I take a sip of wine and decide deflection is the best course of action. “For the record, I’m still pissed you sent him after me.”
Molly blinks, then looks contrite. “We gave him an option. He made the choice for himself.”
“And youaren’tpissed,” Avah adds.
She’s a little bit right. I’m not pissed at them. I’m pissed at myself for letting him in. For letting my guard down on a mountain in Montana like the big sky erased every lesson I’ve ever learned about self-preservation. Our two-night stand in Nashville was hard enough to get over. I spent fourteen months convincing myself it was a cancer-trauma-induced fever dream, and then he showed up on the trail with candy andWaldenand the uncanny ability to maneuver through every wall I’ve ever built.
And I fell for him all over again.
“We had fun,” I say, which is a laughable understatement.
“Fun,” Sadie repeats softly.
Avah snorts. “Are you sure that’s the word you want to use?”
Yeah, I’m not fooling anyone, least of all myself.
“Itwasfun. He made me laugh so hard my stomach hurt. Andhe also made me feel like I’m strong and capable. Someone worth choosing.”
“Considering the lengths he took to find you,” Avah says, “that’s one hell of an understatement.”
“Why do you have to get over him?” Taylor asks.
I clutch the chair’s throw pillow to my stomach as I think about the look in his eyes when I woke up in that hospital bed. As if I can press away the sick feeling that’s churning inside me.
“Because I refuse to be another person he feels responsible for.” I place the wineglass on the end table when my fingers start to tremble. “Jensen was a teenager when his mom got sick, and he put his life on hold to take care of her. I’m pretty sure he’s spent the past couple of decades repeating that pattern.”
The room is quiet, but I don’t glance up.
“I don’t want to become his next project,” I continue, my voice thin. “The broken bird he can’t resist rescuing because it’s the only love language he’s ever learned.”
“Is that what you think you are?” Piper asks. “A broken bird?”
“I think that’s what my body makes me look like.”
“You kicked cancer’s ass and then hiked through bear country for four days,” Iris points out. “That’s not broken, Sloane. That’s badass.”
“And it put me in the hospital.” I press my thumbnail into the seam of the pillow. “I don’t want to feel like I’m a burden. I know how he is. Being with me means worrying every time I sneeze. He shouldn’t have to do it again.”
“I don’t get the impression that’s how he thinks about you.” Avah shakes her head. “It isn’t how any of us think about you. You built a skank author”—she raises a hand to cut off Sadie’s protest—“up in your head. It seems like Jensen did something similar with you after Nashville, only you lived up to it.”
“Until he had to rush me to the hospital.”
“When people love you, they want to take care of you,” Sadiesays. “Not because we think you can’t take care of yourself, sweetie, but because sometimes that’s what love looks like.”
“He never said he loves me,” I protest weakly.
“He told you in a lot of other ways,” Taylor counters.
The words settle into place, where all the fears I’ve carried since long before my diagnosis are curled up and waiting. The scariest one of all rises to the surface. What if he sees all of me, even the shadows I’ve spent years hiding behind my sunshine, and it changes how he feels?
Jensen met a girl in a bar who gave him a fake name and left before he recognized anything real. I was strong and brave on the trail because I had a mission. But there have been nights I ended up on the bathroom floor long before cancer was part of the equation. When I felt too sad to do anything else.
I’m not all sunshine, and I’ve never let anyone see the broken pieces. Jensen makes me want to give him everything, but my everything has always been too much. I’m not sure I could survive seeing him look at me like that.
“Not to put too fine a point on it,” Piper adds, “but you touched his gnarly feet. That’s way more commitment than a ride to the ER.”
I laugh through my grimace. “It’s not the same thing.”
