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“I don’t know that. Unlike you, I don’t get to make up my reality. I don’t live in an imaginary world of characters and plots. I live in Marietta—”
“Maybe it’s time you left Marietta then. Maybe it’s time you ventured out and saw the world, going somewhere new—”
“Or maybe the person that doesn’t belong in Marietta leaves Marietta.” Her voice cracked. “Maybe you need to go.” She slammed the window shut and disappeared.
She cried after he left, cried for lost opportunities and broken dreams, and maybe, broken hearts. She’d fallen for him. Fallen pretty hard. But that didn’t necessarily mean they were meant to be. Now she just had to figure out how to stop wanting to see him and being with him.
It wasn’t going to be easy because Tyler Justice had taken up residence in her heart, and she could see the future she’d wanted, a future where they married and had babies but it was all a fantasy, just fiction, like those paperback novels stacked on the bookshelf in the living room waiting to be read.
Swiping away tears, she grabbed all of the paperbacks, every last one of them, and ran them out to the garbage and threw them away.
Never again would she read another story about the magic of falling in love. It wasn’t real. None of it was.
For the first time that Amanda could remember, she wasn’t happy to see Bette walking toward the salon the next morning.
Amanda’s hand tightened around the blow dryer, mimicking the knotting in her middle. She didn’t want to see Bette, and she didn’t want to talk to Bette. Not yet. Not until she’d properly processed everything and sorted through her feelings, including her feelings for Tyler.
Amanda turned off the blow dryer, telling her client that she’d be right back and then exited the salon to catch Bette on the front porch. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt Bette’s feelings, but she couldn’t handle having her sit in her chair today and make conversation. She needed Bette to give her some time and space.
“Mandy,” Bette said, giving her a concerned look. “You’re upset. I know you’re upset. Please let me fix this.”
“There is nothing you can do or fix. There is nothing anyone can do right now but let me try to sort out my feelings. I’m struggling, too.”
“Be mad at me, but not Tyler. He’s done nothing wrong.”
Amanda ground her teeth together. “That may be true, but I’m so very uncomfortable right now. I feel… tricked. Betrayed.”
Bette’s shoulders sagged. “This is all my fault.”
“Can we not do this now?”
“When can we talk then, my dear?”
Amanda looked away, her gaze sweeping the residential street and beyond. “I don’t know,” she said at length.
Bette’s shoulders slumped. “You came out here today, because you didn’t want me to come in to the salon.”
Amanda struggled with telling her the truth. She struggled to keep control. “I don’t think it’s good for my clients to hear any of this. It’s private. Personal. And I want to keep my personal life out of the salon.”
“You want to keep me out of the salon.”
“I want…” Amanda’s chest tightened, and her eyes felt dry and gritty. “I want… time. I need time to figure this out for myself.”
“So I shouldn’t come to the salon anymore.”
Amanda fought back tears. “I think taking a break would be good for both of us. It doesn’t need to be forever. A couple weeks perhaps. Or maybe a month.”
“A month?”
Bette’s crushed expression made it hard for Amanda to breathe. Part of her wanted to give Bette a fierce hug, and another part wanted to run away. She was in so deep with this family. She had too many ties. “Two weeks.”
“So I can come back in April?” Bette murmured unsteadily.
Amanda blinked hard, to dry her eyes. “That sounds good. We’ll both be feeling better about everything by then.”
“I never meant to hurt you, Mandy.”
Amanda’s tears fell. She furiously brushed them away, one after the other, even as she prayed that none of Carol Bingley’s minions were around because then everyone would be saying something horrendous like Amanda Wright got herself pregnant.
“I don’t know what I’m feeling. That’s the problem. That’s why I need time.” She struggled to smile but couldn’t. “And falling apart makes me feel so much worse. Please let me sort through this my way, okay?”
“Can I give you a hug?”
“Of course.”
Amanda hugged Bette back, fresh tears welling. And then Bette was carefully walking down the front steps and heading back to her car and Amanda returned to her station in the salon to finish the blow out for her client. But between her next clients, she told Emily to cancel her appointments for tomorrow, and the rest of the week, and to be on the safe side, the week after that as well. She was going to take a break from Marietta. She needed to leave town. Marietta was too small for her and the Justice family.
It took Amanda four and a half hours to reach the Sheenan’s cabin overlooking Flathead Lake, and she’d cried for probably two hours of that drive, not straight, obviously, but off and on, especially when certain songs came on the radio and then she’d think of Tyler and the trickle of tears would start again.
She finally turned off the radio and drove in silence, the windows down to allow the bracing March air to swirl in and out of the car, the cold chilling her, making her shiver, but at least freezing the tears in their tracks.
She was not going to think of him.
She was not.
Her fingers flexed against the steering wheel as she approached Polson, and then Sweetheart and then, at last, Cherry Lake. The little town of Cherry Lake was the perfect place to go as the summer tourists wouldn’t descend on Flathead Lake for another couple of months, and the orchards of cherry trees weren’t yet in bloom, which meant it was only locals in the sleepy little towns dotting the beautiful blue lake.
A number of Marietta residents had family that lived in Polson, Cherry Lake, Sweetheart or Kalispell, while others, like the Sheenans, had a vacation cabin in Mission Mountains, but the Wright family didn’t have any connection to the area. She was grateful Trey and McKenna offered the family cabin to her when she asked if it was available for a few days. She supposed she could have booked herself into a B&B or small hotel, but she really wanted solitude and the Sheenan cabin fit the bill.
Parking in front of the split log house, she looked up at the old-fashioned log cabin. It wasn’t very big, and it wasn’t fancy, but it had a simple, welcoming façade and a lovely stone chimney and she couldn’t wait to open up the shutters and build a fire and begin reading the thick literary novel she’d had on her shelf for two years but hadn’t yet opened. The book had one of those dark, murky covers and promised a “powerful, unnerving examination of current society,” which sounded thoroughly depressing, and honestly suited her just fine. As long as it wasn’t a love story, she’d enjoy it.
After unlocking the cabin and opening the windows and front door to air it out, Amanda made up the bed in the master bedroom, fluffed the beautiful antique quilt, and took stock of the supplies in the kitchen. The cabin had been used a few weeks ago, and still had the basics, but she’d need perishables like bread, milk, and eggs. After jotting down a list of supplies she’d want to pick up in town, she climbed back into her car and drove into Cherry Lake.
She poked around downtown, peeking into some of the stores, and window-shopping in others. It was a cute little town, and she made a mental note to return to visit one of the art galleries, before heading to the market to buy her groceries and pick up firewood.
She was back to the cabin within an hour, and unloading the groceries from the trunk of her car, she paused to listen to
the twitter of the birds above her, and breathe in the fresh scent of pine. She’d never been one of those kids that went away to camp, and her parents hadn’t enjoyed car trips, either, but living so close to Paradise Valley and Yellowstone meant that she’d grown up with mountains and big trees and beautiful rivers in her backyard, and there was something infinitely good and comforting in being here now.
For a moment she imagined Tyler here with her, and it made her feel terribly wistful and teary, and the sorrow was like a hollow thing inside of her. She didn’t know how she’d ever survive living in a small town so close to him, but not with him. It was inevitable, too, that she’d spot him places, and people would mention him and he’d be near, but always just out of reach. The idea of seeing him, but not being his… the idea of seeing him with someone else, someone not her, made her want to throw up.
Amanda ruthlessly suppressed all thoughts of him, knowing she’d start crying again, just as she’d cried most of the drive to here, and she couldn’t do that, not so soon, not when she was so worn out. Besides, she’d come to Cherry Lake to escape him, not think of him, and she needed to remember that.
But as the days passed, Amanda found herself checking her phone, somewhat surprised that Tyler hadn’t texted or tried to call.
She’d rather thought he might.
She’d imagined he would. And then she’d imagined herself ruthlessly deleting his voicemails and texts. She’d imagined how good she’d feel ignoring him.
But he didn’t try to reach out to her, at all.
By Wednesday, Amanda was going stir crazy by herself in the cabin. The book she’d brought was beyond depressing and she missed conversation… but not just with anyone. She missed talking to Tyler.
And she missed Bette.
They weren’t just her friends. They’d come to feel like family. Her family. Her people.
On Thursday, when she was certain her phone would never ring again, she got a call from Charity.
“Bette fell.” Charity’s voice carried over the line, crisp and no nonsense. “She was taken to the ER and, fortunately, she didn’t break anything, but it was a hard fall, though—”
