“Things with Brady.”
“Addy, disagreements are normal. Now you get to make up.” She pulls back and winks at me. “That’s the fun part.”
I shake my head, tears brimming. “This is much more than a disagreement. Warren is here, Grandma. He woke up.”
Her fingers touch her lips in surprise, blocking her gasp. “Oh shit.”
She leads me to the island and pulls out two stools. “Sit,” she instructs. “Tell me everything.”
I fill her in on every detail, and she stays quiet, nodding the whole time. When I’m done, she says, “I don’t envy you.”
I laugh, an empty, dry sound.
“Do you still love Warren?”
This is what I’ve been wrestling with. Before Warren, I didn’t have any consequential exes. I never had to run into them and remember the good times, the little things that made them special in the first place. Are glasses always tinted rose when you look back on a relationship that ended because of circumstances?
The truth is, I do love Warren.
But I don’t love him the right way, not anymore.
I don’t answer my grandma, and she doesn’t press me. “Are you making dinner?” she inclines her head at the uncooked pasta on the counter.
I stand. “I was supposed to cook for Brady. I was going to start teaching him.”
“Brady’s a good man, Addy. He’s not going to run away. He’ll confront you. You’ll tell him your side. It will all work out.”
I think back to the first few days Brady was here at Sweet Escape, how broken he was over Lennon. Over the girl who didn’t choose him.
I want every one of your kisses and sighs and irritated looks. I want to love you loudly. I want to love you messy.Brady’s words from two nights ago.
I can only hope he meant it when he said messy, because this is the very definition. He couldn’t possibly even know it was Warren who was kissing me. At this point, Brady thinks I was cheating on him, right after he told me he loves me.
I set to work making the sauce, but the smells of garlic and oil make me nauseous instead of hungry. Grandma leaves the kitchen, but she’s back a minute later, keys jingling in her outstretched hand.
“What’s that?” I ask, her wide eyes scaring me. I can’t take any more right now.
“The keys to cabin seven.”
My lower lip quivers. She uncurls her fingers and I slip the keyring from around her pointer finger.
I don’t run to his cabin, because I’m terrified of what I might find.
Nothing.
No sweatshirt hung over a chair.
No toiletries on the counter in his bathroom.
No clothes in his dresser, shoes lined up in the small closet, or his suitcase stashed away.
I arrive at cabin seven and let myself in, and the only thing I find is that I was right.
He’s gone.
My steps are slow and heavy. I’m almost out the door when I see a folded piece of paper on the ground. Hope flurries through my heart, a dash of excitement. A note from Brady!He knew I’d get the key, that I’d come here looking for him. I bend, snatching it from the floor, and open it.
My hope crashes to my feet. It’s the note I left when I came here the first time, without a key to let me in. I tuck it into my back pocket and lock the cabin behind me.
