Page 50 of The Long Way Home
I don’t stop him. I don’t dare.
Having Rhett here was a mistake. A lapse in judgment I can’t afford to repeat. He doesn’t fit neatly into my life the way I need things to fit. He asks questions I don’t want to answer and looks at me like he can see the cracks I’ve spent years pretending aren’t there.
I’ll just go back to avoiding him.
I’ll skip bar nights again. I can find excuses, arrive late, leave early. I’ll keep my head down and my world small. Manageable. I’ll focus on what’s expected of me. That is safer. It has to be.
Every moment I spend with Rhett pulls at something fragile inside me. Something I'm not allowed to want, because wanting is dangerous. Wanting leads to choices. Choices lead to consequences I’m not ready to face.
So I straighten the plates on the table. I gather the towels. I erase the evidence of his presence piece by piece, telling myself that once he is gone from the room, he’ll be gone from my head too.
I just have to be careful. I just have to pretend none of this ever happened.
When the sound of Ben’s key rattles in the lock twenty minutes later, I realize I haven’t cleaned up nearly enough.
And I have no idea how the hell I’m going to explain the fixed shower head—let alone everything else I’m trying so desperately not to see.
Chapter Eleven
RHETT
“Is there any update?” I ask through the phone.
I grab my keys from the hook and flip off the lights. The sticky Georgia heat hits me instantly. Sweat gathers at the back of my neck before I even reach the truck.
“Rhett,” John’s voice comes through, rough around the edges. “I ran the info you gave me last time. Nothing in this area. The only Victoria Hayes I can find in the state is up in Blue Ridge and that Victoria Hayes is thirteen.”
I settle into the driver’s seat and slam the door behind me. “Thirteen?” I mutter under my breath. “I just don’t understand how she disappeared into thin air. Why are we no closer to finding her than we were four years ago?” Frustration coats my voice. I gave up everything to find my mother—time, energy, sleep, Rachel—and still, even with John digging around for me, I’m no closer.
“Look,” John says, voice calm but firm, cutting through my anger. “You’re asking me to dig for someone who’s gone dark for more than two decades. I’m not promising miracles. But send me that number you said keeps calling you. I’ll run it, see if it matches anything on record. Could be something. Could be nothing. But I’ll check it out.”
“Yeah. I’ll do that,” I say, pressing the phone into the cupholder, feeling its weight like a brick pressing against my chest.
The drive to Anderson and Margo’s place takes about twenty minutes. Tonight, they are hosting a dinner. It’s their first time they’ve had people over since their honeymoon in Lisbon.
I’ve seen them since they got back, but this is different. This is a full house. More faces, Rachel’s included. She can’t avoid me the way she has been since I fixed her shower head, slipping out early or staying locked behind polite distance and closed doors. Tonight, there is nowhere to hide.
It has been two weeks since that busted shower head had turned her bathroom into a small flood zone. When she called me, I could practically feel the panic running off of her. So I stepped in with a towel and a wrench and every good intention I own. I forced my eyes down. I tried looking at the tiles first. At the water coating the floor. Toward anything that wasn’t her.
I knew she was naked in the way you know something dangerous is close. It took every single thing in me not to confirm what my mind was already painting in dangerous detail. I wasn’t proud of how hard that was. I was proud that I didn’t fail.
So, I was fine with the space at first. Grateful for it, even. After seeing her like that, I needed distance in the way a man crawling from a burning room needs air. She went quiet, and I didn’t push. Told myself I was being respectful, that I didn’twant to interfere with her life. Bullshit. The truth is uglier. Isn’t it always?
I don’t trust myself to keep my mouth shut long enough not to say something I can’t take back, especially about Ben. Especially when all I really want is to ask her if she is okay. If I caused her damage.
When Josh died, I realized I couldn’t stay in this city and be what she needed. Grief has a way of exposing the worst in me, a way of dragging every buried fear and weakness into the open. Staying felt like handing her a broken man, and genetically, it is wired in me to run when the storm gets too close. I couldn’t risk poisoning her life with my own chaos.
Finding my mother was supposed to be the first step. Solve that impossible mess, close that chapter, and finally return to Rachel. But after a year of searching for my mother, I found nothing. There was no trace of her. I had no answers. By the time I was ready to come back to town, Rach was finally standing on her own, thriving even. I didn’t want to flip her life upside down with my return. I had no claim anymore, no right to step back into a life that had gone on in my absence.
One night, about a month before Margo’s wedding, Margo wanted me to come down for a visit. So I went. Her, Anderson, Slone and I met at a restaurant for dinner.
Then, after about a glass of wine, Margo mumbled to Slone, her voice low enough that I almost didn’t hear it, “I’m a little worried about Rachel.”
Slone nodded, voice quiet but firm. “I’m not sure why she is eveninthat relationship.”
I didn’t need context. I didn’t need any justification. I wasn’t even sure what Margo meant by it, but when I got into my truck to drive back to Nashville the next day, I called my chief and asked for a transfer. And then I called Anderson and asked for arealtor recommendation. By the end of the week, I’d bought my house here in the city.
I glance at the phone again. That unknown number stares back up at me. I forward it to John. I have to know. If there is even the tiniest chance it’s my mom, I can’t ignore it.
