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Franny should have known.
After everything that had happened over the years, she should have known better than to trust in any kind of lasting happiness. She’d lost her mother. She’d as good as lost her sister. She’d lost too many high school friends, the way no one should have had to.
Now she’d lost Heath.
“Did you call him?” Aubrey asked two days later. They sat with Finn on the front porch of the Hideaway and watched people on the beach. “Or text him?”
“I tried. He must’ve turned his phone off. Or blocked my number or something.” She kept her eyes wide so the tears wouldn’t come again. She couldn’t have many left. She’d spent the last few nights crying into her pillow.
“For what it’s worth, I would’ve done the same thing.” Finn held a beer bottle between two fingers and let it dangle between his legs.
“You would’ve hit a marketing exec in the middle of a party?”
“If he was messing with the woman I loved, then hell, yeah.”
“I don’t think he –” Franny began, but Finn cut her off.
“Of course he loves you. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have punched the guy. He would’ve walked on by. Or not been there at all.”
“He’s right,” Aubrey said. “I saw the way Heath was around you. The way he looked at you.”
But the thought just made Franny a hundred times sadder. Her phone rang. It hadn’t stopped ringing, actually. The magazine article wouldn’t come out for another few months, but the Transformations website had done a sneak peek at the Hideaway and included the phone number.
“I’m sorry, I don’t have any open dates until the last week in October,” she told the caller. “I can put you on a waiting list if you like.” She scribbled the woman’s name and number on a notepad. “You’re welcome. And thanks for calling.”
“So that’s good,” Aubrey said when she hung up. “No open dates for six weeks?”
“I know. It’s crazy.”
“You have a full house tonight?”
Franny nodded. “The guests are all either downtown or on the beach now, I think.” She shaded her eyes.
“Have you thought about, you know, the back house?”
Bud sat next to Franny. At Aubrey’s question, he lifted his chin and thumped his tail, as if he understood what she was saying.
“No.” The word clogged her throat. She hadn’t gone back in there except to clear out the refrigerator. She couldn’t look at the couch, the shower, certainly not the bedroom, all the places she and Heath had sat and talked and made love. Lots and lots of love.
Or maybe it wasn’t love.
It couldn’t have been, because love meant people stuck around and worked through things, didn’t it?
“He left because of me. Because I said I couldn’t be with him anymore.” Maybe she was the one who hadn’t loved him enough. Franny didn’t look at Aubrey. She kept her gaze trained on the beach, on little kids running on chubby legs and fathers tossing Frisbees for the family dogs.
“I don’t think that’s entirely true. He’s gotta work things out for himself, like he said. PTSD can be tricky,” Aubrey said. “Major events, like everything that was going on here the last three weeks, can stir up all kinds of weird thoughts and feelings. I think this is more about him than anything you said.”
“What if I never hear from him again?”
Aubrey took Franny’s hand. “Then it wasn’t meant to be. I’m sorry, and I hate saying that, but that’s what it comes down to. Your first serious boyfriend, your first love, isn’t always the one you end up with.”
“For you and Finn it was.”
Aubrey didn’t say anything after that.
Franny petted Bud, who whined and fidgeted on the porch. He missed Heath too. She could tell. He spent hours sitting on the front step of the rental, eyes pinned on the driveway, hopeful and wide.
“I have to start baking for tomorrow’s breakfast,” she said after a few minutes.
“Want some help?”
“No, I’m fine. Just making two big batches of apple bars. They’re easy.”
“I love the new place, Fran. In case I didn’t tell you.”
Franny ran her fingers over the smooth wood of the banister. “Me too.”
“And your nails!” Aubrey grabbed her hand. “I didn’t see them the other night. Pretty.”
They were still short and stubby, but with a pink French manicure, she couldn’t see the flaws as much. “I like them too.”
“You going to keep your hair straight?”
“I don’t know. It’s a lot of work.” It took her almost an hour with the blow dryer and the flat iron, and her arms ached when her hair finally fell into place. Still, what else did she have to do with her time?
“I think it looks nice either way.”
“Thanks.” A car rolled into the driveway, and a couple in their mid-thirties hopped out. They were sunburned and smiley, and the man took the woman’s hand as they walked to the picnic table.
Franny’s heart ached.
“I’ll call you later,” Aubrey said as she stood. “Call me anytime. I mean it.”
“Okay.”
“What about Chloe?” Aubrey added. “Have you tried her? Maybe she knows where he is.”
“I haven’t heard from him at all,” Chloe said into the phone later that night.
Franny sat cross-legged on her bed. The aroma of cooked apple and cinnamon filled the kitchen and her small apartment and brought her some comfort. She’d baked before she met Heath. She’d been happy. She’d had friends. None of that had changed. Only the hole inside her, gaping larger every day, marked the difference between the middle of the summer and the fast-approaching end of it. Strange, that all the excitement she’d had at winning the contest, at thinking a renovation and a makeover would cement her happiness and the future of the Hideaway, had done exactly the opposite.
“Did your father tell you what happened at the party?” Her face burned. She didn’t want to have this conversation with a seventeen-year-old girl. It seemed ridiculous, like Franny had no one else to turn to.
“Not really. I’m guessing you guys had a fight or something.”
“Something like that.” I should’ve gone to him after. I should’ve apologized. Heath had punched Will for the simple reason of standing up for someone he loved, not because he was violent or dysfunctional. Yet she’d pushed him away. “I know he’s probably just taking some time to cool off,” she added and hoped that was true.
“I’m sorry, Franny. Really. You guys are awesome together. I always thought so. I told him that, too. But my mom says –” Chloe stopped. “Dad’s a tough guy. Doesn’t talk a whole lot, not like I have to tell you that. I’m sure he’s got a lot going on in his head that we can’t understand. But listen, I’ll text him tonight. Right now, as soon as we hang up. And as soon I hear from him, I’ll let you know, and I’ll tell him to call you.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
But Franny’s phone didn’t beep or ring or make a single sound for the rest of the night. It sat silent on her bed stand as she drifted into a restless sleep with Bud on the floor beside her.
###
“LIBRARY’S A GOOD PLACE to hang,” Jason said. He and Heath stood on a run-down street corner a block from the apartment house. “No one’ll bother you there, an’ it’s air conditioned.” He bent over and coughed, his body tense with the effort. “There’s a decent coffee shop a couple blocks that way –” He waved one arm. “VA’s downtown. Gotta drive there. Shitty traffic and no place to park.”
“I don’t need the VA.”
“A bunch of guys hang out at Sal’s over on Fourth Street. Between three and six, the beers are half-price.” Jason jutted his chin in what Heath guessed was the general direction of Sal’s. “Mostly veterans, so it’s cool. No one talks shit.”
Heath nodded. A vague memory of another bar, where guys did talk shit, guys with smooth hands and preppy clothes who didn’t know the first thing about combat, slipped into his mind. He pushed it out again.
“You wanna stay clear of First and Second Streets, though. Couple of guys got beat up pretty bad last month.” Jason shrugged as if to say he didn’t care. “Gang shit, initiations, whatever. I’d just steer clear. No reason to look for trouble. They’re high school dropout pussies, high on whatever shit they can get their hands on. They’re strung out and pissed at the world and looking to take down guys who mind their own business. Just so you know.”
Heath shoved his hands into his pockets. For the first time in three days, his resolve wavered. He’d left a job and a woman and a warm place to sleep for this?
Jason coughed again, and when he turned to go, he caught one toe on the curb and stumbled. Heath grabbed him under the arm and righted him.
“Thanks.” Jason adjusted his jeans, faded and torn in a few places where his prosthetic leg had rubbed through the denim. “Fuckin’ thing.”
Heath thumped him on the back and then crossed the street. They’d all come back missing pieces, every one of them. Some you could see, like an arm or a leg. Others you couldn’t, like a heart or a soul. Heath hadn’t yet decided which was worse.
“Sir?” A pretty young blond bent over Heath. “We’re about to close.” Her gaze fell on the stack of magazines at his feet.
“Oh. Right.” He glanced outside. Long shadows had started to creep across the parking lot. He’d spent, what? Six hours at the library? Reading about politics and the upcoming elections and veterans who felt the same way he did. His back felt like an iron rod, and his legs had cramped up.
“I’m sorry. We open tomorrow at nine.”
“It’s no problem.”
“You can leave the magazines. I’ll put them back.”
“Thanks.” He rubbed the back of his head. “Ah, any place I can get a cheap meal around here?”
She tugged on her ponytail and thought for a moment. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen or twenty, and something about her smile reminded him of Chloe. He hadn’t called or texted her. Hadn’t known what to say. School would be starting next week, and she’d be in her senior year. He wondered if she was still going around with that damn Brett. He wondered –
Don’t think. Don’t feel.
“Sir?”
“I’m sorry. What was that?”
“There’s a diner over on Second Street. They’re open all night.”
He nodded and thought of Jason’s warning. “Sounds good. I’ll give it a try.”
Nights were the worst. A bed and hot coffee in the morning cost him thirty bucks a week. He shared a bathroom with six other guys and tried not to notice the shit stains on the floor or the suicide notes carved into the walls. He stayed up until eleven, midnight, one a.m., and sometimes even that wasn’t enough. He’d wake in a cold sweat, sheets around his ankles, voices in his head and the sounds and smells of death all around him.
“You look like shit,” Jason said one afternoon. They sat on a bench in the backyard.
“Thanks. Feel like it.”
“You never told me what happened. Why you’re here, I mean.”
“I fucked up.” Every once in a while, he let himself think of Franny. Her tiny hand offering him a brownie. Her back arching as he wended his way along her curves, making her come. Her cheeks turning pink when that asshole executive from the magazine whispered something in her ear.
“You got any family around?”
“My mom’s in Florida. Haven’t talked to her in a while. You?”
“Brother’s in the reserves out in Michigan.”
Jason’s parents had both died in a car accident his senior year of high school, Heath recalled, part of what had landed him in the Army.
“You ever talk to anyone?” Jason asked.
“Like a shrink? Yeah, had to when I came back. You?”
“Yeah. Didn’t do much.”
Heath nodded in agreement. Pinpricks of anxiety started up along his spine and down his arms, and he broke out in a cold sweat. Happened more often now. Few times a day. He pushed himself up. “Gotta get some air.”
Jason sucked on a cigarette. “Already outside, man.”
Yeah, Heath knew. That was the problem. No matter where he went, he couldn’t get enough oxygen into his lungs. He wondered if maybe he should see a doctor, find out if he had a tumor or something, but what if he did? He already knew he was dying.
She could save you, came the thought as he stumbled down the sidewalk. Heath’s hands worked themselves into and out of tight fists. God, he missed Franny so much it hurt. Franny and Bud and the goddamn sleepy small town of Lindsey Point where nothing happened. He’d started a life there, tenuous and uncertain, but a life all the same. And then he’d ruined it. He crossed the street and headed south. He couldn’t go back. He’d learned that the hard way. No matter the scars or the mistakes, you didn’t return to battle. You fought your fight and then left it behind you.