Chapter 30

Jackie locked the apartment door, then leaned against it. Tears burned in her eyes, but she refused to cry. “What just happened?” she whispered to herself.

A door down the hall creaked, and Patricia stuck her head out of her bedroom. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hear.” She crept down the hall and into the kitchen, where she filled the kettle. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t think so.”

Patricia led her to the sofa. “Tea will be ready in a minute.”

“Seriously, what just happened?” Jackie asked, hoping for an answer from her friend.

“I have no idea. I didn’t hear all of it. I was trying hard to ignore you. Tell me everything from the beginning.”

By the time Patricia pushed a mug of peppermint tea into her hands, Jackie had recounted the entire conversation almost word for word. Whenever her friend’s face darkened when she told her what Doug said, Jackie felt vindicated. She hadn’t been imagining things.

“He’s a moron,” Patricia declared. “I understand what he did and where he was coming from, but he’s still a moron.”

That…didn’t sound like Patricia was completely on her side. “What?” she asked, tugging a tissue from the box which appeared beside her.

“I’ve been friends with Doug for a very long time. Even when he was here, and that year I spent in Banff? We never lost touch.”

“I know that.”

“It took him a long time to get over high school. He was truly miserable there. He, for all intents and purposes, grew up in Winnipeg. The life he created for himself, away from Hopewell, made him who he is.”

“Good for him.”

Patricia sat cross-legged in the recliner facing the sofa and leaned forward. “He doesn’t want to live in Hopewell because he doesn’t think he can survive here.”

“That’s not true.”

Then Patricia spoke three words. “Little. Dougie. Little.”

“That doesn’t count.” He couldn’t be living in fear of a stupid childhood nickname. He was better than that. “If that is why Doug wants to leave, maybe I should let him go.”

Patricia leveled a look at her that shut her up. When she added, “Excuse me, who let her hours be cut twice without saying a word of complaint because she didn’t want to rock the boat?”

Jackie shrunk into herself. The truth hurt. She had let herself be bullied, and she was just as old as Doug. “It took me a while, but I did stand up for myself. He’s running away.”

“He’s only human, just like the rest of us. Maybe you expect too much from him.”

Her friend may have had a point, but she didn’t want to deal with that at the moment. Jackie didn’t want logic, she wanted sympathy. “What about the rest of it? Doug assuming I’d change my mind and move to Winnipeg to be with him. I never said I’d do that. I always said I wanted to stay here.”

Patricia leaned back into the recliner. “Oh, yeah, that was a total bonehead move. No doubt.”

There was the support she was looking for. But now that she had it, it took the wind out of her sails. “Right? He says he’s miserable here, but for a miserable guy he puts on a show of having a good time with his friends.” He never said a word about suffering like he claimed to be. He’d been too busy to complain.

“Do you want him to go?”

“Of course not.”

Patricia snagged a cookie from the plate she’d brought at the same time as Jackie’s tea. “What are you going to do about it?”

She had one answer when she woke up in the morning.