“Who?”
“My mom. She just left. I got up this morning and I ran away. You deserve much better. A real woman won’t freak out and leave.”
“How could you think that? You’re everything I want. Every. Single. Thing.”
“I want you too, but I can’t handle the thought of hurting you like that. Like she did my dad. Like Rachelle hurt you. I don’t think I can do this.”
She turned away from me and faced the water.
I didn’t like how it felt.
And I hated what it was beginning to sound like.
“You can do this. We can do this.”
I reached out to touch her, but she pulled away. I saw a tear fall from her eye before she knocked it into the water below.
“I just don’t think I can be what you want me to be. I tried, but some things in small towns like this really don’t ever change. I think I’m one of them.”
“You’re wrong,” I countered. How could she think that? After all of the time we’d shared. After she told me she loved me. “You said you…”
“I know what I said last night, Vaughn. But maybe I just said it because I wanted you to hear it? What do I know about love?”
My stomach tightly knotted, I couldn’t believe what she was saying.
“You’re just scared. You don’t mean that.”
She couldn’t.
“I think I need to be alone.” She pulled her feet up and rose, standing over me. “I just don’t see how this will work. You want more than I can give you right now. More than me.” Where her face had shown emotion just moments ago, there wasn’t much showing anymore.
I scratched my head and gave my hair a frustrated pull. “What can I say to make you realize…”
“Just stop,” she said, and held up her hand. “I can’t. Don’t follow me. Go home.”
Then she walked away.
It was the right thing to do. How would I ever have made him truly happy? I was my mother’s child, born to leave. If anything, that morning had proven it.
And what about my dad? I’d be another woman he loved who abandoned him.
I called him after Vaughn finally pulled away to let him know I was going to be at the cabin for a few days, and that I was taking Monday and Tuesday off.
“Are you sure you’re okay, kid? You sound a little low.”
It was unlike me to mope, and I was in the middle of Mope-a-palooza. Even though I’d tried to sound normal, he easily picked up on it.
“I’m fine. I just want to spend some time out here. Clear my head.”
Avoid seeing Vaughn and changing my mind.
It was better for everyone if I took a step back for a few days.
After promising three more times I was fine, he told me to call if I needed anything.
Vaughn had sat on the dock for a while, then a while longer in the van, before he left. I didn’t get why he’d had the Astro out there anyway. Something must have been messed up again on the Escalade, and if he was going to be in the shop, I didn’t want to see him.
I was pitiful, not even fishing the whole time I was there. I lay in bed and cried like one of the girls I always swore I’d never be.
I did love him, but I loved him enough to want something better for him. Someone better. Someone who knew how to be the woman he wanted.
I’d miss him—miss everything—but I’d been alone before. I could handle it.
The hours ticked by.
Then the days did, too.
It was going to take time for things to get back to normal. For me to go back to the same old Mutt I was before him.
He’d move on.
Hell, he moved on with me pretty fast after Rachelle. He’d surely move on even faster from what we almost had. They’d been together for years. We’d only had the summer.
I tried to rationalize it that way. It was a summer fling, and I’d have to think of it like that. A falling star that burned out fast. A summer thunderstorm here and gone before we knew it, leaving damage in its wake. A bite on the line, that as cliché as it was, got away from us both.
I ignored calls from Sunny and Dean, but finally went home on Wednesday, taking the long way around town so I didn’t have to pass his house. I guessed that was just the way I’d be going into town for a while until I was sure I could handle not pulling into his drive.
Until I was confident I could keep my selfishness at bay.
Until I didn’t think about his hair when it was messy. Or his hands and what they could do. Or the way his voice sounded commanding and tender at the same time in my ear. Or, more importantly, that he’d said he loved me, too.
I still didn’t go to work though; instead, I found myself in the shed working on lures and getting beyond caught up on orders. I made dozens to have on hand.
Then, when I was finally tired enough, I was content to fall dead asleep. Instead of lying in bed reliving the passion and time we’d shared, I climbed under the blankets and closed my puffy eyes. Sleep came fast.
It didn’t matter.
I fell asleep quickly only to be cruelly reminded of him in my dreams.
I woke up on Thursday, after surrendering to the thought of him all night, deciding I had to start moving.
Work needed me.