Finally, his hands lowered to his sides. “Everything between us has been a competition—since we were kids. Well, here you go, Mac. You finally got what you wanted. You won.”
My hand found the knob at my back. I turned without meeting his gaze and fled. Pride and hurt and fear kept my feet moving down the hall and toward the stairs.
As furious tears found their way down my cheeks, I had the bitter satisfaction of knowing Brady was wrong.
Because I knew without a doubt, I hadn’t won anything at all.
twenty
MAC
The good thing about having a secret relationship was that when you went through a breakup, well, that was a secret, too. There wasn’t anybody to try to make you feel better or to shit-talk your ex. My friends and family just assumed I was my ornery self or experiencing a monthlong bad mood, which was, frankly, not unheard of.
Larry was still pining over Kayla, so she wasn’t one to pass judgment. Her moods were just as unpredictable as mine.
When I’d walked out of Brady’s apartment three weeks ago, I’d given myself one day to wallow. I didn’t deserve a pity party or to drown my sorrows in ice cream and sad movies. It had been my idea to break things off. I was the one who’d gotten scared by my own feelings for someone I was never supposed to feel those types of things for in the first place. And when I thought about how Brady had tried to handle the situation and manage me, it just made me feel that much more manipulated by forces outside my control.
So far, I’d avoided the places we both frequented. Now that the farmers’ market was back in season, I casually checked in with Candace to find out who was working the Judd’s booth and tailored my schedule accordingly. I didn’t go to bonfires at Abby’s anymore. Nor did I attend trivia nights at Trailview. My life was smaller than I liked it, but it felt like a fair trade-off. At least, until I couldsee Brady in public again without wanting to simultaneously burst into tears and strangle his neck.
He’d stopped posting on Chatter. All the content there was curated for promotion at the orchard.
It was probably wrong of me to wonder how he was or what he was doing. I didn’t have the right. But I’d heard through the grapevine that Brady had gotten a new truck and a clean bill of health. And Buck Adams had gotten his license revoked.
The fight with Brady kept me up at night sometimes. It was stupid to dwell on it and why his words had struck such a blow. But as I struggled to sleep, I often replayed the things he’d accused me of. I didn’t think I hated my hometown or wanted to move away. Not really. Yet I couldn’t reconcile the ideas I’d had in my youth and adolescence. That getting out was the escape route to something more, something better. Rationally, I knew that my parents weren’t losers. I didn’t see Larry as a disappointment or Abby or anyone else who’d stayed.
Sometimes, the qualities we admire in others only look like weaknesses in ourselves.
There was probably some complicated psychological reason our brains did that—found shortcomings and underlined them in bright red permanent marker—but all I knew was it made me feel like a failure.
Maybe it was because I’d never even tried to leave. I’d never entertained the idea of living elsewhere or working somewhere new. Even as a teenager, I hadn’t applied for college. I’d watched my peers write essays and fret over volunteer work to beef up their applications. I’d always known the farm was my future.
It was like Brady had seen all my hypocrisy and self-loathing and thrown it in my face. He was my opposite in so many ways. He’d seen the world and chosen home. I’d been too apathetic—too complacent—to even do that much.
The postcards and the travel magazines and all my browser tabs of hypothetical travel destinations mocked me, highlighting how truly disappointing I was. I’d created some fantasy version of myself and hidden her away. The horrible irony was that who I really wanted to be was a tourist—same as the ones I barely tolerated on a daily basis.
What did it say about me that I resented the people who found something to love about my hometown when I couldn’t find it within myself to do the same? I’d always told myself that the leafers didn’t appreciate the land and the residents and our livelihood, the simplicity of it, the value in it. But truthfully, I didn’t understand how the thousands of tourists we entertained on the farm every year chose to make their way here—a tiny, podunk town in the mountains of North Carolina—when there was a big, wide world out there to be explored.
“Are you coming in or what?” Larry shouted from the porch of Will and Becca’s house, jolting me out of the punishing thoughts currently running on a painful loop.
It was our May book club meeting, and I didn’t want to be here. No disrespect to Becca, but I just wasn’t in the mood for socializing. I hadn’t even read the book. I’d made it to chapter two, where the hero had been described as having messy brown hair and piercing blue eyes, and had slammed the book shut, unwilling to read any more.
But Larry stayed on the porch until I exited the Jeep and made my way up the steps.
“It’s a small crowd,” my cousin offered, probably to help get me in the door. Or maybe to indicate there would be less casualties for my shitty mood. “Becca made lime punch,” Larry added helpfully.
I nodded and reached for the doorknob.
“Mac . . .”
I finally faced my cousin when her voice trailed off.
“Did something happen?” she asked quietly. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Larry scrutinized me, and I knew what she saw. Dark circles beneath my eyes from lack of sleep. A messy bun on top of my head from lack of motivation. And a blank expression on my face from a lack of anything more to offer.
“What about you?” I said. “Did you talk to Kayla yet?”
