Page 43 of Hello Trouble

HAYES

My hands were shaking on the handlebars as I drove out of town. I knew I couldn’t be by myself, or I was liable to do something stupid. Especially with whatever mangled pieces remained of my heart feeling like they were being ripped out of my chest.

I couldn’t think clearly. The second I saw those boxes, I panicked. I was five years old again, showing my mom a drawing in the hopes of making her smile. I’d thought my drawing was good enough then, just like I thought my best was good enough for Della now.

I knew I could never trust a woman to love me, to stay.

With the lights of Cottonwood Falls in the rearview mirror, I felt stupid for thinking I was enough for Della. She knew I wasn’t worth staying for, even when I was giving her my all.

My dad had told me to give love a chance. That I could be happier than before. But for the second time in my life, the woman I loved was leaving me. And unlike my mom, this was a choice—Della’s choice.

I drove, almost in a trance, only the sound of wind raging past my helmet and the dirt road under my tires until I reached the big white house out in the countryside.

I got off my bike and pulled out my cell, dialing Fletcher’s number.

His girls were asleep—hell, he might be too—but I needed to talk to him.

After a few rings, he answered, groggy. “Hayes. Everything okay?”

“No,” I uttered. “Can you come outside?”

“You’re here?”

“I am.”

He hung up, and a few seconds later, the front porch light came on and he walked outside in pajama pants and a crumpled white T-shirt.

His hair was a mess, and there was the imprint of a blanket on his cheek.

I was pacing his front sidewalk, feeling like a caged animal.

How could my body hold all this pain? It felt like it could split me apart, rip me to a thousand ragged pieces at any second.

There was a worried look in my brother’s dark eyes. “What happened?” he asked.

“Did you know Della was moving?” I asked.

His hesitation was all the answer I needed.

The panic welled up making my legs weak. I slumped to the ground, too overwhelmed by my emotions to even stand.

“Hayes!” he uttered and rushed to me where I’d fallen. “Where does it hurt?”

“Everywhere!” I whimpered, keening and holding myself. “It hurts everywhere.”

Fletcher tugged me into his arms like I weighed nothing. “You’re scaring me. Did you take something? Are you wounded?”

I held on to him. “I love her, and she’s leaving.

” Now the sobs came. It felt like I couldn’t stop, couldn’t catch my breath.

It was worse than any injury. Instead of my body failing, it was like the world was coming apart.

Everything I’d hoped for, the future my mind had dared to picture for Della and me—it was all gone, broken down like those moving boxes waiting in her spare room.

Fletcher said, “I’m here.” He rubbed my back and waited until I couldn’t cry anymore. “Let’s go to the guesthouse. Get you inside.”

Even though I didn’t see the point in being inside or outside, I let him tug me up and leaned on him heavily as he helped me stand on legs that didn’t feel like my own.

And we walked slowly across the gravel path to the guesthouse in his backyard.

He opened the door for us and flicked on the lights.

“Sit at the counter,” he said, “I’ll make us some coffee. ”

Never mind the fact that Fletcher always pressed that no one should drink caffeine after noon. “I’m not drunk,” I told him.

“I know,” he said, his back to me as he pressed a filter into the pot.

I watched while he started the pot brewing, slowly and methodically. “She told you about the move tonight?” he asked, his face still turned away from me.

“No, I found the boxes packed in her guest room after we...”

I could see the sympathy in his eyes as he asked, “How did it go after that?”

I relayed the story to him, almost like I was an observer instead of a participant. And when I was done, he had two cups of coffee. He stood on the opposite side of the counter, sipping his drink while I just stared down at the dark liquid and the few bubbles sitting on the top.

“I need you to text her and tell her when you’ll meet up again to discuss this,” Fletcher said in his official doctor tone. He’d used it on us all the time as the oldest of five brothers.

“Why?” I asked.

“You can’t just leave her waiting and worrying about you.”

I looked up at him. “What makes you think she’s worried about me?”

His lips twitched slightly. “Because she called Liv before you even got here.”

The irony hit me like a punch to the chest. “Liv said I was going to hurt Della. She didn’t want me dating her friend. Turns out she didn’t have to be worried about me at all.” The sight of moving boxes flashed back through my mind, and I had to rub my temples to ease the ache forming there.

Fletcher said, “Della cares about you, Hayes. And if you want a chance with her, you need to do the right thing and text her so you can handle this when you cool down.”

A dangerous spark of hope lit in my heart at the idea of fixing things. I took a sip of coffee to tame it. But still, I got out my phone and sent a message to Della, following my brother’s guidance.

Hayes: Can we meet up tomorrow night to talk? We can have supper at my place.

I showed Fletcher the screen. “Done.”

“Good... Look.” He pushed the phone back to me on the counter. Della had already replied.

Della: I’ll be there.

That spark of hope started flickering, growing stronger. “What do I do next?”

Fletcher said, “You need to think about what you want. Now that you know she’s moving, and she kept it from you, do you want a relationship with her?”

My throat felt tight.

“If you do,” Fletcher continued, “what do you want that relationship to look like? Are you okay with long distance?”

His questions weighed on me as he continued.

“And if you decide to stay together, what do you want out of a relationship? How do you want a partner to behave in conflict? In good times? In some ways, you’re grown, but in others, it’s like you’re seventeen with your first girlfriend, trying to figure out how all this works.

It’s okay that you don’t have all the answers right now, but you do need to think about them. ”

I nodded slowly. He was right. Of course he was right. But underneath it all, the only thing going through my mind was that I just wanted Della. Any piece of her I could have. “How do you decide?” I asked.

Fletcher set his coffee on the counter, looking pensively down at it. “Here’s the thing about relationships. Most people think about what they want, not what they’re willing to give. You should do both.”

I looked down at my own coffee as I mulled it over, eyes trailing a spiral of steam.

Fletcher drained his coffee in the sink. “Why don’t you stay in the guesthouse tonight? We can talk more in the morning when you’ve had a chance to think.”

He knew me better than almost anyone else. And I was grateful for the time and space to process.

I got up from the counter, embracing my brother in a hug. “Thank you.” It wasn’t lost on me that I could show up here in the middle of the night and know that he’d be here for me, no matter what.

And I mentally added something to my list of desires.

That’s the kind of man I wanted to be.