So I didn’t.
“I’m sorry.” The words came out as broken as me. “I’m so sorry, Boone.”
Then I just left.
Behind me, Boone called my name like an angry plea. But I was already out the door.
I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t look back. Couldn’t breathe.
I just ran.
Until I got back to the cottage and slammed the unlockable door behind me.
Still shaking.
Through the window, I could see the bear cubs I was working on—eyeless but smiling, like this was all a game.
Poison… all I had to do was follow the smell of rot.
What was I doing?
Ravik was right.
Better me was a pipe dream. I was never going to figure this out. Never going to get up the courage to face Holly and Noelle, much less give them their wedding presents.
A new impulse rose, dark and dank as a swamp.
I yanked open the back window door and lugged the smaller one-cub statue into my weak arms.
The wood was warm from the afternoon sun, and the bear cub’s cute little smile mocked my inner storm.
I needed to throw this into the lake. Get rid of the evidence that I ever tried to reclaim a dream I should have given up thirty years ago. Then come back to do the same with the other one.
Drown this art. Drown my dreams.
Boop! Boop-dee-boop-boop-boop! Boop! Boop-dee-boop-boop-boop!
The phone I’d left on the metal chair went off just as I was trying to gauge whether I’d need to drag the cub to the lake shore or hurl it from the deck.
I scrunched my forehead, the cloud of fury at myself dissipating when I saw the name rolling across the device’s screen:BMP MERCANTILE.
Was this one of the jobs I’d applied for, finally calling me back?
I carefully put down the bear cub and answered.
“Hello?”
“Hello.” The voice on the other end of the line was professional. Male. Unfamiliar. “Is this BW, the sculptor?”
I froze.
Sculptor.No one had ever called me that or just by my initials since college, when I’d made a habit of carving BW into every piece I completed.
Still, I managed to reply, “This is she. May I ask who’s calling?”
The answer to that question made my mouth drop open.
Surely, surely, I was hearing him wrong. My head filled up with a new kind of steam.
