Also, I want to be far away from Skylark while Jensen is still in town. I don’t know how long he’s going to be here. I mean, maybe he’ll take off after how I treated him. But his words—for now—make me think he’s not done with me. So I need to finish it. Again.
For about two seconds, the room is silent, then everyone speaks at once.
“You’re going tomo?—”
“I thought you were joking?—”
“How are you going to find one specific cabin in?—”
“Has she answered a single message you’ve sent her?” Avah demands, the question aimed straight at the part of me that’s scared shitless at what I’m about to do.
“No.” My voice is steadier than I expected. “She hasn’t.”
Avah inclines her head, and I can read the doubt swirling in her blue eyes. “So you’re going to hike into the wilderness to find a woman who has actively chosen not to talk to you?”
“Yes.” I draw in a deep breath and square my shoulders. “Yes, I am.”
4
SLOANE
Of course,I say yes. Kristen Quinn’s book was my constant companion during the worst year of my life. Well, that and the golden notebook I forced myself to write in every day, no matter how bad I felt.
The Year of Losing Itwas the anchor I relied on to keep me tethered to hope when despair threatened to unmoor me each time the horizon disappeared. I read it during months of chemo and in the oncology ward at Vanderbilt with an IV port and a mouth full of sores that made it hurt to swallow. I memorized my favorite sections, and the words felt like someone reaching through the pages to grab my hand.
She wrote about all the ways we let fear shrink our lives, but how there’s always another choice. And lying in a hospital bed as my own life got smaller by the day, she made me believe it could get big again.
I’m not sure I know how to live big anymore.
Each of my friends confronted a long-held fear and came out changed on the other side. I want to do something that has the potential to change me—not like cancer did, but in a way I choose.
Because I started playing it safe long before my diagnosis. I shrunk myself to fit into a life that was steady and stable. And there’s nothing wrong with either of those things, but I didn’t do it because that’s what I truly wanted. I did it because I was afraid of the alternative. Of my messy emotions and the big feelings that made me feel like I never fit in.
My mom liked to accuse me of being too sensitive. Dad called me a drama queen.
The guy who left me on the side of the road? He said I was exhausting.
So I pasted a smile on my face—smiling comes naturally to me—and poured all of my energy into the bookstore until I stopped feeling the yearning for something more.
Now, that yearning is back with a vengeance. And not just because of Jensen showing up here. Although, yeah, I have plenty of yearning where he’s concerned. Which is why I’m leaving tomorrow.
“I don’t care if Kristen doesn’t appreciate the effort,” I tell my friends, “I’m still going to make it.”
Iris leans forward. “What if I came with you?”
“You hate camping.”
“But I love you,” she answers, like it’s that simple. “We’ll call it a girls’ trip, without any of the parts that are actually fun, like a spa and cocktails.”
“I don’t mind camping,” Sadie offers. “Give me a few days to figure out my schedule and?—”
“No.” I swipe two fingers across my cheeks because…stupid allergies. We’ll go with that. “I appreciate you both offering, and I love you right back, but I need to know I can do this on my own.”
“Of course you can,” Taylor agrees. “The point is you don’t have to.”
“The point is I spent the last year letting all of you and Jeremy take care of me, and I’m so grateful that sometimes I can’t breathe. But I need to do thison my own.”
Molly’s eyes haven’t left me since I sat down. She’s the most insightful person I know, which can be a real pain in the ass if I’m being totally honest. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about Jensen?”
