“Do you want to talk about it?” Astrid asks. “If not, we can just sit and listen to Gianna tell us about her latest yeast-based homicide. Or we can start a new show if you’d rather just chill and zone out.”
“Or you can do what I did before I met Drake. Just go fuck someone else.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake—not literally,” Drake says, coming into the room. “Just what I want to walk in and hear.”
“This was a girls’ conversation, thank you,” Gianna says, smacking him on the butt as he walks by. “I’ll make it up to you later.”
He lifts the corner of his mouth. “Damn right you will.”
We settle back and take a breath, the initial panic of seeing me cry over. Astrid rests her head against mine. Gianna moves to the floor and her basket of buttons. She’s been trying to use them to make a painting for months. I don’t get it.
“We had the best few days together,” I say. “It was magical, and I don’t say that lightly. He was generous and attentive. I thought we hit it off. I mean, I just … I have no idea what happened. I’m so confused.”
“This is ahimproblem, not ayouproblem,” Astrid says.
“But I went into this, you guys, with an open mind and zero expectations,” I say, shrugging. “He did say from the onset that he wanted to do things a certain way, so we didn’t wind up … in this position, I guess. But I wasn’t luring him into a wicked web or anything. He was as complicit in all of this as me.”
“So, he just said he changed his mind?” Astrid asks as if she finds it hard to believe, too.
I lift my shoulders and let them fall.
The two of them toss ideas back and forth, but none of them make sense. He didn’t get scared of me or relationships. He didn’t wake up and decide he felt a different way about me. No one else came into his life in twelve hours.
The truth I’ve decided upon is that he just dove into the deep end and found out he couldn’t swim.
I rest my eyes, curling up with a pillow and letting my mind go free.
This is a really crappy end to something I thought had staying power, a relationship I thought might be viable. It was unlikely from the beginning, but the energy between us was just different. Special. Like we trusted and understood each other.
Guess not.
But look at me now. Sure, I might be a wreck with swollen eyes and tear-streaked cheeks, but I’m not broken. I’m hurt. Splintered. But I’m not shattered. The new Audrey Van stood the test of, well, testosterone, and did not break.
This is not like when Seth sent me his belittling text saying I’m “sweet and all.” That was a dick move. I’d been absolutely gutted as if his opinion of me meant the world. In retrospect, what was I thinking? Now, when I think of that text, it’s followed by Brooks’s response about Seth’s rebuttal.
“I guaranfuckingtee that anyone who knows you and has heard of this knows he fumbled you. What a fool.”
But what do I know? Brooks fumbled me, too.
The Audrey who left Nashville during the snowstorm would’ve been devastated by this. I would’ve second-guessed my entire life and been sure I caused his reaction. I would’ve wracked my brain until I settled on a flaw or weakness that I could pin it on.
“I’m going to be okay,” I say, sitting up and rubbing the center of my chest. It stings as if I actually took live fire and shrapnel is stuck in my bones. “It hurts. I’m sad. But despite that, I’m a different person than I was a couple of weeks ago.” I search for the right words. “I feel different.”
“Stretched out, prob—oof!” Gianna winces as Astrid bumps her with her foot to shut her up.
“That’s my silver lining,” I whisper to myself. I shift until my feet are beneath me. “I think I’m going to go back to Boston earlier. Maybe tomorrow.”
Gianna makes a face. “Okay. Do you want to stay here tonight? We have tons of room and you’re already here.”
“You’re welcome to stay at the apartment with Gray and me,” Astrid says.
I know they’d let me stay with them, but I also worry that I’ll fall right back into old patterns and feel sorry for myself. Feel as though I did something wrong. I can almost feel my newfound strength draining from just thinking about it.
No, I need to stand on my own and go somewhere that doesn’t have any history with him. Besides, I do love Boston. Maybe I can walk around the city, get a coffee, and reset my brain.
“Where’s my phone?” I ask, searching around the sofa. I find it between the cushion and the frame.
There are no texts or missed calls, and I try not to feel disappointed by that. Instead, I start searching for flights and setting a new arrival date at Ruma. In a way, it feels like an extension of my solo lunches at Piper’s. Now I’m spontaneously solo traveling. That’s growth. I think.
