Ripley squeezes my arm. “I know, hon. I’m not saying you broke up with him. I’m just trying to understand if maybe there was a misunderstanding?”
I slice my hand through the warm evening air, scented with lavender that’s not calming me. “There is no misunderstanding. This is not a misunderstanding situation. This is not a miscommunication. It was clear. And I was not going to let him just?—”
I stop myself now. I used that word—that little wedge word. That little justification. That little double-back word.
My brain hurts. My heart hurts. “It’sjust,” I say, trying again, and my throat tightens and tears well, “I was falling in love with him, and then when things didn’t go perfectly, he got all cold.”
Bridget rubs my back. “Did you tell him you were falling in love with him?”
I recoil. “Why would I do something like that?”
She laughs. Ripley does too.
“Because he can’t read your mind,” Bridget says matter-of-factly.
“Thank god he can’t read my mind,” I say. “My mind is a terrifying place.”
“It’s full of DNA rearrangement and tonsil invitations and hot garbage analogies,” Ripley says dryly.
“Good thing he can’t read it,” Bridget adds. “But maybe he felt embarrassed yesterday. Maybe things spiraled out of control for him. Maybe he didn’t handle it well. But maybe he also didn’t have all the facts about your feelings.”
“Feelings aren’t facts,” I say, since I’m helpful like that.
“They’re not, which is why sometimes we have to spell them out like they are facts. Because otherwise, other people won’t know,” Bridget says, making too much sense.
I look at her straight on, then at Ripley—my two closest friends since forever. They’ve been through everything with me—high school, college, my impetuous marriage and divorce, my struggles to earn a living, my getting fired, and now this.
“Are you saying I should just go up to the guy who broke my heart and say, ‘Hey, I was falling for you, and you hurt me’?”
Bridget shrugs likeyes.
Ripley offers a hopeful smile. “Depends on what you want in life. Depends on what regrets you want to have. Do you want to wonder if you should’ve told him that your feelings were facts? Ordo you want to hold on to that little stubborn side of you—that is beautiful and purely you—but that also might make you wonder what would’ve happened if youhadtold him?”
I let out the biggest irritated sigh of my entire life and drop my head. “I came over here for sympathy.”
“And you got tough love,” Bridget says.
I raise my face and turn to look at her. She’s so together—from her hair to her clothes to the way she runs her inn. She’s got this wholegets stuff doneapproach to life. “Someday, some hot-as-fuck man in a suit is going to walk into your life and mess everything up for you, and I’m going to giveyoutough love.”
Bridget smiles. “Bring it on.”
Ripley stands and brushes one palm against the other. “What do you say we have some wine, make a little picnic, go into my lavender maze, eat some cheese, and figure this out?”
“I say yes, but I’m not going to have the talk with Sawyer till after the fundraiser. It’s tomorrow night. I have to get through a song and dance with him, and if he breaks my heart beforehand, I’ll be a hotter mess than I already am.”
“You’re not a hot mess,” Bridget says.
I think about this summer—the way my business has grown, the way I’ve grown. How I’ve learned how to manage my life better rather than letting it manage me.
“You’re right. I’m just hot,” I say, then lift my chin high.
“So hot,” they say together.
And we drink wine, eat cheese, and get lost in the lavender maze.
38
THE POP-IN
