To Not Let Go

Chapter Twenty Eight

              "What are you doin' here, Swayde?" Renne pulled the gate shut behind her, after turning out some of her horses. "I told you, I have things to do." She didn't give him the time of day as she walked to the barn, Swayde following like a lost puppy. 

               "Reagan. Stop, please." Swayde reached out and tried to grab her, but Renne jerked free of his grasp, giving him a piercing glare. 

               "Do not touch me." She stopped walking long enough to say. 

             "Reggie, I want to talk. I am ready to, please." Swayde pleaded. This scene looked too much like it did six years ago when she had found that newspaper article that explained the death of her parents. The day she broke up with him...left him...and now he had pushed her to that point again, or so it seemed.

             "No." Renne shook her head, tears starting to swell up in her eyes. "I have tried for eight days to get you to talk to me. To even just look at me, and instead, you chose to go to Doug, and to Budweiser, not me, not your girlfriend. I have been there with you through every single step of the way, I have tried endlessly, tried everything, and it is still not enough. I will never be enough for you. I am glad that you are ready to talk, but clearly you have found other people, other things, that are more understanding than I am. So, yes we can talk, but I'm not there yet." Renne was hanging up the horses lead ropes. 

           "I never did this to you when you lost your sister, so what makes you think you can do it to me?" Swayde grew angry. Angry at himself, mostly, but angry, too, that after all this time, he was ready to turn a new leaf, and the woman who always claimed to be there for him was just ready to abandon him when he needed her most. 

           "Okay, you need to leave." Renne spun around, furious. "How dare you talk to me like that." She growled, shoving Swayde backwards. "I may have been unbearable when my sister died, but there was no alcohol involved. If that is how you cope, fine, but I'm not okay with it. You've turned into this person that I don't even recognize. You know how much I loathe when people get drunk. You of all people should understand. It was your brother who killed my parents, and now you're starting to act just like him!" Renne's words surprised herself. Her hands flew to her mouth, and she gasped at herself. 

            Swayde's jaw tightened and he nodded slowly. There were no words to be said. Renne had spoke her mind, and it was the truth. Turning, Swayde sped walked to his truck, Renne running after him. 

             "Swayde, please wait. Please. I didn't mean that." But he was already gone. It was too late. 

                                                                     ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

             "Hey, Swayde, last call was ten minutes ago. I hate to do this to you, but I gotta close up." Tom, the bartender at the only bar in town, held a towel in his hand, looking at Swayde, a familiar face around town, but a foreign face in this bar. 

            "Yeah. Yeah. I understand." Swayde said, taking a sip of his beer.

           "Alright man." The bartender looked Swayde up and down when he made no motion to leave. "That means chug your beer, son."

            "I think we broke up...she has been there for me every day this last week and what did I do?...I didn't tell her what was goin' on, I shut her out, and of course, now she hates me." Swayde's words slurred. He waved a hand in the air. "She told me I was just like my brother." He mumbled. That was what hurt the worst. "But she's right, so I have called her a bazillion times to tell her she was right, and now...now she won't pick up my calls..." He looked down at his phone to see if Renne called him yet. "Or return my texts..." Swayde said. He picked at the label on his beer bottle.