That was yet another reason she had clung to Aiden.
But she wasn’t making choices because she was afraid anymore. She was deciding what she wanted to do with her one, perfect life based on positive things only. What brought her joy. What made her feel whole. It was this place, these mountains. It was even loving Cody when he couldn’t love her back. When he couldn’t receive it. It was learning how to ride a horse, and getting up early and walking to Juniper and Sage. It was her friendship with Cara, her friendship with Laney. Parties in the big barn, and barbecues with the Graysons.
It was the main street of Mustang River. It was the whole acceptance of herself, every version of her. From the scared little girl who had done her best to keep her family together, to keep her life on track, to the woman who had said yes to Aiden because she had believed that it was the best thing for her. The woman who had walked away from him and moved across the country. The woman who had given in to the powerful attraction she felt for a stone cold cowboy because it had felt bigger and more and better than anything else ever had.
And the woman who was standing here now, looking back at her past, and realizing that what she wanted was in the future. Not behind her.
Even if she couldn’t predict the outcome.
Even if she couldn’t guarantee her happiness, her safety, her dreams.
She would take a step out into that blank canvas and trust that the paint that filled in around it would be as beautiful as everything else had been. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t struggle.
It didn’t mean there wouldn’t be hardship.
But it would all belong to her. It wouldn’t just be the consequences of someone else’s actions.
She felt pretty damn good about that.
“I don’t want you back,” she said.
Aiden looked like he’d been hit upside the head with a bag of quarters. It was clear it had never occurred to him that she would reject him. Why would it? She’d arranged her whole life around him. Around keeping him happy, keeping their marriage running smoothly, centering him, fawning on him. She’d given him very unrealistic expectations of a relationship, and it was pretty clear he was happier with that sort of relationship.
It wasn’t even all his fault. She’d trained him to expect that. She’d let things be that one-sided. She didn’t hate either of them for that.
She also could never go back.
“But you… you didn’t want to separate,” he said.
“I didn’t,” she said. “I really didn’t. I didn’t want to be without you. I didn’t want a life where we weren’t together.” She swallowed hard. “But guess what? Now I’ve lived one. And I’m okay.” She felt her eyes filling with tears, and she hated that, because she wanted him to know that it wasn’t because of him. It was because of Cody. Cody was her loss. And it was going to take time to heal from that, but she wasn’t devastated. She didn’t feel numb, she didn’t feel like she had lost her agency, didn’t feel like she had lost herself.
Because Cody had not reduced her to half in their relationship. He had built her into something more. Something stronger. And that was a gift, even in all this heartbreak.
“I’m all right,” she said. “But I… I’ve been here for three months. My life has changed. What I want has changed.”
“I don’t understand.” He sounded angry. Confused. Completely blindsided, which was hilarious since he was the one who’d wanted to split up. He was the one who cheated.
She also knew he was being completely genuine.
What an idiot.
“No. Of course you don’t. Because you always saw me as somebody who is dedicated to you, devoted to you, no matter what. And I was. I was. Because I was really scared of what would happen if I didn’t have you. But do you know what happened? I didn’t die. In fact, I’m thriving. I’m better than I ever have been. I’ve worked through things that I had never really looked at before. Parts of myself that were keeping me stuck, holding me down. None of that is actually your fault. We had old patterns built around my trauma, and protecting it, and I just can’t… I can’t go back. And I don’t want to.”
She could tell him that she’d been sleeping with a cowboy who lit her soul on fire, made her feel things that no one else ever had, but there was no point in doing that. It would be petty, and while she was petty, and wasn’t so healed that she wouldn’t enjoy it, her relationship with Cody actually just felt too private to fling it at him like a weapon.
“I flew all this way,” he said.
She wondered right then if being inconvenienced hurt more than losing her.
He might not be able to see it now, but someday he would.
Their love had been real. They’d made a life. It might have been able to continue just fine if he hadn’t detonated a bomb in the middle of it.
But it had been a small love. The kind you used to prop up all the issues inside you, so that all your pet problems could stay right where they’d always been, protected and safe.
The love she’d found with Cody had rearranged the landscape of everything she was. He had made space in her for healing.
He had fundamentally changed her, in the best way.
