“Watergate salad.” I smile genuinely at that bit and it feels weird. It seems like years have passed by since I’ve smiled sincerely.
It has been years, Self-Loathing, the wicked inner bitch of the west remarks.
“Yeah, that stuff. So good, and Doug can’t get enough of it. Anyway,” she carries on yammering away, but I register nothing else at all because my smile melts from my face and my eyes are glued to the picture that has just filled my screen. I swallow, feeling nausea roll like a rock tumbler in my stomach, clattering away. I grab the seltzer water on my desk and take a sip.
“Who all came?” I ask absently, my voice softer and my accent eddying to the surface just enough to make me cringe.
“Huh? Oh, just the same old crowd, really,” she says, sounding chirpy, nervous. It’s hard to believe that I can be such a seamless liar while my sister, my flesh and blood—someone who was raised in the same home by the same loving parents as me—can’t even string together two white lies without instantly giving herself away. There is only one person on this earth I can’t confidently say I can dupe. I can sell a fib to anyone, with exception to him, and considering there is something like seven or eight billion people on the planet, I think that is a damn good ratio.
“Mmm,” I hum a noncommittal noise with my eyes still fixated on the picture on my screen.
Him.
I flick the nail of my ring finger against my thumbnail, making a clicking noise. It’s an old nervous habit that I haven’t done in years, so doing it now grates on my delicate nerves. I reach for the bottle of antacids again, before I recall I just chewed up the last two I had.
Familiar dark eyes seem to stare right at me through the screen, making my gut twist and my fingers fidget faster. He used to laugh at me when I was doing it and demand I tell him what had me riled up. He’d flash that infectious grin and crinkle his knowing eyes, then he would call my bluff when I swore I was fine. He knew me. He really knew me. All the sides and edges and the little nuances uniquely mine. He was privy to the vulnerable, soft underbelly, to all the little things humans keep hidden from others out of fear and self-consciousness. He knew the geography of my teenaged body, heart and soul, and his betrayal was that much worse because of it. Our unceremonious end was worse still. He forced his way into my heart and the result has been my own private hell for more than a decade since it all came undone. I grit my teeth, pressing my manicured nails into the too soft flesh of my palm until it hurts.
“So when do you get into town?”
“My flight leaves Thursday afternoon,” I say on autopilot, my eyes locked onto the picture of the man who destroyed me and screwed everything up. The hilarity of it is unless he’s a mind reader, there is no way he understands the extent of how badly he screwed up both our lives. No one aside from myself knows how wide sweeping the fallout was when a nuke fell in my lap and detonated, pulverizing the life I had and the future I thought I had laid out before me.
Being forced to go within one hundred square miles of my hometown all but guarantees I will undoubtedly have to endure countless reminders of the life I left behind when I ran from my only home and all the people I have ever known or loved. I’ll drive down the streets we walked along, hand in hand. I’ll see the high school where our connection bloomed and intensified. From my mom and dad’s house I’ll see the Friday night lights of the high school football stadium thrusting skyward above the tree line, casting their yellow-white light over other young girls and guys cheering for their team like we once had. I’ll smell the salt water from the bayou where so many hours were spent discovering each other and growing deeper in love by the day. It all seems like memories belonging to someone else, from a lifetime ago.
I tried to persuade my sister to have a destination wedding. Given that I don’t plan to ever marry or have children—two morsels of happily ever after that I can’t say I deserve—I was happy to give my sister the money. I don’t need the money for myself, but I definitely need the penance.
I had even offered to pay for it, but she refused. I had directed Bethany to email her information regarding the top ten destination wedding locals and package deals to get the entire show done and over with. She stuck to her guns, and of course she would. Ellie has no reason to not love everything about our hometown including everyone in it, and she wants to be married there with everyone in attendance.
The unfortunate cherry on top was that she chose an early fall wedding date during midterm elections and the same week as my twenty-eighth birthday. Fabulous, sis. She doesn’t know a thing about my stupid promise or what any of it has to do with my birthday or him, the last man on the planet I want to bump into. I would much prefer a front-page public relations disaster for Senator Cline with me at the helm. Running disaster management for our team followed by an interview with a panel consisting of political opposition sounds far more appealing than seeing him again. Work catastrophes, I can handle. A trip to Palmetto Grove, Louisiana, where I will face the insufferable, persistent man and the old wounds he carved out in me… not so much.
Chapter 3
Raegan
“Happy birthday!” Bethany, my assistant shouts, bursting through my office door like a goddamned maniac with a cake balanced in one hand and a gift bag in another. I yelp and nearly jump out of my skin.
“Dammit, Bethany!” I growl under my breath, hating that she scared the hell out of me. If I weren’t constantly so lost in thought, perhaps I wouldn’t be so jumpy, but there is no helping it. The impending trip home is happening. As the seconds tick by, I imagine an invisible tether looped around my neck, dragging me inch by inch back to the place I’d prefer to see swallowed up by the earth, dragging me back to him, back to the summer everything changed.
“Happy birthday to you,” the group of staff members filing in behind her begin singing and I smile and nod. I pretend to be delighted with their impromptu birthday party when really I’d be far more delighted if they were combing the web for all things campaign intelligence related while simultaneously checking in with our extended team. Senator Watson is said to be battling back against an accusation of drug addiction levied by his college sweetheart, and if there is any truth to it, I want the details… like yesterday. “And many more,” they chorus, then break into applause.
“Thank you all very much,” I give a saccharine grin and blow out the cartoonish candles—gaudy fluorescent pink numbers, two and eight. They snuff out and within an instant they fizzle back to life. I laugh tightly, glance around at my grinning team. They collectively cackle and whoop at the prank candles. I scowl at the wax dribbling down and with a stiff smile puff them out yet again. They spring back to life and I grumble, snatching the offending numbers from the top of the cake. I promptly plunk them down into the glass of sparkling water on my desk. Everyone laughs at the gesture, amused by the afternoon theatre taking place in my office. They chatter, and smile, and nod, and begin passing plates amongst themselves while pouring coffee into paper cups from an insulated carafe. Fabulous. My office is now a staff lounge.
“Please, allow me,” I chirp, snagging the serving spatula that doubles as a knife with a sharpened edge on one side. I slice like a fanatic and plop large portions of chocolate cake on everyone’s paper plate, eager to boot them all from my office so I can dive back into work and pretend I don’t have a flight to catch in three hours.