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She nods.
“Cooper. Cooper is stopping me.” I frown. “But I’ve made up my mind. The minute I leave the Cape, I’m on a train to New York to end things for good.”
“You’re serious?” she asks suspiciously.
“Dead serious.”
“Prove it.”
“You want me to prove that I’m going to break up with Cooper?” I ask, perplexed. “How?”
“Easy. Just pick up your phone and call him. Tell that rat bastard that you’ve wasted enough of your precious time waiting on his ass, and that now you found yourself a real man,” she says, picking my phone up from the stairs and handing it to me.
“I’m not going to do that,” I scold. “Just because I’m ending things with Cooper doesn’t mean I have to be cruel about it. He deserves a face-to-face conversation.”
“What Cooper deserves is a good swift kick in the ass,” she grumbles. “I get that you want to do the right thing by talking to him, but when was the last time he did anything right by you?”
“Piper—”
“Don’t Piper me, Lottie. You know I’m telling you the truth. End it with him before he gets in your head and messes up what could be something extraordinary. And don’t tell me he wouldn’t sabotage your happiness, if given the chance. That creep’s love language is manipulation and gaslighting. He doesn’t know anything else. When I thought you were in love with him, I held my tongue—”
“That was you holding your tongue?” I interject with a chuckle.
“Fair enough. Itriedto hold my tongue. But now? You’re going to hear me out. Cooper doesn’t deserve you. He never did. You’re just a trophy he likes to parade when it suits him and then place back on his mantle for safekeeping. But Nate? He’s a genuinely good guy, Lottie. Sure, he’s still a little rough around the edges, but he’s good where it counts.”
“I know that. Don’t you think I know that?” I counter, exasperated.
“Do you?” She cocks a manicured brow. “Then answer me this, Lottie—are you or are you not in love with Nate?”
My eyes find his immediately, my heart beating wildly in my chest at the shy smile he gives me.
“Yes,” I breathe out.
“Then what are you waiting for? Pick up that phone and end it with Cooper. The last few years of your entire relationship have been based on phone calls and texts anyway, so it will come as no surprise to him when you break things off over the phone.”
“It doesn’t seem right, though,” I explain anxiously, fiddling with the phone in my hands.
“And living a lie does?” she rebukes. “Putting your happiness on hold just because you don’t want to hurt that jackass’s feelings over the holidays doesn’t seem right to me either. You lost ten years of your life with that asshole. So what if you ruin one Christmas for him? The jerk will live.”
“I don’t know.” I bite my bottom lip nervously.
“Lottie, listen to me,” she urges, placing her hands on my shoulders so we face each other. “I get that you don’t want to hurt Cooper’s feelings—which I honestly don’t believe he has any, FYI—and that you want to let him down gently before entering into a relationship with anyone else. I get it. I do. All I’m saying is whether you break it off with Cooper over the phone or face to face, you won’t be able to prevent him from portraying you as the villain in his story for breaking things off. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be a villain in someone’s story than live as a martyr in mine.”
Though I know there’s no love lost between them, Piper’s words start to make sense to me. Whether I break it off with Cooper on the phone today or wait until after New Year’s to do it, the outcome will remain the same. He’ll hate me either way. His hurt ego won’t allow room for anything else.
I’ve sacrificed enough for this relationship as it is.
I won’t sacrifice my happiness any longer.
With my eyes still locked on Nate as he continues to goof around with my family, I pick up the phone and dial Cooper’s number.
But to my chagrin, he rejects my call on the third ring and sends it to voicemail.
Cooper just rejected my call… on Christmas.
What kind of person who claims to love the other does that?
Not believing he’d be capable of such a callous thing, I call him back, only for him to reject my call again.
