Fire Inside:A Chaos Novel(99)

So when Hop showed at the Compound the day before, walking in, spotting me, turning right on the spot and leaving, even though I made a fool of myself running after him, calling his name, he didn’t look at me when he threw a leg over his bike, made it roar and rode away.

After that, I needed to know.

And as I watched the single headlight approach, watched Hop ride into his front drive, watched him switch off his bike, walk to his front door and then walk through it, all without glancing my way, I knew.

He was done with me, no going back.

So he needed to know.

I took a deep breath, threw open my door, walked up to his house and hit the doorbell.

No answer.

I hit the bell again then knocked.

He made me wait.

I fought back tears.

He finally opened the door and, with a bottle of beer in his hand, cut me off before I could start.

“This isn’t going to happen.”

“I was eleven, I was in the city with my class on a fieldtrip, we were there to see a Broadway show when I saw him,” I began.

His eyebrows drew together but his lips said, “Lanie, whatever you gotta—”

“My dad in a restaurant, kissing the neck of a woman who was not my mother.”

His mouth snapped shut.

I held his eyes and gave it to him as I’d practiced during the two hours I sat in front of his house.

“He saw me, right through the window. I just stood there, staring at him. I didn’t get it. I was too young. But I sure grew up fast, standing on that sidewalk staring at my father with another woman.”

“Lanie—”

“Our teacher shouted my name because I wasn’t moving. That’s why he turned his head and looked out the window. He must have heard her shout my name.”

“Lanie—”

“You bought this, you take it,” I whispered and his chin jerked back before his face went soft.

I wasn’t immune to the beauty of that look. It took a lot, but I didn’t give him a single indication I wasn’t immune.

“He didn’t move, Dad didn’t. Didn’t get out of his seat and come to me. Didn’t even mouth my name. He just sat close to her, holding her hand on the table, staring at me until the teacher pulled me away. Dad never mentioned it. Not a word. He never explained himself. He never even lied to try to make it better. But, I figure, with what happened next, he decided, since the cat was out of the bag, he didn’t have to bother with pretending. Hiding. So he didn’t.”

“Come inside, lady,” Hop invited gently.

Lady.

Gutted.

Again.

Like he did after every call he didn’t return, every text he didn’t reply to, walking away from me the night before as I ran after him, calling his name.

Gutted until I was hollow.

Again.

“I’m good out here.”

Hop’s jaw clenched but he said nothing more.

I did.

“I don’t know if she moved there or he moved her there or what, but they didn’t carry on their affair in the safety of the city anymore. He wasn’t blatant about it but he didn’t give keeping it under wraps a lot of effort. People saw him going to late movies with her. Saw them eating dinner together one town over. Saw them shopping together. My sister Lis saw them, too.” I paused. “I saw them, too.”

“It’s cold, baby. Come inside,” Hop urged, but I didn’t move.

“That’s why my mom is an alcoholic. It’s an addiction, a weakness; it isn’t all his fault but I know that started it. Looking back, I think she knew he was stepping out on her even before he moved his mistress to our town. If she didn’t spot them together sometime in all these years, it would be a miracle. But people talk. She’d hear the whispers. She’d catch the looks. Her friends would find their times to tell her. I know. I heard the whispers, I caught the looks but I was too young to drown in a bottle the pain I felt living in a house where love was a lie.”

“Lanie, honey, please, come inside.”

“That’s why I picked him.”

Hop closed his eyes, opened them and I saw disquiet in them when he murmured, “Baby—”

“Don’t get me wrong,” I interrupted him. “I loved Elliott, I really did. I didn’t put myself in front of bullets just for a guy I felt safe with, knowing he’d never cheat on me. But, having thought on it for years, as much of a bitch as this might make me sound, I gave him a shot because he wasn’t in my league. I gave him a shot because I knew he’d worship the ground I walked on and never treat me like dirt. I’d had guys treat me like garbage for a long time, my father being the first of them, so it wasn’t lost on me that having a man that devoted to me was a good thing. So I hooked my star to his. At first, he made it worth it, and not because he treated me like gold but just because he was a good man who loved me. You know how it was in the end.”