The Heart Wants What It Wants

Chapter Seven

I slip out of bed and after checking Jennie, curled up on her side as she always sleeps, grab clothes and sneakers and let Buckley out into the backyard. While hiding in the laundry, I change from pajamas into workout clothes then go into the yard to clean up after my dog and play games and roughhouse with him. Unlike last night where Buck was desperate to get to Jennie, he's now happy to chase his Kong toy around the yard like a gigantic puppy.

After fifteen minutes of playing fetch, I leave him with his tether-tug toy—a thick, solid piece of chew-rope on the end of a long pole that rotates around as he pulls and swings himself around. When he was smaller, he loved me swinging him around by a stick or piece of rope in his mouth, but he quickly got too big for that.

Back inside the house, I lock myself in my small home gym and after thirty minutes and almost five miles on the treadmill, I'm dripping sweat. I towel myself down and reach for my bag mitts, then reconsider. No. I want to feel it today. After ten minutes at the freestanding punching bag I'm gasping for breath and have raw grazes on my knuckles. I move to Bob in the corner.

Bob doesn't complain when I send a sharp right across his jaw and counter it with an elbow to the chest. Bob never complains, which is one of the benefits of a punching dummy. My body is full of rage. It sits in my fists and no matter how hard I clench them, it remains in there. Rage isn't an emotion I often encounter in myself and I'm not entirely sure how to deal with it. I'm not even sure exactly where it's stemming from, but my top contenders are:

The thing that happened yesterday.

Jennie waltzing back into my life like she never left it.

Jennie being here.

My own stupid feelings about letting her stay.

But even as I accept why I'm so angry, I know that being angry isn't going to help anything. I wish I could be like Jennie and meditate my feelings into more comfortable ones—it would be less painful—but I can't. By the time I've finished my hour-long workout, I feel calm enough to function without feeling like I'm going to scream.

Before I shower, I make a quick phone call to confirm there's nothing urgent in the office or in the air for the rest of the week and that I can take a few personal days to give Jennie some support. I know she has friends, but I also know she won't let them come here because it might somehow give away her secret. That barely suppressed upset wants to bubble up again and I force it down. The past is done and there's nothing I can do to change it. Except have feelings about it when it's brought up again and shoved in my face. That's totally normal, right?

When I walk into the kitchen dressed in sweatpants and a hoodie instead of the usual starched shirt and pantsuit combo I wear to the office, or one of my many flight-day outfits, Jennie's expression turns hopeful. After a full, albeit quick and not pervy, up-and-down inspection, she asks, "You're not going in today?" Her gaze lingers on my hands and I know she understands the raw skin. But she says nothing about it.

"Nope. I've taken today and tomorrow off. Thought I'd—" I pause to figure out how exactly to word my answer. After a few moments of thought, the truth is what comes out. "I'd...make sure you're okay. Relatively speaking," I add when I realize how stupid I sound thinking she could be okay after yesterday.

Her face relaxes. "Thank you. I think I'm okay, relatively speaking. I'll have to go in for another interview with the uh, whoever is handling this. And ask them what happens next with the assault charges and all that stuff." She pushes out a self-deprecating laugh. "I was so out of it yesterday that I didn't really pay attention to who was in charge of it all." The laugh fades. "All I could think about was that you'd taken him and they were going to keep him so he couldn't come back again."