Simple Perfection

the door and waited a minute to make sure she wasn’t following me before I let the tears fall. I didn’t want her to see me cry. She would call him. She would try to fix this. There was nothing there to fix, but she didn’t see it that way.
    But now I knew I was going to heal. I was going to be okay. I had a future. I had to face what I’d lost. Losing Woods was my biggest mistake. I shouldn’t have left him. I should have been stronger then and fought harder. But I hadn’t. I would deal with that the rest of my life.

Woods
    T he ringing was in the distance. I heard it but I couldn’t find it. Everything was dark. My eyes snapped open and the ringing started again. Shit! It was my phone. I sat up and grabbed it. It was after three in the morning and Braden was calling me. Della. God, please let her be okay.
    “Is she okay?” I asked the moment I answered the phone.
    “Yes and no.”
    “What does that mean?” I asked, standing up and looking for my jeans. If I needed to go to her that night I would.
    “She had a dream about her mother. She didn’t wake up screaming. She just woke up.”
    I stopped searching for my jeans. “What?”
    “She had one of her dreams but she didn’t have a night terror. She didn’t get lost in her fears. She just woke up. She’s already getting better.”
    “I’m coming there. I’ve had enough with waiting. I’m on my way. Tonight.”
    “No! You’re not. You have to give her time. She’s meeting with her birth father next. She met with her birth mother and then had dinner with her family all on her own. She needs to do all this alone. She’s realizing she can do this. She’s also finding out that she was crippled by her fears. She’s overcoming that. Don’t come here and confuse her. She has to come to you this time, Woods. She thinks you don’t want her. She needs to face that fear on her own, too.”
    Fuck no! “You can’t expect me to stay here and let her think I don’t want her. That’s not okay, Braden. It’s not fucking okay. She shouldn’t have to overcome a fear that’s pointless. How can she think I don’t love her? That she isn’t my heart, my soul, my future? That’s the one thing she should never doubt. That, she needs to know.”
    “Listen. I know this is hard and you’ve been great so far but give her just a couple more days. Please. She needs this. Remember this is about what she needs, not what you want.”
    I started to hit the wall again and stopped myself at the last minute. That wasn’t going to help anything. I had to calm down. “When she left here she took my soul with her. I will always belong to her. I don’t want her to ever think differently.”
    “Trust me, I know this. But she doesn’t. She thinks you haven’t tried to contact me or Tripp and you don’t care that she’s gone. That you’re relieved she left. Before you run out to your truck, take a deep breath and remind yourself that you’ll get to correct her belief in a few days. Just give her a few more days. She doesn’t need you here messing with her emotions while she’s facing her demons and figuring out that she’s going to be okay. When she sees you again she needs to feel like she can be what you need.”
    “Two days. That’s it. She comes to me in two days or I’m coming there. I can’t do this anymore. It isn’t for me that I want to come. It’s because I can’t let the woman I love believe I don’t want her. I’ve done this for as long as I can stand it. Two days is all I’m promising,” I told her.
    “Fine, two days.”
    I dropped the phone to the bed and sat down beside it. Della had overcome her night terrors. She was getting better. She was going to be whole. If I could make it just two more days.

    My mother had called and woken me up that morning. I told her I’d be at her house in an hour to talk. She was furious and I had been avoiding her calls. It was time I talked to her. She would know soon who the new board members were when I held a party at the club to celebrate their new positions. Everyone would know and she wasn’t going to be happy about it. Dean Finlay might send her into a rage. She should be prepared.
    When I arrived at her house, Harry, the chauffeur I’d hired for Mother after I fired Leo when I returned to Rosemary, was loading my mother’s bags into her Benz. She was going somewhere, obviously. Good. That was probably best.
    I nodded as I passed Harry. He was my employee. Leo had been my father’s.