Page 236 of The Reason I Married Him
I wasn’t prepared for this, and I should have been. I should have known Wallace would come into town and try to fuck this up, and boy, did he do it in grand fashion. Never in a million years would I have guessed that he’d bring Cadance with him.
“You look like you care that she walked away,” Wallace says. I turn to find him at the edge of the parking lot, arms crossed.
Something inside me flips as I charge toward him. Fear crosses his eyes right before I grip him by the shirt and push him up against my SUV.
“You motherfucker,” I say. “You couldn’t just let me be fucking happy, could you? You had to come over here and ruin it because you’re so goddamn unhappy with your life.” I slam him into the car again, causing him to wheeze.
“Wyatt, put him down,” Cadance says, pulling on my shoulder.
I turn toward her, feeling the wrath of my anger unfold one layer at a time. “And you, coming over here trying to act like you left me because of me, not because of you. What kind of fucked up are you to try to mess with my head like that?”
“I’m not trying to?—”
“The fuck you’re not.” I release Wallace as I turn toward her. “You told me you weren’t in love with me. To my fucking face, you said it. If it was a trust issue, why would you say you didn’t love me? Just to hurt me? Either way, I don’t want to hear it. I don’t even want to fucking see you. I’ve moved on.”
“Oh please,” Wallace says. “You and I both know the only reason you married that town bumpkin is because you want the cabin.”
Town bumpkin?
The fuck did he say?
I pull back my fist, cocking it all the way back, and start to send it forward just as Cadance grips me, halting me from knocking the teeth right out of my cousin’s mouth.
“Don’t,” she nearly yells. “He’ll press charges, and you know it.”
“Why the fuck do you care?” I ask her. “You don’t care about me. If you did, you wouldn’t have shown up here.” I turn toward Wallace and say, “And call her that again, and you will find my fist down your fucking throat. Aubree is anything but a town bumpkin. She’s my fucking wife . . . the woman I love.”
“Oh fuck off,” Wallace says. “You don’t love her.”
“I do,” I say, standing taller. “And I don’t need to prove that to anyone but her.”
I turn away, but Cadance grabs me. “Wyatt, don’t you think we should talk?”
“No,” I say, looking her dead in the eyes. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“You can’t possibly walk away without at least talking to me.”
“I can,” I answer. “And I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to actually figure this shit out in my head.” I turn toward her, knowing this is exactly how I feel, deep in my bones. “You did me a favor walking out on me,” I say. “Because if you didn’t do that, I very well might be in a loveless marriage right now. Because as much as I was devastated that night, I know now after meeting Aubree that what I felt for you doesn’t even come close to what I feel for Aubree. I thought I knew what love was, but fuck was I wrong. So . . . thank you for that night, for crushing me, because I never would have known true happiness if it wasn’t for you.”
“Wyatt,” she whispers, stunned and insulted.
But I don’t give a fuck. What I said was true, and I’m not taking it back.
I turn toward Wallace and say, “Stay the fuck out of my marriage and away from me, or else I’m filing for a restraining order.”
With that, I move away from them and jog across the street, right up to The Almond Store. I open the door just as Hattie appears from the back room. When her eyes meet mine, they narrow with hate.
Not surprised.
“Where is she, Hattie?”
Hattie folds her arms across her chest. “What did you do?”
“Please, Hattie, can I just talk to her?”
“You realize my sister doesn’t cry, right? That’s not something she does, so to see her in tears, it means you fucked up, and I want to know what you did.”
“She’s crying?” I ask, feeling so fucking sick to my stomach.
