Kele Moon: Crossing the line

She was going to puke, and her consciousness clawed for some way to keep her mind off the inevitable. Her mother needed her to be strong. That thought had carried her all the way from Key West to Garnet when every instinct she had demanded she turn the car around and head back to the safety of her tiny house on the island, her laptop, and the stories that let her hide the demons long enough to feel normal.

The money, the leaking roof, her mother slowly wasting away, it all faded to the background as the reality of standing in this house again really hit her. It was a physical incarnation of the nightmares that had plagued her the past thirteen years, and no amount of levelheadedness was going to help her move past the panic attack now.

Tabitha turned on her heel and dashed for the front door. Even if throwing up on that hideous couch would probably improve it, she couldn’t let Brett see the weakness. She’d rather die than let him know the scars still ran bone deep.

She kicked the front door closed behind her and rushed down the steps. She leaped past the bottom stair that was broken thirteen years ago and like the rest of the house had only gotten worse with time. The second her sandals hit the mud, she lost her footing and fell backward before she even had a chance to shout in surprise. There was no grass for treading in their open, barren yard, and she knew that. Why hadn’t she worn her sneakers? Who cared if they weren’t as comfortable for cross-country travel?

Her head hit the bottom stair; the wood crumpled on impact. Her leg must have hit the rake on the way down, and she could feel the sting of torn skin along the back of her calf. Worst of all, her shoulder connected with the edge of a cinderblock that was the last support for a dying porch.

Tabitha would have screamed if she could breathe. The fall stole every ounce of air she had. She lay there in the mud, the rain hitting her face as she fought a battle for oxygen and sanity. For that one moment, the pain was everywhere, tingeing her vision gray from the force of it. Her head throbbed, her leg stung, and her shoulder hurt so intensely it made her forget everything but the agony of it. When she did find the ability to breathe again, she was almost grateful for the physical pain because it gave her a brief reprieve from the emotional hurt that was a thousand times worse.

The only thing more horrifying than having Brett see her puke all over that hideous couch would be for him to find her flat on her back in the rain. She’d never been one of those graceful, athletic females Garnet produced so easily. Her hometown probably had more pretty cheerleaders, dance team members, soccer and softball players per capita than any town in the country. Her graduating high school class had eighty-one students but still managed a full athletic program that never ran into spacing issues. She was a sore thumb, a redheaded stepchild who wasn’t just born into the wrong family, but to the wrong goddamn town as well.

She rolled onto her hands and knees, uncaring of the mud because it was already everywhere, and struggled to get to her feet. The pain might have temporarily hidden the anxiety, but it was still there, rolling dangerously under the surface. She made it to her car and got in, trying not to think about the grime dripping off her clothes.

She peeled out of the long driveway, hoping to get to her newly rented cabin before she came undone. The roads were wet and slick. The winding drive through the hills was more treacherous than anticipated. She drove slowly despite the need to put distance between herself and the horrible memories. She was too stubborn to die in a fiery car crash. She surely wouldn’t give her kin the satisfaction. They’d all be killing each other for the fortune she’d earned doing the very thing they’d mocked through the length of a truly terrible childhood.

Little did they know—uncles, brother, even her mother—they all had the right to jack shit if she bit the bullet. It would almost be worth dying to see the looks on their faces when they found out. She might’ve considered it if she knew God would give her the satisfaction of a peek.

And with that morbid thought, Tabitha realized she wasn’t going to make it back to the cabin. She pulled off to the side of the road and opened the car door. She fell onto the embankment on her knees. Hidden in the wildflowers that grew everywhere this time of year in Garnet, she puked her guts up.

She retched so hard and for so long, she felt like she was ripping all the pain of her soul out through her stomach, and even then it wasn’t enough. The rain fell harder, soaking her hair as the thunder rolled. Lightning cracked in the distance, illuminating the gray sky. It’d be just her luck to get struck. She certainly didn’t see how things could get much worse than they were at that moment.

As soon as she formed the thought, it was shattered with the short, impatient sound of a police siren. The flash of red and blue colored the pretty lavender and white flowers around her. The groan of a big police vehicle pulling up behind her car made it obvious she wasn’t going to be left to wallow in her misery. Welcome back to Garnet, where nothing was private and everything was up for public entertainment.

This was truly unbelievable, and Tabitha found herself saying a prayer, out loud, just to make sure any celestial being in the near vicinity heard her, because the situation was that desperate.

“Please don’t let it be him,” she whispered frantically, her voice hoarse from all the throwing up. “Please, please, please. Anyone but him. If there is a God, you will not do this to me.”

She sat there on her knees, shaking in exhaustion and pain as the sound of a car door being opened and shut actually made her jump. She kept her back to the intruder on her private meltdown, because she just couldn’t bear to look. Life could not be this cruel. It just couldn’t, even to someone born with the last name McMillen.

Her stomach rolled once more, and she fought to hold back the urge to be sick again. The sound of boots squishing in mud and grass had her silently wishing for the earth to open up and just swallow her whole.

“Tab?”

Tabitha stiffened when she heard the low, stunned voice of Wyatt Conner, the man who was impossible to get over.

It was official—there was no God.

She squeezed her eyes shut and hung her head. She was sitting there, covered in mud, throwing up in the grass after driving nonstop from Key West to Garnet. If there was a worse way to see him again after thirteen years, she couldn’t think of what it could be.

“Are you okay?”

Tabitha answered his question by leaning over and retching again. Her stomach was empty. She hadn’t eaten all that much in the past twenty-four hours due to nerves. Now she was actually shaking, though if it was the exhaustion, the low blood sugar, or the trauma of coming back home again, she didn’t know. Wyatt fell down on his knees behind her as her stomach continued to rebel, and she didn’t have the strength to argue.

“I’m gonna call Tommy. He and Frank Duffy take turns running the ambulance up to Mercy General.” Wyatt stroked her hair, his other hand resting over the small of her back as if she’d never left.

“God, no,” she choked out, because that was the very last thing she needed, to get hauled to Mercy General in an ambulance driven by the former quarterback from her graduating class. “I’m fine. Just nerves.”

“I ain’t buying it. You’re hurt.”

“No.” She shook her head frantically and wiped her mouth as she struggled to pull herself together. “I’m fine, Wy.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Just the dumb bottom step back at my old place. I slipped. It’s nothing. I’m okay. I just need a moment. You don’t have to—”