“What we must remember is that love is completely out of our control. That’s what makes it beautiful.”
The woman was giving me a lesson in love when I was currently shattering from the inside out because of love. Because God thought it was fucking hilarious to let me love two people.
To give them to me and tell me to figure it out.
To break them and myself in the process.
“Isabel knew that,” the woman continued, her aged hands still gently worrying each other. “She respected it.”
My hand fell heavily to the door at the way she spoke about Izzy in the past tense. My heart contracted so painfully it stole my next breath.
“Where is she?” I begged, my voice barely a whisper.
“You love her,” she said knowingly.
“Yes,” I said without hesitation.
“But Isabel is not the woman who holds your heart, is she?”
I studied the woman, wondering how she could know all that. Wondering if Isabel had taken comfort in confiding in her all the years she’d lived there, and why she hadn’t ever mentioned her.
But I just shook my head.
“There’s a difference,” she said earnestly. “Again, love is funny. You can be wholly consumed in love for one and still love another even if it seems impossible.” She gestured to herself as if to say she knew from experience. “But if both of those loves are present in your life, they will demand your attention and confuse your wants until it destroys everyone involved.”
My chest moved in sharp, quick pitches. “Where’s Isabel?”
Again, that pitying look was back, but she didn’t respond.
“Where’s Isabel?” I repeated, my desperation making it come across harsher than before. “What did you tell her to do?”
“Nothing,” she said calmly, lifting her hands just slightly in front of her in a placating gesture. “We hadn’t spoken about you for some time until she came to say goodbye yesterday afternoon.”
I sagged against the door as a deflating breath rushed from me.
“I don’t know where she’s going, all I know is she broke her lease and left.”
I roughed my hands over my face and then through my hair, gripping at the strands as tears threatened and my lungs burned.
“I’m sorry, young man.”
I looked up at the woman’s words, unable to give any response as I fought the stinging in my eyes.
“Try to take comfort in her actions,” she suggested with a withdrawn smile. “She did this for you. So you can fully live and love the way you’re supposed to, and she can move on. If she’d stayed, both of you would’ve remained trapped in your feelings for one another.”
I managed a nod and somehow pushed myself from the door and down the path to where my truck was still idling haphazardly across a couple parking spaces.
Climbing in, I went through the motions of reversing and pulling on my seatbelt robotically. Barely remembering leaving her complex or the drive home. I was just suddenly in my house, staring at the closed door to the office.
With a stilted breath, I opened the door and stepped inside, my body caving when I was hit with a blast of Izzy.
I staggered to her chair and dropped into it. Rubbing at my eyes and repeatedly dragging my hands over my face as I tried to wrap my mind around this.
Around my life.
When I sat back, my stare immediately fell on a large binder with a piece of torn paper resting on top.
I felt my soul lurch. Felt my heart pound and clench painfully. Felt my entire being reach for that letter as if my life and the next beats of my heart depended on it.
But I just stared at it as minutes came and went, almost afraid to see what her last words to me were.
After a while, I stood and started for the door, reaching back and snatching up the paper at the last second.
Hunter,
I’m sorry. I never should have left this way, but we both know you wouldn’t have let me go.
Everything my replacement could possibly need to know is in this binder. Phone numbers. Addresses. Where we buy our supplies from. Billing schedules and how to process payments. How to cut the payroll checks . . . etc. There are step-by-step instructions, but if for some reason they get stuck along the way, just have them give me a call.
I left some applications in my desk. But, let’s be honest, those women are the worst. They were only here trying to get a ring out of you and your last name. Find someone outside of Amber to take my place. Or, hey, better yet . . . find a man.
I hope you don’t think I’m doing this to hurt you or get back at you or, well, anything negative. I’m doing it because it’s the only way we can possibly get through this. It’s the only way you can truly have a life with her. And it’s the only way I can get over you. I’m not sure where I’m going, but I’ll know when I get there . . . I hope. Maybe I’ll find some absurdly small town like Amber where everyone knows everyone and shake it up a bit.
My mamá and papá are upset, but they’ll come around.
They aren’t really upset with you. Promise.
I put a chicken enchilada casserole in the fridge and left some sopaipillas and honey on the counter for you. You know, something to remember that first night on this last morning.
Goodbye, Hunter Dixon.
I curled my hand around the paper as I moved through the hall. My steps slow and heavy even as my body begged me to run.
“ . . . this last morning.”
She’d come that morning. She’d waited until I was gone so I wouldn’t try to stop her. And then she’d left.
I stopped moving when I entered the kitchen and saw the Tupperware full of sopaipillas sitting on the kitchen island that hadn’t been there just that morning.
My heart ached even as a smile threatened at the memory of that first night.
But then my stare shifted when light glinted off what rested next to the plasticware, and my body just shut the fuck down.
I stumbled back against the wall and slid roughly down it until I was sitting on the floor, staring blankly ahead as her written words repeated in my mind.
There had been shouts and whispers of denial ever since Izzy’s dad confronted me. But the sight of my goddamn key on the counter effectively silenced them all.
My head slowly shifted to the side when there was movement there. Movement I could barely grasp until I was staring at her.
Standing on the far side of the kitchen. Arms wrapped tightly around her waist. Expression carefully blank.
Fear and hope burst through me as if I’d touched a live wire. “Madison?”
I hurried to stand as my mind struggled to catch up. Struggled to understand that Madison was standing right there.
I took quick, long steps in her direction. Needing to feel her to know she was there. Touch her. Hold her while apologizing for a dozen things. But my movements came to a stop when I realized she was taking steps of her own.
Away from me.
“You’re here.” I looked around, still trying to clear my mind as my heart was pulled in every direction. “How are you here?”
A little smile pulled at her lips, but it was full of pain and regret. She gestured behind her as her gaze fell to somewhere at my side. “You walked right past me. I was sitting on the stairs.”
“Outside?”