“I get it. I’m not worthy of you. But I promise, I will be. My life has been upended, and I’ve been forced to face some hard truths. I’m still figuring out who I am and who I’m going to be. But I’m coming for you, Dragonfly. It will take time, work, and sacrifice, but I’m committed. I will make you mine again. This time, for good.”
I gaped at him, certain my heart was about to explode in my chest. He was a liar. I had to remember that. And all the words he’d just poured out were nothing but pretty lies.
“Goodbye, Gus.”
Chapter 12Gus
“You wanna go for a hike, girl?” I stood and stretched.
Clementine jumped off the couch and stretched as well.
“Okay. Lemme make the coffee, then we can get going.”
Once the pot was brewing, I grabbed my phone and shot Sam a text. Then I sent one to Jude. They were both usually willing to meet me. The last twenty-four hours had thrown me, and I needed to clear my head.
Sam met me by the trail, a massive tumbler of coffee in his hand. He kept his hair short and had a thick beard peppered with gray.
“You and your early morning texts.” He shook his head, but he was grinning. “When you’re old like me—”
“Forty-seven is not old.”
“Sometimes I feel eighty-seven.”
We’d been through just about all of life’s ups and downs together. He was the steady, helpful guy who was always willing to listen. Particularly back when I was young and stupid.
He had the things I’d wanted. The loving wife, the kids, and the house in town where he worked on projects on the weekends. One summer, I’d spent all kinds of time over there, helping him build a treehouse.
“How’s Em?”
He smiled. He was always bursting with pride. “Excellent. Dean’s list again this semester. Doing research for one of her professors and volunteering at the animal shelter for the summer.”
“Sophomore?”
A single nod. “Going into her junior year. Already talking about graduate school.” He scratched his neck. “Gotta figure out how to pay for it, but I’ll make it happen.”
“And Luc?”
He rolled his eyes. “Still figuring it out. But he’s working hard. I wish he’d go back to school. Hoping he will when he’s ready. Staying with his mom in Florida.”
I nodded. “You ever think about dating?” It had been almost five years since his wife left. She was his first love, and I supposed I was wondering if he’d ever really felt like he could move on.
He laughed. “Sure. Once in a while. But I don’t have much to offer a woman. I finally got the job I spent years gunning for, so for now, I’m good with just enjoying the challenge. And with my baby girl home from college for the summer, I want to spend every minute I can with her.”
“Maybe someday,” I said.
“I’ve tried in the past, but it’s never felt right. I’m a marriage guy. I like commitment, and I’m a sucker for the little joys in life. Snuggling on the porch on a summer night, picking up her favorite ice cream on the way home from work. Dating is like having one creepy job interview after another. And don’t get me started on apps.”
Agreed. Dating was a shit show, especially in rural Maine, where most of us had known one another since childhood. I’d done okay, mainly because I was willing to travel to meet women, but I understood his perspective.
“I’ve got all kinds of shit to do today,” he said, “so how about you tell me what you want to talk about?”
With a deep breath in, then back out, I considered how best to explain myself. Finally, I just put it out there in simple terms. “I want Chloe back. We were married a long time ago. It was a mess, and I didn’t fight for her. Because of that, I lost her.”
He ducked his head, surveying the path as we continued. “I suspected something was going on.”
Although he was my closest confidant, Sam didn’t know everything.
“For years, I thought I’d done the right thing by letting her go, that we would have never worked. But now, every time I see her, it guts me that we could have been together all this time, that I fucked everything up.”
He ground to a halt and crossed his arms. “Stop right there. I get the urge to look backward too. But it won’t help you now. And I think you’re jumping to some big conclusions about what happened in the past.”
He kept walking. “Ashley and I married at twenty-one. We had Luc at twenty-two. And we did our best, day in and day out, for a long time. Maybe we didn’t last because we took on so much so young. I couldn’t tell you. Now that I’m older, I have so many regrets. Back then, we didn’t know better. We got locked into this life really early. And while I loved it, and my children are the greatest thing to happen to me, she struggled up here. And, ultimately, we didn’t fit anymore.”
“So you can do this one of two ways,” he said, heading back down the path. “You can choose to believe that life would have been amazing and mourn the loss of the last twenty years, or you can get your head on straight, realize that you had a lot of growing to do, and get yourself together. Take a real shot at this. Don’t wallow in what-ifs.”
Shit, he was right.
I roughed a hand down my face. “She hates me.”
“I don’t know what happened between you, but from what I’ve seen of her so far, she’s smart and fair. You’ve been stuck in a rut for a long time. Maybe it’s time to make a change.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that maybe you’re the problem. You’re marching around the woods, dwelling on shit that happened decades ago instead of focusing on what you can control.”
The look he gave me made it clear the conversation was over. It was time for me to shut up and let his words marinate in my brain. I had spent a lot of my life looking backward. Especially since my dad’s involvement in drug trafficking had come to light. But maybe it was time to look forward.
