Untamed

36

The world didn't stop turning. At least not the way Heather imagined it would, the silent click of the door still rang in her ears. Renee was back in front of her computer ignoring everyone else around her and Melissa was somewhere in the house probably shedding a few tears Heather longed to shed as well.

"You can't keep standing there you know." Renee pointed out.

Her smooth voice only served to irritate her further, she always sounded cool and unperturbed by any situation like she couldn't care less- she didn't care about anything that wasn't on her laptop screen.

"He-"

"I heard you the first time." Heather spat out venomously.

"Whoaaa" Renee eyed her with her hands lifted in the air. "I wasn't the one who chased your little girlfriend out of the house, why're you spitting deadly venom at me?"

"Your presence is enough to destroy even the tiniest ray of sunshine a flower might need to bloom." Heather turned towards Renee finally seeing an outlet to her anger. "You're not welcome in my house, you are not my wife, you have no right to waltz into my life anytime you please just so you can leave with bits of pieces of it under your heels."

"Honestly darling, I don't get what all the fuss is about besides she's a farm girl, since when were you into manure and dirt?" Renee laughed at the silly notion.

"I got used to originality." Heather scoffed. "Something I'm obviously not used to with your aura roaming around."

Renee's smile disappeared and in its place the coldness Heather was familiar with, they stared each other down both compiling hurtful words to haul immediately any of them dared to speak out of turn.

"Why didn't you tell her you loved her?"

Heather brushed the basic answer of 'bitch' aside and said sincerely, "I don't know but it's not because I love you."

"You don't?" Renee looked genuinely surprised.

"Of course I don't, I stopped loving you years ago." Heather blew out a frustrated breath, her shoulders slumped, she could suddenly feel how tired she was. Her legs felt heavy, her hands cold despite the fact that the heater was on.

"Your father sent me here to get you out of your daze." Renee wrinkled her nose. "He said you were taking more time than you usually did. You didn't jump at the first offer he sent to you, why?"

Heather sat on the floor, her legs unwilling to hold her up. "I didn't feel the normal rush that came with the weekly emails, jumping from one plane to the next ripping someone's home from beneath them leaving helplessness and dust in my wake."

"So... you got soft."

Heather smiled wistfully. "I guess I did. It was stupidly irritating at first, I didn't understand why a ranch situated almost at the end of nowhere was top priority on my list, I never intended to mix business with pleasure but she was just so-"

"Hot!" Renee interrupted with a wink. "Trust me, I saw the appeal when we had our mini word fight in the kitchen no matter how hard I had to stop myself from throttling her."

Heather laughed. That was a relatable image, Shelby had a way to get under anyone's skin without even trying. The loss hit her like a ton of bricks, Shelby was gone.

"I guess that's the reason you didn't take the ranch from her? You had every chance to."

Heather hummed suddenly disinterested in any conversation, sitting cross-legged wishing she could fly up the stairs in a trice, her bed seemed like the most logical place to spend the rest of her days huddled in the blankets till they were soaked with her tears.

"You look exquisite when you cry." Heather fixed her blurry gaze on Renee who was now kneeling in front of her.

Heather thought she would flinch when Renee reached her palm out to wipe her tears but... she didn't, no matter how badly she had treated their marriage and her, she cared deeply about her.

"We need to get you in bed." Renee didn't wait for a response, hauling Heather to her feet she assisted her up the stairs to her room waving Melissa's concerned efforts away, handling Heather was difficult enough, she didn't need to look after an old woman.

Heather melted under the duvets shutting her eyes in anguish, her body was shutting down without a fair warning to her.

"You'll feel better when you wake up." Renee was standing at the edge of the bed with her arms crossed.

"Thank you."

Renee waved her gratitude off. "I ruined your honeymoon, the least I could do was make sure you got to your bed of sorrows safely."

Heather might have smiled if she wasn't already crying, "You're a bitch, you know that right?"

Renee shrugged, that was a part of her she'd decided to add to her resume, it worked like a charm. "Just go to sleep so I can get back to the important work I left downstairs."

"You don't need to watch over me." Heather held a pillow to her face emptying her tears into the unfortunate fibre material.

The air of despondency made Renee frown, she didn't leave her comfortable office to babysit or offer kind words, her job was done and the next day she would be back in her office with her normal routines and her normal life.

"Okay" Renee drew out the word yet it seemed her feet had grown roots where she stood.

The only sounds in the room was Heather's quiet and Renee's calm breathing, she didn't know how long she planned to stand there listening to the sobs of her wife obviously spilt for another woman.

Surprisingly her legs didn't ache after about an hour of silently standing by the edge of the bed, it wasn't her legs that hurt- no it wasn't. Her heart burned with profound hatred for the woman lying on the bed wrapped in the sheets, hatred that poisoned her tongue since the first day she walked out of their marriage.

"Why didn't you try harder for me?"
It wasn't an unusual question. Renee noted the surprise on Heather's tear stained face.

"I fought for us." The sadness in her empty eyes were replaced by bitter anger. "I fought for you even if you walked out of our lives, made a life for yourself without me in it. I-" Heather stabbed her chest with her finger. "-fought for you."

"Say it then."

"Say what?" Hearing the same phrase that fell off Shelby's lips not too long ago plunged her deeper into her misery.

"This is exactly why we would have never worked. You don't know what to say?" Renee's lips spread in a mirthless smile.

Conversing with a woman who clearly didn't understand what she was trying to pass across had been their love language for years till a one-time trip to Bora Bora made her realize her feelings weren't one-sided but they would never be expressed with words. Renee didn't want a woman who only had her actions to show; doing the next best heartbreaking thing she had ever done in her life didn't seem so hard, not when her marriage was bound to get harder.

"You're an amazing woman, pretty, smart: this aspect still needs to sink in because you're super dumb when it comes to relationships and love."

Heather wasn't in the mood for word games, "Say whatever you need to say to say, it's not your style to beat around it."

Ripping the band aid off the wound? That was easy. "The reason you let Shelby walk out that door without a fight was because you were too much of a pussy to fight for her. You're too much of a pussy to fight for any woman you love, exactly like your father."

"I am not my father."

"Then why did you ever tell me you loved me throughout our marriage?" Renee regarded her wife who sat with her mouth opening and closing, no protest falling off her lips.

"I did Shelby a favor, you should be thanking me." Renee cut the roots holding the down, her work won't finish itself.

A faint 'I'm sorry' floated to Renee's ear just as she shut the door.

Lenifty
hoelitdays
Jackkellar