been saying all along—since I was sixfuckingteen—that there were good reasons not to mess with her? I’d been right! Look what had happened! How the hell I ever thought we’d be able to navigate this road once we threw sex into the relationship was beyond me.
My mother was right—I was an idiot.
Twenty-Four
Meg
I’m not sure how long I sat on that stupid parking stop bawling my eyes out. Ten minutes? Twenty? An hour?
I just kept hoping he would change his mind and come back. I imagined him pulling up, stopping the engine, and jumping out of the car to take me in his arms and tell me how wrong he’d been. Tell me I wasn’t alone. Tell me he loved me.
But it was a fantasy.
Things like that don’t happen in real life. Not to girls like me, anyway. Even Sylvia, beautiful, perfect Sylvia, had cried over her broken heart this morning. If she couldn’t figure this out, what chance did I have?
Eventually, I dragged myself back to my car and went home, lacking the energy to take the run I’d planned. Thankfully, no one was in the kitchen when I came in, and I was able to make it upstairs without talking to anyone.
In my bedroom, I curled up on my bed and cried some more, replaying the entire week in my mind, wondering how I could have been so wrong about him. After a few minutes, I heard a knock on my door.
“Who is it?” I called, wiping my cheeks.
“It’s Sylvia. Can I come in?”
“Yeah.” No point in putting this off.
My door opened, and my sister appeared. She wore the khaki pants and green Cloverleigh Farms shirt of an inn employee. Her face had been made up. “Hey. You okay?”
“No.” I stayed where I was, curled into a ball. “Did you bring any Twinkies?”
“No, sorry.” She shut the door and sat at the foot of my bed. “I take it you talked to Noah?” she asked gently.
“Yes. It didn’t go well.” Fresh tears filled my eyes, and my nose was running terribly. “Can you get me a tissue please?”
Sylvia looked around, and spying the box on my dresser, went over and pulled out several sheets.
“Just bring the whole box,” I told her.
She brought the box over to the bed and set it down on the mattress. “That bad, huh?”
“Worse.” Sitting up, I grabbed a tissue and blew my nose. “I’m so stupid.”
“No, you’re not.” She sat down and put a hand on my leg. “You’re brave. And beautiful. And brilliant.”
“I don’t feel any of those things.” I started weeping again, feeling helpless against the tide.
“Tell me what happened.”
“I went to the park to see him. He was babysitting his nephew Ethan this afternoon, and you should see him with that little boy. He’s so good with him. There’s no way he doesn’t want kids deep down.”
“You brought up having kids?” Sylvia asked, her eyes going wide. “I thought you were only going to talk about moving here.”
“I was. I did.” But now I couldn’t recall exactly what I said. “It wasn’t like I was pressuring him to get married or anything. All I did was ask him what he thought about me living here.”
“And?”
“And he pretty much said he didn’t care where I lived.” Between fresh bursts of tears, I told Sylvia how we’d argued, how he’d gotten angry with me, how he’d refused to give us a chance.
She rubbed my leg. “I’m really sorry, Meg. I know how you feel about him.”
“I’m in love with him, Syl.” I flopped back onto my pillow. “And it’s hopeless. He doesn’t love me back.”
“He didn’t say that. I think he does love you, Meg. He just doesn’t want to lie to you or lead you on.”
“So then what good is love anyway?” Angry, I curled up on my side again, wishing I could shut myself away from the world. “My entire life, I’ve been waiting to fall in love like this, and now that I have, I’m even more alone than I was before.”
“But isn’t it better to know now?” she asked. “Before you turn your life upside down for him?”
I sniffed, unwilling to see it that way.
“Listen, you know how I told you that Brett is unfaithful?”
“Yeah. Bastard.”
“At this point, I wish more than anything he’d just admit it. I can’t stand all the lies.”
“Would you leave him?”
“I don’t know.” She wiped away her own tears. “All I’m saying is that even if it’s not what you want to hear, you