Vengeance Aside (Wanted Men 0.5)(6)

“I’m okay. Honest,” she assured as she switched lanes. “I feel kind of bad for a variety of reasons, but, it is what it is.” A delay. That was all.

“Wow. I don’t know how you handle shit the way you do. It’s like you have a shield around you that prevents you from…reacting.”

Dale could tell Erika had been about to say something else. Probably that Dale didn’t feel. And that would have been accurate. She’d spent too many years absorbing the emotions of those around her, trying to cope with them on top of her own. Her beloved Oma, her mom’s mom who’d lived with them until Dale was thirteen, had said Dale had been gifted with a heightened sense of empathy. Gifted? No. It was a curse. One she’d beaten and smothered out of existence when she was in her junior year of high school. She’d tried before that, but after he left, she’d succeeded.

She moved on because she suddenly didn’t feel like talking. At all. “I’m right around the corner. Want me to swing by Krispy Kreme?”

“God, no. My uniform is tight enough as it is. If I gain even an ounce, my tits are going to blow through that corset and kill some unsuspecting ogler.”

Dale laughed as she was meant to and pulled into the parking lot of her favorite donut place. “You’re a loser. See you in an hour. I have a stop to make.”

She hit the end button on the dash and pulled up to the drive-thru menu board. After she placed and received her order, she parked in the corner of the lot and devoured three donuts and a bottle of water. They didn’t go down as easily as they should have because she was having a bit of trouble swallowing.

She tossed the last crumbling bit of her third donut to a seagull and turned the radio up before getting on the road again. Ray LaMontagne’s Jolene nearly killed her, but she left it on anyway because fighting not to feel was almost like a workout.

Because she aimed the car west instead of east, which would have taken her straight to Erika’s, her stomach started churning. “Fuck off, butterflies,” she warned as sweat beaded on her upper lip. “You know how much I hate you.”

In thirty minutes, she was in Sharpstown and pulling into a driveway on a quiet, tree-lined street. She sat for a spell with the car idling, waves of goosebumps crawling over her skin. They weren’t caused by the A/C blowing on her shoulders.

She breathed in her strawberry air-freshener and adjusted the straps on her tank top. She blinked. She tried swallowing. Then she brought her eyes to the house, and, realizing she wouldn’t be able to avoid it today, she opened herself up. For only a few seconds, Dale allowed the familiar sharp blades to nick at her heart, tearing at scars received when those she’d fallen in love with had left without caring about who or what they were leaving behind.

As she looked at the average brick bungalow with its two-car garage, her beloved grandmother’s image filled her head. Her Oma had died just before Dale had graduated eighth grade. She couldn’t fault an old lady for passing on, but the pain her death had caused had changed Dale.

Her mom’s sister’s image drifted through Dale’s thoughts next. Aunt Lillian had lived next door to them. She’d baptized Dale. Three months after Oma’s death, Aunt Lillian had moved to Alaska to be with a guy she’d met online. Dale hadn’t spoken to her since their tearful goodbye at the curb because Aunt Lillian had never called with that new phone number and address she’d promised. When Dale had asked her mom why, Lorraine had shrugged and said her sister had given birth to twins and she was busy.

Anna Lopez had lived two doors down. She and Dale had been best friends throughout elementary school. Anna’s parents had separated during their grade eight Christmas break, and Anna had been given a choice. Mom or dad. She’d chosen her mom, and they’d moved back to Mexico to live with Anna’s grandparents. Her dad still lived two doors down but had claimed not to have a number or address for Anna, so Dale hadn’t been able to keep in touch as she’d so badly wanted to.

Dale’s mom had left, too. She’d cheated on Dale’s dad and moved to Florida when Dale was sixteen; like things hadn’t been bad enough only a year after he’d left. You’re going to leave home one day, too, Dale, Lorraine had said. What’s the difference if I go first? She’d waved from the front door then jogged out to the minivan waiting at the curb. Lorraine’s boss, the man she’d cheated with, had been at the wheel. Dale had seen her four times in the last six years.

Her dad? Well, he’d cheated on Lorraine a few times over the years, which had been Lorraine’s excuse for cheating on him. The two had held on, though, saying it would be cruel of them to split when Dale needed them together. But the night before Lorraine left, Dale had heard them arguing, and had learned the real reason they hadn’t separated sooner was because neither had been able to support Dale on their own. In the end, Wilson Vaner wasn’t given a choice, though by then, Dale had been sixteen and she’d already been entirely independent. All she’d used home for was to sleep and shower.

Wilson had remarried last year. His wife wasn’t the nicest woman, and she and Dale weren’t friends.

Turning the car off, Dale threw up her walls and opened the windows a crack before stepping out and walking along the edge of the flowerbed. Ringing the doorbell felt foreign as she’d only been back once since leaving, and wouldn’t have been there today had she any other options. But spending a couple of hundred dollars a night at a hotel while she looked for a new apartment wouldn’t only put a dent in her budget—paying first and last up front wasn’t going to be cheap—it would make her feel immature and irresponsible. What were a couple more weeks in her old room in the grand scheme of things?