She’d hoped the walk would untwist her insides, but her concerns about how things were going between Drake and his brother gnawed at her gut. As if he could sense her mood, Oscar nudged her hand. She found a smile for him, especially when a duck swam to the edge of the lake and sent him barking and running toward it. Laughing as she let him tug her through the trees toward the shore, she was surprised to realize that they’d walked all the way to the edge of town.
It was straight out of a picture postcard—the bright blue sky, the lake sparkling in the sunlight, a pretty white gazebo at a waterfront park. During the past five years, Rosa had filmed all over the world and was lucky to have seen incredible beauty on nearly every continent. But nothing affected her the way this small main street on the lake did.
Summer Lake looked like the kind of place where everyone knew one another—and had one another’s backs too. Where kids grew up together jumping off the dock in summer, building snowmen in winter, and high school sweethearts became husband and wife in a sweet ceremony on the beach with everyone in town celebrating their love.
Longing settled deep as Rosa imagined what it would be like to live here. She couldn’t stop herself from spinning off into a fantasy of living in one of the lakefront cottages, stitching art in an upstairs studio at a gallery on Main Street, chatting on the sidewalk with friendly faces. Drake was in every frame of her daydream, of course. Waking up in his arms every morning. Creating with him. Dancing on the beach as the sun set. Skinny-dipping at midnight beneath the stars and making love in the lake.
Oscar shook himself, splattering her with enough water and sand to bring her back to reality. One where she was an infamous star who still needed to deal with an endless stream of naked pictures, not to mention her fractured relationship with her mother.
But even as she tried to remind herself of all the reasons her daydream could never become a reality, she couldn’t silence a voice inside her head that was saying, Why not?
All along Drake had believed she could make a change, that she was strong enough to do whatever she truly wanted. Slowly, during this week with him and Oscar, she’d started to believe too. At least, until she’d stumbled into a fresh freak-out this morning.
But she was still standing, wasn’t she? She hadn’t fallen completely apart again.
Oscar tugged her forward into town, taking her close enough to be able to read the Lakeside Stitch & Knit sign on the awning of one of the stores. Suddenly, all she wanted was to lose herself in beautiful yarn and thread. She still had a few twenty-dollar bills in her pocket and would love to add some reds and oranges to the blue and green threads she’d been playing with all week.
But she didn’t have her big sunglasses on, or with her. And even if she did, Oscar was a massive enough presence that they weren’t exactly going to go unnoticed. The odds of someone on the pretty main street discovering her were fairly high.
Yesterday, she would have turned around. Wouldn’t have dared set foot in a small-town street, let alone a yarn store. But once upon a time she’d been a strong, confident person, hadn’t she? And even if at eighteen she hadn’t truly understood the ramifications of her career choice, she’d chosen it. No one had pushed her into it, and she wouldn’t lay that blame on her mother or the network. Staying on TV for five years had also been her choice.
Only a few days ago, she hadn’t recognized the strength Drake portrayed in his paintings—had even doubted his vision of her. But as she peeled back the layers of shame about the pictures, with Drake supporting and loving her through every single step, she finally saw that her strength was still here.
She was still here.
And she was finally ready to reclaim her life. Every last piece of it, from career to family to love.
She’d start, Rosa decided, by walking into Lakeside Stitch & Knit with her head high and getting her hands on some pretty new thread. Thread that she was going to make art with. Art that she was going to stop belittling by calling it a hobby.
Funny how things could feel so unclear for so long. Until suddenly they weren’t anymore.
Rosa had hidden long enough. Not only during the past week, but by hiding who she really was all these years.
The walk she and Oscar had been taking through the woods had been slow and meandering. Now, purpose underlay her every step. Her heart was pounding hard, and she couldn’t lie and say she wasn’t scared. But she was going to push through that fear for once, rather than letting it continue to control her.
“Be a good boy while I go into this store,” she said to Oscar as she tied his leash to a lamppost right outside the store. She could have sworn he nodded at her before lapping at a bowl full of water that some nice dog lover had put outside. She gave him a pat on the head. “I won’t be too long.”
She wouldn’t have said she was cool as she walked into the store, but she wasn’t on the verge of passing out either. The moment she crossed this threshold was her fresh start. No more running. Not from strangers. Not from the press. Not from her family.