by Ali Parker
“Even if that road exposes me? I have a lot to lose, man. I don’t want the world to know who I am. Hell, I don’t want anyone knowing who I am. She was the first person I’d told besides you and Katie at the El Cartana. I thought she’d take it seriously.”
“Can I be honest with you?”
I stared at Walker. “Of course.”
He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “You’re kind of being a dick.”
I blinked. That wasn’t what I expected.
Walker chuckled at my bewilderment. “You threw a huge secret on her and expected her to guard it with the same fierceness you do. You said she told this other woman weeks ago? Had you even told her how serious it was to you that you preserve your pen name? Did she have any clue how much you cared?”
“I don’t know.”
“Look man, you know I always have your back, right?”
“Right.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s been easy walking around knowing who you are. I worry all the time that I’m going to blow it. I’d hate to be the reason you lost your anonymity. I’ve been lucky enough that I haven’t ever been in a situation where I might have said something I couldn’t take back. But Briar? I think you owe her the benefit of the doubt.”
This wasn’t going how I thought it would.
He was supposed to tell me I had every reason to be angry. He was supposed to give me permission to push Briar away.
“Why?” I asked. “Why do I owe her anything?”
“Who said anything about owing it to her?”
“You’re losing me.”
Walker sighed and set his drink down. “Look, Briar dropped the ball. I’m with you on that one. But are you going to let this ruin something that’s been really good for you? Man, that doesn’t sit right with me.
“You know how hard it is to meet someone when your identity makes them starstruck. You can relate to that better than most. You’ve never tried to hide your wealth or your talent from a woman and it’s cost you a lot of relationships because somehow you only manage to find the pretty girls who are only with you for your money and your lifestyle.”
“When did this turn into shit on Walker hour?”
“I’m not,” I said.
“We’re talking about you and Briar right now, man. You have to drop this complex you have about your pen name and the public. You’re hiding. And it’s not serving you anymore. It’s keeping you down.”
This conversation had taken a turn I didn’t expect. I drank the last quarter of my beer. “I don’t know how to forgive her or trust her again.”
“That’s a load of bullshit,” Walker said firmly. “You’re just scared of what will happen if you do.”
“Hold on just a minute here. I—”
“No,” Walker said. “This girl is special to you. She’s more than just someone you met in passing. You’ve been thinking about her every day since you met her, Wes. She’s changed part of you. For the better, I think. You’re happier, man. Plain and simple.”
Is this why the betrayal hurt so badly this afternoon? Had I turned tail and run because the feelings I had for her were way deeper than I initially realized?
I’d known for a while she wasn’t just someone I wanted to write a book about. But it hadn’t occurred to me that I was in love with this woman.
“Shit.” I sighed.
Walker nodded appreciatively. “You finally get where I’m coming from?”
Briar didn’t deserve the anger I turned on her today. She deserved grace and forgiveness. Walker was right. I’d asked a lot of her to keep my secret for me. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was a good person. I never should have jumped to negative conclusions so quickly and assumed she was vindictive. She didn’t have a wicked bone in her body.
Briar simply would not have done this to me on purpose.
I was painting myself as a victim when it simply wasn’t true.
“I need to track her down and apologize,” I said.
Walker nodded. “Yeah, I’d say that’s a good start.”
I didn’t want to disturb her tonight. She was probably angry with me, too. And rightly so. I’d give her some time to cool off and think about things. Maybe she wouldn’t want anything to do with me after this. She deserved the space to make her own choices about us before I descended upon her with apologies.
But with any luck, she’d hear me out. And she’d be willing to try this again with my promise that I’d never overreact and behave like such a dick again.
Chapter 29
Briar
My three shitty suitcases sat in a row on the end of the bed in what was soon to become Sonia’s guest bedroom once more until she found another roommate to take my place. She stood behind me with her arms crossed and one shoulder resting against the doorframe.
“Well, it looks like you’re ready to go,” she said.
I’d felt sick to my stomach all morning at the thought of leaving my dream behind. How it had all gone up in smoke so quickly, I still couldn’t wrap my head around. But the fact was that it had. All there was left to do was pick up the pieces and figure out how to make a shitty situation somewhat less shitty. The only way I could think to do that was return to my friends and my home and heal there.
I never imagined Wes could hurt me so much. I supposed I never imagined he would hurt me so much.
I never thought I’d hurt him either, I thought morosely as I stared at my bags.
“I guess I am,” I said softly as I turned to Sonia. “I’m sorry for doing this to you. I know how hard it was for you to find a roommate and now I have to put you through it all again.”
Sonia shrugged and pushed off the doorframe. “Don’t sweat it. Sometimes this kind of thing happens. And you know what? I’m grateful for it because even though it was short, it was sweet. I like you, Briar Sommerfield.”
I smiled. “I like you too, Sonia.”
“I’ll help you down with your bags.”
Sonia and I made our way out of the apartment. I hadn’t stayed long enough for it to feel like home yet, but I still paused in the doorway to take one last look around. Sonia waited patiently out in the hallway as I imagined what my life might have been had things worked out and I was able to stay a little longer.
I thought about what this place might look like come Halloween less than two weeks from now. I thought about Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas and how many photos I’d looked at on the internet of both holidays in New York City. I’d wanted more than anything to wander Central Park or visit Rockefeller Center at Christmastime. And then there was New Year’s.
I pulled the door closed and it latched with finality.
“You good?” Sonia asked.
I nodded, even though my insides longed to go back into the apartment.
Sonia and I rode the elevator down to the lobby in silence. We pushed out the front doors, crossed the path to the sidewalk, and stopped at the curb, where a taxi would be arriving any minute to take me to the airport.
Sonia stifled a yawn. “Are you sure you don’t need something to eat? I could run back up and grab you a muffin or something.”
“No thank you.”
It was only seven in the morning. Normally, I was the kind of girl who liked to eat something almost as soon as my eyes opened in the morning. A piece of toast with peanut butter always did the trick or a bowl of fruit or something. Not today. The guilt from what I’d done to Wes made it hard to contemplate food and having to leave my dream city behind didn’t make it any easier.
A yellow cab came around the corner at the end of the street.
“I think that’s me,” I said.
Sonia peered down the street and sighed. “I’m going to miss you, North Carolina.”
I smiled and pulled her in for a hug. “I’m going to miss you too. Let’s stay in touch, okay?”
“Absolutely. If you ever need a place to crash in New York, you know where to find me.”
“Same goes
for North Carolina, should you ever want to come that way.”
“Sounds like a deal,” Sonia said. I doubted she’d ever make her way to my hometown. “Have a safe trip. Shoot me a text or something when you get home, okay?”
I nodded. We broke apart as the taxi pulled up to the curb. He popped his trunk and came around to help me load my suitcases into the back. He also opened the back door for me. I gave Sonia one last wave before sliding into the back seat. She wrapped her fluffy teddy bear sweater tight around herself and moved to the edge of the curb when we pulled away, and I watched her disappear into a tiny speck through the back window.
I sank down low, chin tucked into my knit scarf, and tried not to cry as the cab driver asked me a dozen questions I wasn’t in the mood to answer.
“Where are you flying to, miss?” The driver was a middle-aged man with graying hair and friendly brown eyes. He wore a gold wedding band on his left hand and a scuffed-up silver watch on his wrist.
“Waynesville, North Carolina.”
“What’s waiting for you there?”
I gazed out the window as rain began to fall, leaving long streaks across the glass. “It’s my hometown.”
“Are you coming back to New York?”
“I don’t think so.”
He nodded. “I’ve always wanted to go to North Carolina and see the mountains. Beautiful place. You’re lucky to have grown up somewhere so surrounded by nature.”
“I suppose.”
I could feel him watching me in the rearview mirror. “It seems to me like you don’t want to leave the city.”
I sighed and crossed one leg over the other. “I never planned on leaving but circumstances have made it difficult to stay.”
He nodded knowingly and left things alone after that, picking up on the underlying tension that the young woman in his backseat had no interest in talking about her woes to a stranger.
He dropped me off outside JFK airport at quarter to eight in the morning. My feet were heavy with fatigue, but I managed to drag my bags to the check-in counter, where I weighed them and gratefully let them go down the conveyor belt to be loaded on the plane. With only my cross-body purse weighing me down, I made my way through the airport toward the terminals. I passed through security, which was a non-event, and found my gate on the other side.
It felt like I’d never left the airport and the last two weeks had never even happened.
I wasn’t tempted to order a coffee or a scone. I sat alone, wrapped up in my sweater, staring glumly out the window as planes landed and took off in the gloomy weather. Strangers sitting all around me flipped through magazines or books or typed away on laptops balanced on their knees.
I wished I had a distraction.
Desperate for something to save me from my own company on the flight, I made my way over to one of the gift shops that had a decent fiction section on the back wall. I scanned the spines and front covers of the books until my eyes landed on one of Wes’s.
A pang of regret hit me like a punch in the gut.
I reached for the book, turned it over in my hands, and read the summary on the back. It was a love story about two tourists meeting by happenstance on a tour in Rome. They were from two completely different walks of life but they changed everything to be with each other.
Wes believed in love. I knew for a fact he did. I’d read almost all his books and there was simply no way he could write such compelling love stories if he didn’t believe in it or want it for himself.
He just didn’t see it with me anymore because I’d ruined it.
In the blink of an eye.
I put the book down. I doubted reading one of his love stories would spare me from thinking about Wes. I scanned the shelves and settled on something out of my usual genre, a standalone fantasy adventure with monsters and creatures and dragons. I’d never read anything like it before and I figured now was the time.
I paid for my book and pretended the twenty-two-dollar price didn’t hurt my wallet.
Another half hour passed before boarding began. I waited for my section to be invited to board and fell into line behind a mother and father with three blonde children, all of whom looked as sleepy as I felt. I showed my boarding pass and passport to the flight attendant before going down the ramp and boarding the plane. I’d lucked out with a window seat, and I shimmied across the other two seats beside it before getting comfortable.
The seats beside me stayed empty until the last two people got on the plane. A young couple took their seats beside me. She smiled warmly at me as her boyfriend put their bags in the overhead compartment. When he took his seat, they held hands. He kissed her knuckles and checked in on her, asking if she was nervous. She whispered something in his ear that made him chuckle.
Great. So much for not thinking about love on this flight.
After takeoff and reaching the proper altitude, the drink cart came around. The couple ordered mimosas. I ordered green tea.
When they got their drinks, they toasted to a trip well spent and how much they were looking forward to getting home and seeing their dog.
I wished I could just curl up in a hole and die.
This wasn’t how my trip was supposed to end. New York was supposed to be my big break. Now what was that escape going to be for me? The chances felt slim that I’d ever get out of Waynesville again. I was destined for the same future there every other woman led. I understood it made them happy. I understood it was their dream, like New York was mine. But living in that town and marrying a man from there felt like a nightmare.
I didn’t want to be the housewife to a man who played golf on the weekends and worked twelve-hour days to come home to a house that was spotless and a home-cooked meal on the table. I didn’t want to be a homemaker. Hell, I didn’t even know if I wanted to be a mother.
My skin crawled and the plane felt about two times smaller.
I pulled my book out of my bag and drew my knees up to my chest. I angled myself toward the window so that my back was to the couple and I didn’t have to see them being sweet to each other. I started reading. The book was compelling, much more so than I thought it would be, but after reading ten pages or so, my mind would wander back to Wes.
He was probably just waking up around now. Perhaps he was making coffee in his French press and listening to the rain.
Was he thinking about me like I was thinking about him? Would he care when he found out I’d left New York, or would he think it was for the best?
I rested my chin on my knees and stared at the page of my book until the words blurred from my tears.
Chapter 30
Wes
Harriet’s chipper voice filled the speakers of my car as I drove away from my house on South Central. “I have good news,” she said. “Wilson said the hardcopies are in. I’m going to swing by his office this afternoon and pick up a few boxes. Will you be around later for me to drop them off and leave them with you to sign? I need them done before Monday morning so I can distribute them.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, Monday works.”
“So I can drop them off this afternoon?”
“Sure.”
“You sound distracted, Wes. Is everything all right?”
Nope. I fucked up and I have to make up for it.
“Everything is fine,” I said. “I just have some personal things I have to take care of today. If I’m not there when you swing by with the books, let yourself in the side gate and come around to the backyard. Leave them by the patio doors so they’re under cover.”
“Are you going somewhere?”
“I have someone I need to meet. It’s important. I know it’s not ideal and you need me at home but—”
“Wes,” Harriet said rather warmly. “Don’t stress about the books. We’ll get it done. We always do. Take care of what you must. Just call me if you need anything, okay?”
I grinned. “I hope you’re paying this relationship counselor of yours well.”
Harriet l
aughed. “Watch it, smartass. But just for the record, I am.”
I chuckled and we ended the call when I was only five or so minutes from Briar’s apartment. Traffic became gridlocked about two blocks away, delaying me an extra ten minutes, but eventually, I arrived and pulled into an open parking spot on the curb. I paid the meter and hurried up to the front doors of the building.
I scanned the list of residents on the intercom until I found Sonia’s name. I buzzed up and waited for an answer.
It was delayed, but eventually, Sonia’s voice filled the tinny-sounding speaker. “Hello?”
“Hello? Sonia? This is Wes. I’m looking for Briar.”
“Oh. Wes. Hi. I’ll be right down, okay?”
I frowned. Why did Sonia want to come down? “Okay.”
I waited out of the rain under the canopy above the front doors until I saw someone who appeared to be Sonia coming through the lobby. She smiled at me and stepped out into the chilly morning.
“Does she not want to talk to me?” I asked worriedly.
Sonia bit her bottom lip. “I’m sorry, Wes. Briar got on a plane and flew back to North Carolina this morning.”
My mouth fell open. “What?”
Sonia nodded. “Yeah. She was in the air at nine thirty.”
“Shit.”
“I’m sorry.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “You have nothing to be sorry about. This is my fault. I was such an asshole to her.” I let my hand fall to my side. Why did I have to react so negatively? Why couldn’t I have seen the whole picture when Briar told me about the reporter? “I have to go.”
“Where?”
“The airport.”
“Are you going after her?” Sonia called as I turned and rushed down the sidewalk.
I slid to a stop at my car and hollered back, “Yes!”
If I’d have turned back, I would have seen Sonia throw a victorious fist in the air. But I didn’t because I had an airport to get to and a girl to catch.