Walk Through Fire (Chaos, #4)(2)

Worst case, I expected he’d be dead.

Almost as worst case, I expected he’d be in prison.

Still almost as worst case, I expected him to be committing felonies that would eventually land him either of those two. Not in a Chipotle getting a burrito, talking on the phone with someone about picking up his kids, taking them to a condo in the mountains and getting them to school on Monday.

What I’d expected was one thing.

What I saw was what I’d hoped.

I’d hoped he’d find his way to happiness.

It struck me on that thought that he’d said his order was to go.

Oh God, I needed to get out of there. It wouldn’t do for me to escape him inside only for him to see me outside in my car, freaked out so bad I was shaking.

I pushed the button to start my car, carefully looked in all mirrors and checked my blind spots, reversed out, and headed home.

I had no food at home except for a bin of wilting baby spinach and some shredded carrots.

This was because I thought grocery shopping was akin to torture. I did it only when absolutely necessary, which was infrequently considering the number of options available for food in my neighborhood.

Conversely, I loved to cook.

I just didn’t do it frequently because I hated to shop for food, and anyway, cooking for one always reminded me I was just that.

One.

Singular. I had good intentions. Practically daily I thought I’d change in a variety of ways.

Say, go to the grocery store. Be one of those women who concocted delicious meals (even if they were only for me), doing this sipping wine in my fabulous kitchen while listening to Beethoven or something. There would be candles burning, of course. And I’d serve my meal on gorgeous china, treating myself like a princess (since there was no one else to do it).

After, I’d sip some fancy herbal tea, tucked up in my cuddle chair (candles still burning) reading Dostoyevsky. Or, if I was in the mood, watching something classy on TV, like Downton Abbey.

Not what I normally did, got fast food or nuked a ready-made meal, my expensive candles gathering dust because they’d been unlit for months and not bothering even to dirty a plate. I’d do this while I sat eating in front of Sister Wives or True Tori or some such, immersing myself in someone else’s life because they were all a hell of a lot more interesting than mine.

Then I’d go to bed.

Alone.

To wake up the next morning.

Alone.

And spend the day thinking of all the ways I would change.

Like I’d start taking those walks I told myself I would take. Going to those Pilates classes at that studio just down the street that looked really cool and opened up two years ago (and yet, I had not stepped foot in it once). Driving up to the mountains and hiking a trail. Hitting the trendy shops on Broadway or in Highlands Square and spending a day roaming. Using that foot tub I bought but never took out of the box and giving myself a luxurious pedicure. Calling my friends to set up a girls’ night out and putting on a little black dress (after I bought one, of course) and hitting the town to drink martinis or cosmopolitans or mojitos or whatever the cool drink was now.

Seeing a man looking at me and instead of looking away, smiling at him. Perhaps talking to him. Definitely speaking back if he spoke to me. Accepting a date if he asked. Going on that date.

Maybe not going to bed alone.

Every day I thought about it. I even journaled about it (on days when I’d talked myself into making a change and was together enough to journal).

But I never did it.

None of it.

I thought all this as I drove home, then into my driveway, down the side of my house, parked in the courtyard at the back, got out and went inside, stopping in my kitchen, realizing from all these thoughts something frightening in the extreme.

I was stuck in a rut.

Stuck in a rut that began twenty years ago on the front stoop of the row house I shared with Logan, watching him walk away because I’d sent him away.

Walk through fire.

The words assaulted me and the pain was too intense to bear. I had to move to my marble countertop, bend to it to rest my elbows on it and hold my head in my hands.

Then it all came and blasted through me in a way it felt my head was going to explode.

You love a man, Millie, you believe in him, you take him as he is. You go on his journey with him no matter what happens, even if that means you have to walk through fire.

His voice was not coarse back then. No abrasion to it. It was deep. It was manly. But it was smooth.

Except when he said those words to me. When he said them, they were rough. They were incredulous. They were infuriated.

They were hurt.

Walk through fire.

The tears came and dammit, dammit, they should have stopped years ago.

They didn’t.

They came and came and came until I was choking on them.

I didn’t make a salad with wilting spinach and the dregs of shredded carrots. I didn’t hit my desk and get back to work.

I pulled my phone out of my bag, struggled to my couch, collapsed on it, and called my sister.

I couldn’t even speak when she picked up.

But she heard the sobs.

“Millie, what on earth is happening?” she asked, sounding frantic.

“Dah-dah-Dottie,” I stuttered between blubbers. “I sah-sah-sah-saw Logan at fu-fu-f*cking Chipotle.”

Not even a second elapsed before she replied, “I’ll be over. Ten minutes.”