Liz Talley - The Road to Bayou Bridge

“Not by choice.”

“It didn’t feel that way, Darby,” she said, all those old feelings flooding back, hurting her all over again. “Come on. We were in our senior year. You were eighteen. A man. You had the choice to stay with me, but you didn’t. When the going got tough, you got going...in the wrong direction.”

“So you would think, but that’s not what happened. Not when faced with my father’s wrath. Not when faced with an ultimatum.”

She sank into the reupholstered armchair that wasn’t so much comfortable as it was beautiful. “Ultimatum?”

“After the doctor released me from the emergency room, the sheriff put me in his car and took me to the parish jail where my father waited. He’d already made some kind of deal with Ed Bergeron, the D.A. Dad dragged me to the car, took me home and told me to pack my camp trunk. He said one way or the other I was leaving Beau Soleil.”

“He kicked you out?”

“Not exactly. He gave me the choice—hit the streets with nothing but the clothes on my back or go to Winston Prep in Virginia where he’d already bought me late admission.”

Renny took another sip, accustoming herself to the taste of the sweeter brew. Martin Dufrene had always been something of a bastard. Hard-nosed businessman who controlled all aspects of his life with an iron fist. When the one thing he couldn’t control spiraled away from him—the kidnapping and presumed murder of his daughter—he’d become even more intolerable. His crushing dictates and forcing of his will on his remaining children had had varied effects. In Darby it had manifested itself as rebellion. Darby had been as wild as the creatures that crept along the bayous and prowled the Louisiana woods. And he had taken her along for the ride.

“So you just did what he wanted?”

Darby frowned. “I didn’t see it that way. I thought of it as buying us some time. If I went to Virginia, graduated and saved enough money, I could find us a place in Baton Rouge. I wrote all of that in the letters I sent. I thought you’d understand I went to Virginia because it would be better for us in the long run.”

“I never got any letters.”

“I mailed one a day for a month and a half.” His words sounded almost accusatory, as if he thought she lied.

She didn’t say anything because her mind reeled, trying to pull out fact from the fiction painted so long ago. She was married. Darby hadn’t abandoned her. Her mother had lied. Her brain was at full capacity on what it could deal with and Renny felt on the verge of hysteria.

She took a deep breath and exhaled. “So you’re saying you didn’t ‘leave’ me. Just went to Virginia to buy time? You’re saying everything I believed was a lie? And you’re saying our parents sabotaged us? But you didn’t know this until...?”

“Tonight?” His steady gaze said it all, and she knew it was so. Betrayal stabbed, an echo of the cut to her finger. “Honestly.”

Silence crouched between them as the past came winging back, knocking down grudges held for too long. She’d sat with this man so many times. Knew what it meant when he stroked his chin, when he rotated his ankles, cracking them in the silence. Relief tinged her uncertainty.

He’d not abandoned her.

Darby folded his arms across his chest and stretched his legs. “I didn’t realize you thought I’d abandoned you. All these years I believed you hated me because I had hurt you. It sounded pretty damn convincing when you told me you never wanted to see me again, and it felt pretty damn final when you chose something other than us.”

“What?” Renny shook her head. “I don’t—”

“You do remember the last time you spoke to me?”

Closing her eyes, Renny wished she didn’t remember her cold words, the pain that spurred her to tell him to leave her the hell alone. Forever.

“I called the hospital every chance I got, and finally, your mother let me talk to you. You said those words.”

She wanted to tell him she’d never meant it, but that would be another lie, and it seemed fairly obvious there were far too many lies to deal with at present. “I was hurt and angry. Two months had gone by without word from you.”

He arched an eyebrow and it made him even more handsome.

She leaned forward onto her knees. “Okay, I know. You sent letters, but I never received even one of them. The only certainty I knew was the four gray striped walls of my hospital room and the unceasing pain in my leg and head. I knew only what my mother told me. What your parents told me. You were gone and not coming back for me, and it felt like the worst betrayal.”

“Renny, why would you think that? You knew me. You knew what we had was real. Am I right? Was I the only one who wanted us on a forever kind of basis?”

His words made her bleed. She had thought what they had was real but hadn’t held on to that conviction. She could blame the drugs and her mother, but maybe her love for Darby hadn’t been strong enough to weather what happened. Perhaps, he’d been the one to face the world, chin out, daring someone to separate them...and Renny had been the one to fold.

Or maybe she’d folded because she’d believe his father’s words when he’d come to see her.

Darby wanted to marry you because it defied me. You understand this, don’t you, Renny? It wouldn’t have worked out, because that boy has never faced any person or thing he couldn’t have or manipulate...including you.

And there had been truth in Martin Dufrene’s words.

Whether she’d given up or had her love ripped from her, her dream of being with Darby had died. And either way, she knew they wouldn’t have lasted. With Darby, she’d always felt like the other shoe was about to drop.

She’d never been good enough for a Dufrene.

Her voice sounded froglike when she said, “I thought I wanted forever. I did. But things were so skewed...so backwards. I needed to be strong, but my body and my heart were broken. You weren’t there. It was easy to believe you’d abandoned me and moved on. It was easy to believe our running away was another way for you to poke sticks at your father. I always felt I was into you way more than you were into me.”

He raked a hand through his honey hair, making it stick up, and his Paul Newman blue eyes met her gaze. “You know, I could ask why you thought that, but I already know the answer.”

She wished he would tell her. She didn’t know why she’d believed everyone else rather than her own heart. Why she hadn’t had faith in Darby. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Maybe there isn’t anything left to say now,” he said, leaning forward, pressing his elbows to his knees, a mirror pose to hers. His shoulders were much broader, the jaw bristled with golden scruff was more pronounced, the hands clasped were no longer a boy’s.

Even though tears seemed precariously close, her internal thermometer rose a few degrees, but she couldn’t give credence to desire. She’d already made that mistake in the kitchen moments ago. “Maybe not, but we still have to deal with our future.”

“When I get the paperwork, I’ll come by.” He rose and looked around her house. “I’m sorry to disrupt the life you’ve built, Ren. Seems like a nice one. We’ll get through this. Now go on back to your Friday night.”

She followed his gaze about her room. She had built a nice life for herself, even if it was a bit lonely. At that moment, she really wished she were dating someone if only so she didn’t look quite so pathetic with her cat and polished antiques. Maybe she should call Carrie and go out. Pick up a dude to try and forget the trouble that had landed on her door. But would that make her an adulterer? Dear Lord. She couldn’t believe she was married. “Yeah, it was a little disruptive—helluva curve ball.”