“No. You shouldn’t.” Dean shrugs. “But sometimes love isn’t about what should happen. Sometimes it’s about showing up anyway, even when you’re hurt and angry, even when you think they should be the one coming to you.”
He finishes the muffin. Brushes crumbs off his hands.
“Mom never camefor us,” he says. “We waited, and she never came. But here’s the difference, Levi. You have a choice that we never had. You can sit here and wait, or you can get in your truck and go. You can be the person who shows up, even when it’s hard.”
I stand up so fast the chair scrapes against the floor.
“Tell Eleanor I’ll bring her back,” I say.
Dean smiles. It’s the first real smile I’ve seen from him all morning. “I’ll tell her.”
The driveto Asheville takes five hours. I make it in four and a half.
TWENTY-THREE
DELILAH
The motel was called the Mountain View Inn, which was a lie. The only view was a parking lot and a dumpster. But it was cheap and it allowed dogs, so I didn’t complain when I showed up after one in the morning with red eyes and a German Shepherd mix who smelled like he’d been stress-shedding in a Honda for five hours.
“Rough night?” she’d asked, sliding a key card across the counter.
“Something like that.”
“Room 112. Checkout’s at eleven.” She’d glanced at Ruffy. “He housetrained?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Last dog we hadchewed through the mattress. Had to charge the guy four hundred bucks.”
I’d promised Ruffy wouldn’t chew through anything, grabbed the key, and escaped to the room before she could ask any more questions.
I didn’t sleep. I tried. I lay on the scratchy bedspread and stared at the water stain on the ceiling while Ruffy curled up at my feet. Every time I closed my eyes I saw that photo. Mia Monroe’s arms around Levi. His hand on her back. The headline that called her his “new romance.”
And then I’d see Penelope’s face. That satisfied smile.You told me yourself why you left. You didn’t think you were good enough. Maybe you were right.
Around three am, I gave up on sleep and scrolled through my phone instead. Bad idea. The photo was everywhere. fEntertainment sites, gossip blogs, even a few actual news outlets that should have had better things to cover. Everyone had an opinion. Most of them were some version ofLevi Cole finally moving on from mystery exorPop star power couple in the making?
Mystery ex. That’s me, the florist from the small town who thought she had a chance with a rock star.
I clicked on one of the articles even though I knew I shouldn’t. The photo was there, huge andunavoidable. Mia Monroe looked like she’d been styled by a team of professionals. Everything about her was polished and camera-ready.
And there was Levi, looking blindsided but undeniably caught. The same embrace, frozen. A moment that could mean everything or nothing.
The comments were worse.
They look so cute together!
She’s way better than whoever he was dating before
I closed the app and threw my phone across the bed.
Ruffy lifted his head and gave me a look that clearly said,That seemed unnecessary.
“Don’t judge me,” I told him. “You eat garbage.”
He sighed and put his head back down.
The hours crawled by. I watched the red numbers on the alarm clock flip past four, then five. I listened to trucks rumble past on the highway. I thought about calling my mom, but what would I say?Hi, I ran away again. Yes, I know it’s the middle of the night. Yes, I know this is a pattern.
