Trent

He groaned as he disconnected the call, tossing the ring carelessly onto the coffee table. This was not how he wanted it to go. He truly did want to smash it to pieces. He wanted to erase the part of her that carried a piece of Matt around with her at all times and replace it with something better. In fact he wanted to replace every every aspect of Matt in her life.

This was not his original intentions for the weekend. But when she showed up in that funeral home, in that black dress, looking like an Angel, what was he supposed to do? And just when he thought he could keep her at arms length, exist purely in the same universe again, she just had to still be that familiar piece of his past he missed so badly.

This was part of the reason that he so strongly wished that Matt was not a part of her world. Because he saw her as caring and beautiful and surely loved the way she laughed and her big heart. But what Trent saw in her was more, she was caring, but Trent knew that even if it meant hurting herself in the process, she would always do right by the people she loved. And while she was beautiful, Matt did not know her beauty long before she learned how to use make up, curl her hair, and find confidence in her looks. Trent knew that beauty when braces and baby fat, unkempt hair, and pimples plagued their bodies. He loved the nose wrinkle in her laugh and the way she thought her eyes were too small when she smiled. He knew the small chip in her tooth from when they fell off their bicycles riding downhill towards the stream at speeds too fast for them to control. She had distracted him with one of her antics, caused him to cross in front of her path, they both crashed but Fallon's front tooth had taken a good brunt of the fall.

He'll never forget how hard she cried when she realized it was chipped, telling her mother, "we have to fix it! No one is gonna think I'm pretty with this stupid chipped tooth in my mouth!" He thought she was beautiful then, just as he did now.
He knew pieces of her that no one else did.

This ring served as a constant reminder to him that someone else was out there not appreciating everything she ever was, is, and could be. It boiled a rage inside him like no other. The rage was familiar, something that had lay deep within him since his teenage years. That was when he started to notice that something wasn't right between his parents. His mother was always very sad. Her eyes were hollow and empty on most days, almost like she was a ghost forced to walk in s realm that she didn't belong in. And his father, he was mostly gone, working through the nights or off doing who knows what. The days he was home, he carried on drunkenly, yelling profanities towards whoever crossed his path. When had they moved from his childhood home, not far from Fallon, that's when it all escalated. His mother spoke less and less, never left the house, spent the days aimlessly wandering around the house. His father continued on with his antics for a few years. And Trent started high school, busying himself to stay away from everything and everyone.

And then one day when he arrived home from school, his mother sat stone faced at the table, picking at the peeling pieces of the table cloth.
"He's gone," she said, the life seeming to drain further from her.
"Who's gone?" Trent asked, apprehensive of the answer he would get.
"Your father."
"Fucking good."
She was silent.

It was from that moment on, Trent poured himself into everything other than home. His school, his work, his friends, eventually college and the fraternity, anything to avoid going home. It was that work he put in that eventually led to his success. That, and of course, selling the company.
But the ruthlessness of the constant thoughts of just how much he missed after his father walked away, how much his mother would never be the same, his trust would shatter, and he would lose the desire to connect with anyone or anything infuriated him. And while that scared a good portion of the people he knew, Fallon never faltered. She was a breath of fresh air in his constant suffocation. She put up with more than he ever should have handed her and did it with grace and ease. But all that "putting up" with him, is what eventually led her to Matt. Parties every week, crowds of people she never knew but had no issues talking to, connecting with. People loved her. It's why Matt loved her, because she was resilient and strong and the night that they first connected Fallon had stood up to Trent when his rage showed it's ugly teeth.

There was no doubt that it's what made her so attractive to him. This small 5'2" frame standing her ground to Trent's 6'3" body. She was like Persephone, the only one who could ever control the big headed out of control Hades. And she was never intimidated, she knew her control and strength and power over him, even then.

Before he could collect his thoughts, he felt the burning of his hand and scraping of his knuckles as he threw it towards the living room dry wall. The initial shock is what brought him back to reality. It was then that he also noticed Jonathan standing across from him, Trent's hand still implanted through the wall.

"I'll have my grandson fix that tomorrow Mr. McBride." He said it unfazed, as if this was normal behavior.

Trent pulled his hand back, taking pieces of the drywall and dust with it, the embarrassment quickly creeping up on him. "No, no Jonathan, that's okay, I don't know what came over me. I'll fix it." Trent shook the thoughts he was so enticed in from his head.

He quickly grabbed his phone and opened the camera with intentions of taking pictures of the hole's size and shape to reference when he went to the hardware store later to get the supplies to fix it. Before he snapped the photo, he noticed the new resting thumbnail photo sitting in the bottom corner of the camera view of his phone. He squinted, trying to make out what it was. 

When he thought he had figured out what he was looking at, he enlarged the photo to its full size and felt his eyes go wide. Because there, in his camera roll, sat a photo of Fallon, in his dress shirt from the weekend. She stared at the camera as it captured all her beauty. When he opened the photo stream to find that there was more than one photo, he scrolled to each, admiring the slight differences in her face, the way she posed, the look of her body. He felt the soft smile come across his face.

"Jonathan, I apologize again," he looked up, "what's up?"

Jonathan nodded, "well, perhaps this is not the most ideal moment, but I had come to find you to see if you'd mind if I went home a bit early this evening. It's my wife and I's anniversary and I'd like to take her to dinner."

Trent smiled and patted Jonathan lightly on the shoulder. He had been the first to be hired on to Trent's staff of people in the house. He was however always adamant that though he would show up each day, that he remained at home living with his wife. "Jonathan, you've earned it, go home. Say hello to the Mrs. Take a bottle of wine from the cellar too, celebrate,"

"Thank you sir, but we're not much of drinkers ourselves, just an appreciation for a good steak dinner every now and again." Jonathan smiled, "is there anything else you need before I go?"

Trent thought for a moment, "how long have you been married Jonathan?"

"This is year number forty five." He smiled as he spoke the words, "and I would marry her a million times over if I could."

"How did you meet your wife?"

"She was the most beautiful waitress I had ever seen at the diner my friends and I went to every Friday night. She made the best strawberry milkshake you could ever taste." He laughed before his next sentiment, "when I asked her on a date, she was already engaged to someone else!"

Trent's eyes widened, "so how'd you two end up married if she was already with someone else?"

"We'll sir, I asked her on a date every Friday night until eventually...she said yes. We were married that same year. You see, just because she was engaged to someone else, doesn't mean that I wasn't the better option," He gleamed proudly, "we have four children and eight grandchildren between them. She took a chance on me. The rest is history."

Trent thought for a moment before he decided to ask Jonathan one last thing. "Jonathan, before you go, can I ask you for one last favor?"

"Of course Mr. McBride."

"If I gave you an address, would you be able to book me a flight and get me there tomorrow?"