“Are you going to explain to me what the hell just happened, Blake Winthrop?” She asks in her grating, nasal tone. Why did I never notice that before? She crosses her arms, and her eyes pierce through me like daggers. Her overly perky fake tits practically spill out of her top.
I’m about to grab a beer when I realize that this calls for something stronger. I pull a tumbler down from the cabinet and fill it three quarters of the way with whiskey. I take several large gulps before I turn to face Tracey.
“No. What the hell did you want to talk to me about?” I lean against the counter, refusing to give her an inch.
“Can we at least sit down like civilized adults?” She says, gesturing toward the couch.
I stay where I’m at, and she lets out an over dramatic sigh and flops herself down. “Look, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately and soul searching and growing. I feel like I needed to take the time away from you and us to find myself and to really grow into who I am as a person to realize what I had.” She bats her eyes at me, a trick that would have worked in the past.
“So what are you saying?” I ask, unfazed.
“Blakey, please. I miss you,” she says as she walks over to me, resting her arms on mine. “You know we were amazing together. I…I love you so much. I don’t want anyone else.”
Odds are the latest guy dumped her, and she thinks I’ll always be around to take her back. I think about Pearl, about how she must be feeling and what she must be thinking right now.
“I can’t do this, Tracey. I got over you after you left. I have no interest in pursuing anything with you again.” I step out of her grasp and set the tumbler on the counter.
I walk over to the front door, but she’s still standing in the kitchen with a look of shock on her face. “Please leave, Tracey.” I open the door.
“Seriously? You’re throwing us away for that girl? That child? You really are something else,” she shouts as she stomps out the door.
“You threw us away the day you left me with a damn note, Tracey. Pearl is twice the woman you are.”
She spins on her heel to snap back, but I shut the door in her face. I pull out my phone to call Pearl, but I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do. I walk over and pour more whiskey in my glass and sink down to the kitchen floor. By the time I think over whether I should call her or not, I’ve polished off the whiskey and I’m falling asleep on the floor.
By the time I wake, the sun is piercing through the curtains, and my head feels like it got ran over by a freight train. I blink as I sit up and feel like I might throw up. I make my way to the bathroom just in time before I throw up what’s left in my stomach from the night before.
I stand in the shower for an extra few minutes, trying to decide what I’m going to say to Pearl. Obviously, I need to apologize to her and explain the situation, but I’m guessing that won’t just make it go away. I should have listened to Trevor when he told me to tell Pearl that Tracey had called.
I knock softly on the front door of Pearl’s house. Maybe I don’t want her to be home. I don’t want to see the look on her face, the look she had last night. Her eyes were so full of sorrow and shock, like she couldn’t believe I’d betrayed her.
I lift my hand to knock again when the door slowly opens. “Hello, Mrs. Davenport. Is Pearl home?”
She smiles and the skin around her eyes creases. “Ah, I’ve been waiting for someone to stop by,” she says softly as she steps aside. “Come on in, Blake. She’s in her room, down the hall to the left.”
I start to head down the hall when I turn around. “Is it that bad?”
She takes a sip of her coffee. “I’m not sure what is going between the two of you or what you did, but I can tell you she doesn’t get this upset if she doesn’t care a whole lot. Just get yourself in there, son, and make it right.”
I smile and nod. I haven’t had a lot of interaction with Mrs. Davenport, but she’s always been a straight shooter. Back when her husband became bedbound, I stopped by the house and helped take care of things on and off. I’d sit with Mr. Davenport, and he’d tell me stories about how the two of them met when they were eleven and he from that moment she was the love of his life.
I knock on Pearl’s bedroom door before slowly opening it. Her back is to the door, and she’s folding a pile of clothes on her bed. “Mom, I told you I don’t want any tea. It’s not going to make anything better.”
I take a moment to glance around the room. I don’t know what I was expecting, but her room is different than what I imagined. I was picturing what it would look like when she was a kid, with Star Wars posters and glow in the dark stars on the ceiling. This room is all clean lines with touches of soft rose and white.
I clear my throat, and she drops the item in her hand and whips her head around. “What the hell are you doing here?” Gone is the sadness and hurt in her eyes, and it’s instantly filled with anger and rage.
I raise my hands in a symbol of submission. “Pearl, please just let me explain.”
“Explain what? That you’re a liar and a cheater? Or that I was just a pathetic joke to you?” She’s trying to be stoic, but her bottom lip quivers and a tear tumbles down her cheek. I want to reach out and wipe it away, but she wipes at it with the back of her hand before spinning back around to face the pile of clothes.
“You were never a pathetic joke to me. I didn’t sleep with her, Pearl, I swear! Listen. The night of the barn dance, Tracey called me. She said she wanted to meet and talk, and I told her I wasn’t interested. I left it at that, and I thought she did too. I had no idea she would be waiting for me when I got home from Durango, I swear.” I reach out and grab her hand. “Please, Pearl. You’re the only woman I want.”
She doesn’t respond. She just continues to fold clothes and put them into…a suitcase?
“Where are you going?” I ask, swallowing down the lump of fear that’s just formed in my throat.
“Chicago. I have a job opportunity there,” she says coldly.
“You’re leaving? I don’t understand. What about…What about us?”
“Us? There is no ‘us’, Blake. You said it before. We both agreed we were just wasting time till you had to leave. You were the one leaving first, not me, so don’t throw that double standard at me.”
“You just love pointing that finger at me, don’t you? So this is it, huh? You’re running back to Trevor. I knew you still loved him, so don’t you dare say I was the one wasting time here! I fell in love with you, Pearl.” I hate that I’m yelling, but I’m hurt. I thought I meant more to her.
She throws a shirt down on the bed, and her face is a shade of red I’ve never seen. “You love me? You wait till now to tell me? You’ve had weeks, but you were too scared because you love to hide behind your failed relationship. You use it as a crutch, you let it define you. Same with the football situation. At the end of the day, you’re too scared to actually say how you feel or what you want, you just continue to run away.”
“You’re the one running away! I have a company and commitments I made months ago, Pearl. Don’t act like you’re not running away from your feelings too. You’ve been hiding behind your feelings for Trevor with this whole thing. You know you love me.”