Simple Perfection

sometimes and he couldn’t always be there for me. I just didn’t know how to get him to understand this and accept it. How could we make this work? This couldn’t be forever.
    I wanted this forever but Woods deserved so much more. I was holding him back. This relationship would destroy him. I would destroy him. I felt sick to my stomach. I did this. I let this happen. I let myself fall so helplessly in love with him. I let myself believe he could fix me. That we could fix me. But it isn’t happening.
    My phone rang and I looked down to see Tripp’s number. He hadn’t called in two weeks. I thought about telling Woods that Tripp checked in with me a couple times a month, but I hadn’t found the right words to explain that. Woods seemed jealous of Tripp. He had no reason to be, but he was. I didn’t want to give him something else to worry over.
    “Hello,” I said as I stretched my legs in front of me on the sandy beach.
    “How are things?”
    “Good, I guess,” I replied.
    “You guess? That don’t sound good.”
    “Angelina beat me up and Blaire Finlay pulled a gun on her and scared her off. Woods is now more overprotective than ever and he’s always worried about me.”
    Tripp was quiet for a moment. I let him digest my words.
    “Holy shit. Blaire has a gun?”
    I laughed. That was his response to what I’d just told him?
    “Sorry. I don’t think that was the point. But damn, I can’t picture that hot little blonde with a gun.”
    “Yeah, it was a shock,” I replied, smiling out at the water crashing against the shore.
    “Jace said she was from Alabama. Maybe I’ve been looking for a woman in the wrong states. I need to try out good ole Alabama next.”
    Tripp always managed to make me laugh, and he made me forget for a moment that my chest was about to explode from pain.
    “Thanks,” I said.
    “For what?”
    “Making me laugh,” I replied.
    “Anytime.”
    We sat there again for a few moments in silence.
    “Where are you at now?” I asked, knowing he was on a road trip.
    “I’m in South Carolina at a place called Myrtle Beach. I like it here.”
    “You like those beaches, don’t you?” I replied.
    “Makes me feel like I’m home, in a way.”
    “Will you ever come back here to stay?”
    He didn’t respond right away. It made me wonder what kept him away. There were secrets that he wouldn’t share with me.
    “Doubt it,” he finally said.
    “I don’t think I can stay,” I said aloud for the first time.
    “Why?”
    “Because this isn’t working. I’m holding him back. I’m not getting better. This isn’t going away and he deserves more. He needs more. Someone strong to stand beside him.”
    “He wants you, Della.”
    “Sometimes what we want isn’t what’s best for us,” I replied.
    “Yeah . . . I know that,” he said quietly. “But if you leave him it will break him.”
    It would shatter me. But I loved him too much to ruin his future. “He will heal and then the woman who can be all he needs will walk into his life one day and he’ll be glad he didn’t make the mistake of staying with me.”
    “Don’t say that. You aren’t a mistake. You underestimate your worth. You make him happy. Woods is happy with you.”
    “For now he is,” I replied.
    Tripp sighed. I was frustrating him, but he knew deep down that I was right. “When the time comes and you think you need to leave, just call me. Don’t go by yourself.”
    “Okay,” I replied. I would call him when I needed to. He wasn’t tied to me. I didn’t control his actions and thoughts. I could travel with Tripp and not destroy his future. At least until I was stable enough to live alone.
    “I think you need to talk to Woods about this first. Don’t blindside him.”
    I wasn’t sure that was possible. He would never listen to me. “Okay,” I replied.

    I stepped out of my car and waved at Bethy as she drove by in a golf cart toward the fifteenth hole. She was a cart girl at the Kerrington Club. It was how she had met Jace. He was a member here and I had heard them arguing over her quitting more than once. He hated seeing the men on the course flirt with her. That had been him once. She refused to change just because she was dating him. I think, deep down, he respected her for that.
    After hanging up the phone with Tripp, I’d sat and thought a long time. Woods needed help and all I seemed to be doing was whining over not having a job and being a burden on him. I was stronger than that.