my carton of ice cream.
So much for moving forward with my life.
After a night of fitful sleep, dreaming about Travis and feeling like crap, I knew there was more I needed to do to move on from him.
And I had a plan.
I was going to do something I had never done in my career before, but I had to follow my instincts and my heart.
I e-mailed my editor and asked her to fit me in at the last minute and that I was putting my current project on hold. Next, I e-mailed Robert Hahn and asked him for permission to use one of the pictures of Travis and me on a book cover. With a yes from both my editor and the photographer, I contacted my cover designer and told her what I wanted.
And then I sat down and started typing, and I didn’t stop.
I wrote The One That Got Away: An Unconventional Love Story in twelve days. It was the fastest I had ever written a book, but the second I typed The End, I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
Love didn’t always work out the way we wanted, but life went on, and my book represented that.
It wasn’t a normal romance novel, and there was a chance that I would receive a lot of backlash for what I’d written, but sometimes, as a writer, you had to let the words out of your head before you went crazy.
I set the release date as the day of the Iowa book signing but didn’t make a big deal out of it. No release blitz, no blog tour, no announcements. If people found it, great, but if they didn’t, that was okay, too. I had written the book for myself and my journey to healing.
The last step in my plan was asking Derek to do a favor for me. Now that The One That Got Away was finished, I regretted giving up my spot to someone else at the book signing. But such was life. I knew Derek would deliver my message, and hopefully, Travis would heal a little bit from my book, too.
Forty-Nine
Travis
I looked around the lobby of the hotel until I spotted Angela.
“Hey, Ang,” I said and kissed her on the cheek.
“Hey, stranger,” she said as she hugged me.
“It’s been a while, huh?”
“Can you believe it’s been a whole year?”
I shook my head. We always kept in contact, but we hadn’t seen each other in person since last year at this time.
Angela reached into her back pocket and pulled out a room key. “Here’s your key. Room 335. Why don’t you go upstairs and drop your luggage off, and then meet me back down here?” She looked over her shoulder and pointed to a room. “I’ll be right over there. That’s where the meet-and-greet is.”
“I’ll be right back,” I told Angela and headed for the elevators.
I was torn between taking my time and rushing back down. I hadn’t wanted to come to the event this weekend, but I’d missed Angela, and I’d promised her.
Also, deep down, whether I wanted to admit it or not, I wanted to see Sydney. I hadn’t seen her for over a month, and try as I might, I missed her. This weekend was the perfect excuse to see her again.
I’d tried to catch glimpses of her online, but she hadn’t posted much on social media. My sister was in her fan group and told me that Sydney was working on something and hadn’t been on there much either. I hoped she was okay. I still cared about her and worried about her.
Truthfully, I still loved her, and the more time that passed, the less upset I was with her. And that scared me because I’d taken Christy’s apologies over and over again, and nothing had changed. I couldn’t do that again.
I had no idea how this weekend was going to go. I wasn’t going to avoid her table, but I could only imagine how stiff the conversations were going to be.
I put away my things and went back down to the room off the lobby. I introduced myself at the door, got my name tag, and walked in. I saw Angela again but continued to look around.
“Hey, who are you looking for?” Angela asked when she walked up to me.
“Sydney,” I admitted.
Angela looked at me sympathetically. “Honey, Sydney’s not coming.”
My head swung back to my friend. “What?”
“Yeah, she contacted me sometime ago and told me she wasn’t attending. I figured