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"I know, I know. That's why I wanted to talk to you. Because you know I've got dreams and—"
"Dreams?" Cole scoffed. "I guess what’s good for this town doesn’t factor into your dreams at all, then. You can just run off to New York and forget all about ripping the heart out of this place."
Ouch. That literally hurt. The room seemed to close in on me as I felt tears prick at the corners of my eyes. I shouldn’t have come here.
Suddenly, to my surprise, Cole laughed. "You know what? Why don't you go ahead and accept the offer? You think 7-Eleven is going to keep the floor I restored for you?"
"You didn't do it for me," I said more strongly than I meant to. "You did it for you. You said you weren't prepared to rip it out. You didn't ask me, you told me."
Cole looked at me as though I'd kicked him. "You're right," he said. "I did do it for me. Just like I do everything for me. Looking after your dog. Cooking you dinner. Fixing up your bar without pay. Letting my dreams wither and die."
I swallowed. “I’m not the reason your dreams have withered and died, Cole.”
"No,” said Cole tersely. “You have nothing to do with my dreams, Elara. Speaking of which, I think you should go back to your trailer. You wanted to spend less time together, didn't you?"
I didn't reply. I couldn't. I just left.
Back at my place, I curled up into a ball. I was so exhausted I couldn’t even cry. I just lay there, overcome with a deep kind of grief.
And while I lay there grieving, my phone buzzed.
It was an email from the Pierre Trouffant Pastry School. As I looked at the subject line, my heart felt like it was about to burst.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Cole
Ihad known that sooner or later, Elara would realize the truth about me. I'm an asshole.
It's a shame she'd found out so painfully, though. I was disappointed in myself. The things I’d said had been cruel and untrue. I had made out like I was some kind of martyr for looking after Anthony and fixing up her bar. In fact, I’d done those things for her because I cared about her. And obviously, she factored into my dreams. She factored into them so damn much it killed me. Because I knew that I didn’t factor into hers.
So, of course, when she’d mentioned 7-Eleven, I’d used it as some kind of excuse to let out the worst parts of myself. Naturally, I didn’t like the idea of a 7-Eleven moving onto our main street, especially when I’d put so much effort into helping this town flourish. But when I thought about it, when I really thought about it, I wasn’t upset with Elara for ripping out the town’s heart.
It was my heart I was mad at her for ripping out.
A couple of days after our argument, I was driving Rhea and Lexi back from their mother's house. I hadn't seen Elara once. She was finalizing her plans for leaving, no doubt. I’d probably done her a favor by being such an asshole to her. It made leaving very easy for her now.
"What are we doing this weekend?" Lexi asked from the back.
"Grandpa and Grandma are coming for dinner tonight. Then, tomorrow, I was thinking—"
"Beach?" They cut me off in unison, knowing me too well.
"You don't want to go to the beach?"
"Can't you take us to New York?" Rhea pleaded.
"No."
"Elara told us about Hamilton. I really want to see Hamilton," Lexi whined.
"And I want to go see the Statue of Liberty," Rhea added. "And I want to try a cronut at that bakery Elara was talking about. And I want a hot dog! Elara says they taste even better in New York."
Elara, Elara, Elara. I sighed. How long was it going to be before they stopped saying her name?
"We can't go to New York this weekend,” I snapped. “A trip like that needs preparation and planning. But I'll think about doing it one day, okay? And we can eat hot dogs in the yard tonight and pretend we’re in New York. I’ll even play traffic noise in the background if you like, make it authentic.”
I won’t make it look like Little Italy, though. I don’t think I could bear to go through all that again.
