I grab my suitcase and lug it out the door. I nearly break my back lifting it in Pearl, but once it’s in, I hop in too. Libby wags her tail from her place in the passenger seat. Calvin wisely stays in the house, and as I pull away, I don’t look back.
My first thought is to blame Calvin for costing me my relationship with Warner, but even I know that’s a stretch. There is nobody to blame but ourselves. Me, for wanting something. And Warner, for not wanting it. Nobody could look at us and say we aren’t being true to ourselves.
I’m on the outskirts of Sierra Grande when I stop for gas. While the pump runs, I pop into the convenience store for a bottle of water, then remember the twelve-pack of water my dad put in my car on the way out here. I grab four more bottles, plus a bag of pistachios for the road.
I’m standing by the pump waiting for it to finish when an SUV pulls into the spot beside me. A blonde woman climbs out, glancing at me as she goes through the motions of inserting the pump into her SUV. Recognition lights up her eyes.
I turn back to Pearl. I’m in a sour mood, and I really hope she doesn’t talk to me.
“Excuse me?”
I sigh silently and plaster a smile on my face. “Hello,” I greet her pleasantly.
She’s a little older than me, lines around her eyes and across her forehead, but she’s very pretty. She waves, and a diamond engagement ring sparkles in the sunlight. “This is going to sound awkward, but I’m Anna. Warner’s ex-wife.”
“Oh,” I say before I can stop myself, “hello. I’m Tenley. Obviously. I mean, you already knew that.”
She smiles kindly. “Yes. But it’s nice to meet the real you. Not the public you.”
Everything printed about her comes rushing down on me, like Gatorade poured on a winning coach’s head. “I am so very sorry for that article and what they said about you. It’s my fault. If it weren’t for Warner and me…” Could I make this any worse? First, I get this woman’s private information blasted on the internet, and now I’m reminding her that her ex moved on with me. Way to go.
She laughs in this small, uncomfortable way. “It’s weird, I know.”
I gesture between us. “This is all new to me.”
“It’s new to me too.”
The gas pump clicks, signaling my car is full.
Anna takes a step forward, and I stay where I am. “I want you to know I don’t blame you or Warner for that article. I don’t like it, and I don’t appreciate it, of course, but it’s not the end of the world. Warner probably acted like it, because he remembers how sick I was and how badly I wanted to hide what I was going through.”
“I understood why he acted the way he did. He’s a good man.”
“The best. So,” her gaze flickers over jam-packed Pearl. “Why are you leaving town?”
“The film is over.”
“And you and Warner?”
A lump forms in my throat. “Also over.”
Anna looks at me with a mixture of pity and understanding. “I don’t think you are.”
Pain slices across my heart. “Trust me, we are. We want different things.”
“I just dropped Peyton and Charlie back off at Warner’s place and believe me when I say that man is a wreck.”
“He is?” All I can remember is me standing in front of him, telling him I was in love with him, and him staring back at me like he’d swallowed his tongue.
“I think we’ve already reached the seventh circle of awkwardness, so I’m just going to come right out and say this. He is desperately in love with you.”
Her words should make me soar. Instead, I plummet lower than I already was. Because it doesn’t matter if Warner is in love with me. In fact, that makes it worse. Circumstances killed us, not lack of feeling.
“I’ve never been married and I want kids,” I blurt out. “He wants neither. Us being in love with each other doesn’t change that.”
Anna nods slowly. “That’s tough.”
“More than tough. An impasse.”
