had grown out a little and she’d gained weight, probably since the transplant went so well. I looked at Spencer. I bet the bastard was her hero. I couldn’t help but think I could have just as easily been him. I could have been standing next to her in line at Ceres, waiting for our sweet potato sticky buns, laughing and feeling happy because I was with her.
I thought about what Finley told me earlier that morning. I thought she was wrong. Cricket would have been just as happy with me as she was with Spencer.
I studied them together. She bounced on her heels, talking animatedly, her hair swishing around her shoulders. She used her hands a lot when she spoke. I wondered what she was talking about. I wondered if she thought about me at all, if she gave a shit that she broke my heart, shattered it into a million pieces. She smiled at Spencer and they started laughing. Apparently not.
God, I hated him. I mean really hated the guy. I looked back at my truck and remembered that I kept my hunting knives in the glove compartment in case my mom’s brother Akule, the only one willing to talk to me on her side of the family, wanted to go hunting. He gave them to me for my eleventh birthday. They were beautiful. Two Spartan short swords with leather handles, and I knew what I was doing with them.
Akule is Echo River Indian, as was my mother. She left the tribe when she converted to Catholicism right out of high school, and they didn’t approve but Akule was young when she did and he was close to my mom, so he didn’t care. He would sneak into town and they would watch movies together at her apartment.
He taught me how to hunt with my hands in Echo River style from a young age but when my mom died, he made it a weekly trip to the mountains. We would spend entire weekends up there up until I turned nineteen and Cricket got really sick.
I looked back at Cricket. She brought her hand up to Spencer’s back. He followed suit and tucked his hand into her back pocket, incensing me. Immediately, I walked to my truck and opened the passenger side door. The knives sat in their sheaths in the glove box. I hadn’t touched them in months, and my hands itched to hold them again.
I reached for them but paused a few inches from the handles. My hands shook and my heart pounded.
“What are you doing?” I asked myself.
I shut the glove box and sat on the bench of my truck, my booted foot resting on the concrete below. I ran my hands through my hair and rested against the back of the seat, shocked I’d been even contemplating what I’d been pondering.
“What were you going to do?” I asked myself. “Murder him?”
I felt sick to my stomach I had indeed thought about just that.
“Mom, help me?” I asked the ceiling. “I’m suffering for her and it’s literally driving me insane. Please help me figure out how to get over her.”
Just then, Ceres’ bell above the door rang out and I shoved my foot inside and shut the door. I didn’t have time to start the truck, so I laid flat against the seat, hoping they wouldn’t be able to see me. I sat up a bit and looked through the side mirrors, my chest pumping oxygen in and out at a furious pace.
They started walking the opposite direction toward the music store. I wasn’t going to sit around and wait for them to stumble upon me, so I slid over to the driver’s side and started the truck in one turn. I sped out of there, watching them all the time through my rearview.
I needed to sort myself out before I did something stupid, before my hate took over and stupidity started to sound even better to me than it did at that moment. Finley, of course, was right.
CHAPTER SIX
I decided that night I no longer cared to get myself under control. I decided I wanted a drink instead.