I turn away, but Logan catches my arm. “Rose, wait. I can fix this—”
I pull free. “Stay the fuck away from me.”
I think I’m watching his heart break in real time, too. But I can’t take that on. I can barely stand.
Then Sunshine is there, her hand on my arm, steering me out of the restaurant and down the hall without a word.
“What room number?” she asks.
“Twelve.”
She takes the key from my fingers when they won’t stop shaking. Just as she gets the door open, Logan’s footsteps come fast down the hall. “Rose, I can’t let you just walk away from this—”
“Hang tight, honey,” Sunshine says, shutting me in the room.
Their voices bleed through the wall. I don’t listen. I stand in the middle of the room and look at the bed, the crumpled sheets, the place where I slept next to him, where I felt maybe the happiest I’d been in years. The thought of lying down in it makes bile rise in my throat.
Then, suddenly, I’m packing. I don’t think about it, I just move, shoving everything into my backpack. Fortunately, I didn’t bring much. By the time I’m zipping it up, Sunshine’s opening the door.
“I can drive you out of here,” she says, looking at my bag.
I nod. Then I hand her the red dress. “Please tell Maria I said thank you. I didn’t wash it, I didn’t get a chance—”
“I got it, don’t worry about that now. Easy-peasy. But I don’t know how long Logan’s going to give you. I told him you needed space and would talk to him later. If you’re planning ongoing,” she points at my bag, “then I’d say it’s time to skedaddle.”
“I’m ready.”
She nods once, and I follow her out. We move quickly, past the restaurant. Dash is there, unsurprisingly, waiting by the door with his hands in his pockets, like he’s been there a while.
“Babe, I gotta go,” Sunshine says. “I’ll catch up with y’all later.”
Dash doesn’t say anything. He just falls into step behind us.
We push through a side door and out into the humid morning air, bypassing the valet loop, cutting around the outside of the resort along a path lined with low landscaping lights. I don’t let myself look back at the building. I look at my shoes on the pavement instead.
I’m going to miss this place. It was a sanctuary for a little while. From the storm. The place where Logan and I stopped pretending, where we started to build something. That’s over now.
I swallow hard and keep walking. My hands feel clammy.
Sunshine’s VW is in the employee lot, tucked between a pickup and a catering van. I climb into the back. Dash folds himself into the passenger seat. Sunshine starts the car, and we pull out, and I watch the resort shrink in the rear window.
We cross the bridge in silence. Halfway over the water, something in my chest gives, and I start to cry—not quietly, not the kind I can swallow back. The ugly kind. The kind that hurts, deep in my soul.
Chapter 22: Logan
Iget it now.
I knew I’d fucked up, but thought I could fix it. I thought I had time. I wasn’t worried enough about the situation to be scared. So fucking stupid. I knew it would break her, but I assumed, the way I always assume, that I’d be able to fix it before she found out. Or that if she did, she’d let me fix it. She’d let me be an investor, she’d hear my apology, we’d solve it together.
I want to burn the look on her face out of my memory—the devastation, the pain, like I’d actually hit her. The way her dark eyes went wet and then hard when she understood what I’d done. I want to go back. I am terrified of losing her. But she’s already gone.
I haven’t seen her in days. We were only together that long to begin with. So why does this feel like someone died? When I close my eyes, there’s a moment when I see her sultry smile, her laughter, the way her eyes lit up when we danced. Then, in a flash, it’s gone, replaced by her hurt, her anger.
It barely fazed me getting back on a plane. I just had to get home as soon as possible. I needed to see her. I had no idea if I made it back to the city before her or not.
Returning home, work was the last thing on my mind, but I had surgeries scheduled, and I was almost grateful for thedistraction. At the hospital, the scrubs felt like a costume. I was playing the old version of me, where I had my shit together. Where nothing mattered more than work.
I run through the day’s cases with the senior resident, rattling off details on autopilot while some other part of me has stayed back in Georgia. My scrub nurse keeps shooting me worried glances across the table. I tell her I’m fine. She doesn’t believe me, and she’s right not to.
