About Time (Broken Vows #4)

Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

Hattie Present- Age 43

I’m filled with anxious energy. There is so much about the time that Charlie and I spent apart that we’ve never talked about, and now we’re bringing it all up in front of everyone. Seems a bit fucked up.

“Remind me, why did we start telling our story?” I get off of Charlie’s lap and start nervously pacing in front of the fire.

Scott looks guilty. “I think that’s my fault. I didn’t realize no one knew your story. You absolutely don’t need to tell us.”

Charlie reaches out and tugs on my fingers until I give him my attention. “Rip the bandaid off, Doll. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

I laugh, but it’s a humorless sound. “I don’t feel guilty about Clark.”

Charlie winces. He doesn’t like being reminded that I was engaged to another man after he left me. I don’t feel bad about it either. He told me to move on with my life, and I tried my damndest to do so. If I feel bad about anything, it’s that I know I broke Clark’s heart. He certainly didn’t deserve to get caught in my mess, but I did try and warn him so ultimately that was on him.

No, what I feel bad about is all the time I missed with my sister. When you’re young you never think of time being a limited commodity. It feels like you have an infinite number of days, and you can always come back later. Elisa and I ran out of laters.

I look up to the stars and try to will the tears to retreat, but those little fuckers insist on streaking down my cheeks. Wiping them away is pointless. When you lose a loved one people tell you that you need to grieve, as if it’s a singular event. That pain doesn’t go away. It dulls a bit, and you learn to carry the weight, but it’s always there.

I often wonder what Elisa would think about how my life has turned out. Would she and Martin have been able to get over me being in a relationship with Charlie? I like to think they would, but I’ll never know for sure. Shit, their daughter has four kids with her former father-in-law, but then they might blame me for that too. I can’t deny that Griffin makes her happy, even if I was worried when I found out about them.

“I need a minute,” I tell everyone and slip away from the fire.

The moonlight is mostly filtered out by the canopy of leaves. There’s enough light to see the ground right in front of me, but everything else is hidden behind a curtain of blackness. The frogs are calling to each other back and forth, crickets accompany them with their chirping. I like that it isn’t silent. It’s too hard to block out unwanted thoughts without the raucous din of the woodland critters to drown them out.

They’re so loud I don’t hear the footsteps until they’re right upon me. I turn around and see Donovan coming down the path we’ve all worn into the ground. I’m surprised he’s seeking me out. While we’re still friendly, we haven’t been close since I left twenty-four years ago. Even the decade that I’ve been back hasn’t helped us reconcile.

His hands are in his pockets, and his shoulders are slumped forward. He leans against the trunk of a tree across from me. “I think I owe you an apology.”

This makes my forehead furrow. “How do you figure that? I left and didn’t say anything to you. For years. You were my best friend, and I left you behind like collateral damage. How do you figure this is on you?”

“Because you were my best friend. I knew something was up, but I just let you deal with it. I should have known whatever it was you weren’t dealing with well on your own, but I let my ego get in the way. I wanted you to come to me for once.”

Shame washes over me. The truth is, even after all this time, Donovan is still my best friend. I never let anyone else fill that role. “I should have. You let your ego get in the way, and I let my pride block me from asking for the help I needed. That’s no excuse though. At any point in the last ten years, I could have come to you and begged you to forgive me for being an asshole.”

He shakes his head, takes two big steps, and pulls me into his arms. It’s still weird, not because of the years, but because this isn’t us. I slip out of his embrace and my nose crinkles.

“That was weird, right? We’re so not huggers,” he says.

“Then why did you hug me?”

Donovan laughs. It’s a big, healing laugh that fills my empty cup. “Honestly? I just wanted to fuck with you. I think you’ve earned it. I’ve got about two decades of being a pain in your ass to make up for.”

I roll my eyes. “Why are you my best friend again?” And I know that he is that, my best friend once again.

“Probably because Harriston was so small we didn’t have a lot of options,” he says with a straight face.

“I’m going to dump you for your wife,” I tease him.

He shrugs. “I would. She’s hot.”

We’re quiet for a moment, then a serious expression comes over his face. “Are you doing okay? It can’t be easy to look back at all of this.”

The urge to cry rises again, and I twist up my face trying to keep more tears from falling. “I was just thinking about the next time I saw Charlie. It’s not a time I like to remember.”

He nods. “It was Elisa and Martin’s funeral, wasn’t it?”

I nod and lose the fight to keep the tears from falling. He hugs me again, but this time he’s not trying to fuck with me. “I miss her every damn day.”

With a final squeeze, Donovan lets me go. He waves for me to follow him. “I think Charlie is right, you need to rip the bandaid off. Besides, I think Wren needs to hear why you weren’t there for her the way I know you wanted to be.”

He’s not judging me. It’s no secret I tucked tail and ran the first chance I legally could. I’m lucky she gave me another chance to make it right, but we’ve never cleared the air about why I left her to deal with the loss of her parents alone. It’s pretty unforgivable, but yet she’s found a way. Wren is probably more forgiving than most people could be. Liam is living proof of her enormous capacity to forgive and move past being hurt.

I owe her this.

Hattie Past- Age 26

After a twelve-hour shift at the hospital, my arms have the consistency of limp noodles, and about as much strength. It takes all of my concentration and willpower to convince my muscles to do simple tasks, like sticking my key in the deadbolt to my apartment.

It’s harder than it sounds because every time I blink it’s like rubbing sandpaper over my eyeballs. It’s my last shift this week, and even though I have the next three days off, my plans consist of using every drop of hot water in my water heater, then face planting on my bed for the next twelve to fourteen hours.

This is pretty much my routine. I accomplished what I set out to do, finished school on time, and immediately went to work as a nurse. I’ve stayed in Florida since I left Harriston, and I haven’t stepped foot back in town since. I wish I could see my family more often, but I like that we take an annual vacation together. It’s nothing fancy. Sometimes it’s just Elisa, Martin, and Wren camping out in my apartment and hitting the beach. We always make sure the time we spend together is quality time, especially since we don’t have a great quantity of it anymore.

I’m barely two steps inside my door when my purse starts buzzing. Digging through the random crap I have shoved inside my hobo bag is too much for my exhausted brain, instead I turn the bag upside down over my small dining table and dump everything out. My phone dances across the surface, and I manage to flip it open and answer the call before it can go to voicemail.

“Hey sis,” Elisa greets me.

I make some kind of barely coherent noise as a reply.

“Long shift?” she asks.

“Yeah. It’s been a long fucking week of them actually. Today was the worst. I got pissed on by an old man when I tried to insert a catheter, and after I changed my scrubs I was puked on by a toddler with a rhinovirus. If that didn’t suck bad enough, a bunch of dumbass teenage boys thought it would be cool to build their own BMX course. Spoiler, it wasn’t cool, but it was bloody.”

“Well, I don’t have to keep you on the phone,” she says.

I yawn loud, but we’ve been playing phone tag for two days now. “No, just let me put you on speaker.”

With that done, I set the phone down and start stripping out of my scrubs. Thankfully the hospital had extras, but I can still feel the remains of other people’s bodily fluids on my skin. I scrubbed myself thoroughly in the shower when I changed, but I kinda feel like I’ll never be clean again.

I crank on the faucet and turn the water to as hot as I can stand it. I set the phone up on a shelf close to the shower before I step in. “So what do you have going on tonight? It’s date night, right?” I shout.

“Yep. Martin got us tickets to a play at the university in Centralia. We’re going to grab dinner before the show. Should I wear that blue dress I got when we went shopping the last time I came to visit, or the red one you got me last Christmas? It’s supposed to rain, a lot.”

“Definitely the blue. It goes better with your one and only umbrella. Call me tomorrow and tell me all about it? I’m getting out of the shower, and then I’m going to sleep for the next day,” I tell her.

“Hey kid,” I hear Martin shout in the background.

I can hear him clearer, letting me know I’ve been put on speakerphone too. “Hey bro, what’s up?”

“Just trying to get your sister out the door. We love you kiddo. Think about coming home for a visit? Wren’s in high school, and we’d all really like it if you came home before she is away at college. She’s already secured a full ride to Central Valley, isn’t that amazing?”

I love hearing him brag about her. My stomach clenches knowing that my time of avoiding my hometown is coming to an end. At the very least, I’ll have to mentally prepare myself to come back for her graduation. Charlie and I haven’t seen or spoken to each other in over six years. It’s about time I pull up my big girl panties and move on. That can wait for an epically long nap though. Priorities and all.

I wake disoriented, wondering why my alarm is going off. I’m in that state after a much-needed rest where you aren’t sure where you are, what time it is, and what you’re supposed to be doing. It takes me several seconds to realize it isn’t my alarm going off, but my phone ringing.

I’m still waking up when I flip open my phone and rasp out a greeting.

“Hattie, come out and join us,” Clark begs.

I open my mouth to give him my standard refusal. We’re friends, but he’s made his intentions to win me over very clear. It isn’t that I’m not attracted to him. I just think there’s a part of me that broke when Charlie pushed me away, and I can’t muster interest in a romantic relationship.

How sad of a life would it be if at twenty-six I decide this is all there’s going to be? If I put aside my dreams of having a family of my own I think I’ll hunt down Charlie Storm and kill him. He doesn’t get to dictate the rest of my life.

Keeping that in mind, I roll myself out of my cocoon of blankets. “I need to get ready really quick. Where am I meeting you guys?”

“I can come and pick you up,” he offers quickly.

I resolve right then and there to try and be more open to the idea of the two of us together. I need to be careful because his friendship has been a balm on my lonely soul. I won’t move forward with him unless I’m sure it can be forever.

“I’ll be ready in thirty,” I agree and we get off the phone.

Ready or not life, I’m coming back.