The room looked stark. Over the last week or so she’d worked there, but she hadn’tlivedthere. She hadn’t really had a life since she’d come home to find a note on the table, where it still sat—just a single envelope with her name on the front in Will’s handwriting.
“What is this?”she’d asked him on the phone through her tears. She’d come to the house, ready to get started on more renovations after long hours spent finishing her end-of-year paperwork at school.
“I’m sorry, Em. I didn’t want to hurt you.” He’d sounded distant, not the same Will she’d spent her evenings with, cuddled under a blanket in front of the TV after work.
“Well, it’s too late for that,” she’d spat at him. “You left me a note?”
He’d told her it had been a mistake to commit to marrying so young. He wasn’t ready.
Funny, he’d seemed very ready until recently. She’d combed through their last few months together, mentally bulleting the red flags she hadn’t noticed before: the faint rose scent wafting around him that she’d caught a couple of times, wondering where it was coming from; the few days he’d said he’d be late to work on the house because he had songwriter meet-ups, but he’d come in smelling like a grill, his cheeks rosy; the expensive lunches she’d found on the credit card that he’d brushed off, saying he got hungry. None of those things had been the end of the world at the time, but since the note they’d occupied her mind all day, every day. Her imagination ran rampant with scenarios about what had really been going on. How could Will have even gotten to a point where he was looking around for someone else?
Emily had sighed a breath of relief when they’d gotten engaged. She loved being with someone who got her, the one person she could be entirely herself with. She was glad there was no more dating in her future. She relished the little momentswith him—slips of time she couldn’t have with anyone else, like sharing a sink when they washed up after dinner or hearing him hum as he plucked his guitar on the couch while she put dishes away. Married life was what she was built for.
Planning a future as Mrs. William Jacobs had been easy. Once they got their house updated the way they’d planned, she’d expected to build their little family. She taught school during the day, then drove to their house and took long strolls through their neighborhood when the weather was nice, imagining all the years they’d make that same walk together, pushing strollers and tossing footballs with their kids. Will had occasionally gone with her. But he hadn’t joined her on those walks in quite a while. Perhaps the very monotony that made her so relaxed had been what had eventually broken them? Maybe he hadn’t been quite as invested in their dream as she was.
The worst part about the situation was that the only way to make the pain subside was to have the Will she’d promised to marry in her life. But even if he changed his mind, she’d never be able to take him back, knowing what he’d done. She hoped he was happy with the mess he’d made.
After gettingthe house in order, Emily went to her apartment and put away her groceries for one. Her phone rang. With a deep breath, she rolled her head and answered.
“Hey, it’s Sienna.”
“Hey.” Emily put her phone on speaker and slid a half-sized carton of eggs into the fridge.
“Sooo, what are you doing tomorrow?”
Emily righted herself. “Depends. Are we hiking or drinking coffee?”
Sienna chuckled. “Neither. We’re driving. Rocko told Blair to go whenever she wanted. Both he and Tyson are fine meeting up with us for the weekend. I don’t have any showings this week. How do things look for you?”
Emily stared at the groceries she’d just bought. In her old life, she’d have wanted to run things by Will, take her time, make a packing list so she didn’t forget anything, but right now all she wanted to do was get out of town because it reminded her of everything she’d lost.
“I’m wide open. What time do you want to leave?”
Sienna squealed on the other end of the line. “It’s a long drive. I’ll pick you up tomorrow at seven.”
“I’ll be ready.”
For the first time in her life, Emily didn’t care to make a single plan. She’d put the house key under the mat and told Will he could come and go with the agent as he pleased. She had her whole summer ahead of her, and it was time to start finding out who she was now.
THREE
Monday morning, Sienna pulled up outside Emily’s apartment in the royal-blue Maserati she’d bought after one of her larger home sales because she’d “needed a decent mode of transportation to show millionaire clients prospective homes.” She leaned out the window.
“Morning, Sunshine!” she called from behind a large pair of black sunglasses and a floppy hat.
Blair waved from the passenger seat.
“Morning.” Emily lugged her bags and the Yeti cooler Will had bought her for Christmas last year to the car and opened the trunk.
“What’s in the cooler?” Sienna asked.
“Eggs, cheese, cold cuts, lemonade, and a bunch of fruit. I didn’t want it to go bad.”
“Well, it might anyway. I’m planning on living on cocktails and seafood.”
Emily shut the trunk, climbed into the backseat, and cocked an eyebrow. “Cocktails?”
Sienna sighed. “Well, I’ll have a mocktail. But you know what I mean.” She threw her hands in the air. “It’s our girls’ trip!”
