“Sweetheart, I was wrong. Real is all it’s ever been.” He gives me a half smile. “I changed my mind.Youchanged my mind.”
My heart jumps into my throat. I’ve been fighting my feelings for weeks, gaslighting myself into thinking they weren’t there, and now he just gets to decide to completely change the plan?
I turn away, avoiding his gaze and walking to the hood of the Bronco to pop it open. Nothing under here makes a bit of sense, but I stare at it like I might be able to solve why it’s not starting.
I need to get out of here. The urge to run is working its way down my body, consuming every thought. All I want is to fix Baby Blue so I can drive away. For hours. Days. Weeks. I want to nothave to think about Theo or Gramps or bookshops. Or feelings or tulips or dimples or anything else that hurts.
My brain is an absolute mess of thoughts that I can’t make sense of, and I’m losing myself in the chaos.
“Well, I didn’t change mine.” I wipe the tears from my cheeks, shaking my head. “I can’t live here and see a fucking Smoothie Bro in the spot where Gramps’s bookshop should be.”
Theo’s arms cross, frustration practically steaming out of him. “So, what? You’re just going to run away from me?”
“Yep. Just like you did fourteen years ago,” is what slips out.
As soon as the words land between us, I wish I could scoop them out of the air and shove them back in. Bringing up that moment is a low blow that neither of us saw coming. Shame curls up my throat.
Theo flinches so hard that he stumbles back a step. All the fight leaves him in a rush, his entire body slumping with the weight of my words. He’s closing in on himself, trying to protect what he can, andIdid that.
My brain hastily backpedals, attempting to twist it into something else. He wordlessly joins me at the hood, his jaw hardening as he searches the motor for any sign of what’s wrong.
Drawing in a shaky breath does nothing to help the feeling that my lungs are caving in. “I’ll still come to the adopt-a-thon.”
“You don’t need to.” Theo’s voice is lifeless and cold, sending a shiver down my spine. “I told Arthur the truth today.”
That stuns me speechless for a beat. My lips part. “Why?”
He reaches for the battery, adjusting the cables attached to it. “I wanted to come clean about the whole thing. Lying was eating away at me,” he says, before turning and jogging to where his truck is parked behind mine. He returns with a screwdriver, tightens a few screws on the cables, then mutters, “Try her now.”
My stomach is somewhere in my ankles as I climb into the driver’s seat. This time, she starts easily, and I don’t even have the energy to be grateful. Theo doesn’t meet my eyes when he closes the hood and walks to the open door. There are no dimples and no lopsided grins, and I miss them terribly.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, hoping he hears me over the rumble of the engine. A tear slips down my cheek, and I try to secretly wipe it away as I reach for my seat belt.
I wish I could figure out what’s going on inside me right now. Nothing feels right. Nothingisright. This is mangled and backward and so fucking confusing. How can I have so many doubts crash into me in such a short span of time?
“I’m sorry too.” His tone makes it a final statement, not the beginning of something. It sounds likethe end. When he finally meets my eyes, his expression knocks the wind out of me. There’s a lifetime worth of pain on his face and I wish I could undo everything from the last ten minutes. Take all the broken pieces and glue them back together.
But before I can figure out how, he dips his chin once. “You go first so I know the truck is okay.”
He doesn’t wait for a reply. Iwatch through the side mirror as he stalks back to his truck, dragging a hand through his hair.
It isn’t until I put Baby Blue in gear that the weight of what I’ve done really hits me, and that’s when I shatter. The warm wind flows in through the windows, whipping my hair against my skin as I drive with no destination in mind, and a well of endless tears pours out of me. Icry for Gramps, for Theo, for the A-frame, for the bookshop.
Mostly, though, I cry for me, because I think I just quit the one thing I could’ve been good at.
Chapter 35
Fable
“Ibrought supplies” is the first thing Tessa says as she barrels into Millie and Finn’s kitchen door, fresh off her flight from Chicago.
What would Tessa do?Apparently fly halfway across the country last-minute when her sister needs her.
I had no idea where Baby Blue and I were headed until the forest-green door appeared in front of my windshield. My subconscious had steered me straight to Millie’s doorstep, and into the arms of my sister and nieces.
Millie noted my puffy eyes and tearstained cheeks immediately. “What can I do?”
Six hours later—after a much-needed evening of dance parties and coloring with Avery and Eloise—Tessa’s here with several bags full of snacks and two bottles of wine that she must’ve made Finn stop to get on their way from the airport.
