Page 120 of Once Upon a Fall

“So, are we good?” Hal asks, his eyebrows high on his forehead.

I open my mouth to tell him yes, but what comes out is: “Actually, no. I don’t think it will work this time, Hal.”

What? It’s like my subconscious took over for my brain.

Almost immediately, I want to take it back. And I almost do, especially when his eyebrows drop and his mouth pulls down at the corners.

But I can’t bring myself to say the words. I don’t actually want to tell him yes.

“Oh,” he says. “Right. Okay. Not a problem.” He forces his lips into a closed-mouth smile. “It was worth a shot.”

“It’s just that I cleaned it up and organized everything, and I finally put all my tools away, and my car is in there now, and I was going to get a workbench and one of those pegboard things for the wall. I swear, if I wasn’t using it, the garage would be yours. I’m really sorry,” I say, not being able to help the rambling words that come out of me.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says.

Easy for him to say. I can already tell this little encounter is going to haunt my sleep tonight.

Which is why, as Hal says goodbye and turns to leave, I almost say, Just kidding! Haha! I had you there. What a jokester I am. Of course you can park the truck there.

But I don’t. I say goodbye and then stand there as the door shuts, feeling kind of horrible.

Is my garage going to be tainted now? I don’t want to walk in there every day and chastise myself for not making room for Hal’s truck.

I test the theory. I go into the garage, and yep. It doesn’t give me that little jolt of happiness like it did before Hal came to the inn. It just looks like a drab, semi-organized space with a car that really could use a good washing.

I stand there for a second, feeling ridiculous about how much this is bothering me.

He only asked for a truck in a garage. Not a life-saving kidney or something.

So, why does it feel like it? Why does it always feel easier to inconvenience myself than to disappoint someone else?

That’s a very deep question that I’m not sure I want to know the answer to.

I sit down on the little step just inside the door, feeling terrible, and then the tears come. Maybe it’s exhaustion from barely sleeping while I worked on my room and the garage, or maybe it’s because I don’t know how to be okay with telling Hal no.

Some tears might also be for Dean. I miss him, and I hate how things turned out.

I let myself sit there for a while before getting up, turning the light off, and shutting the door.

“Rosie?” Emma says when I walk into the kitchen to find both her and Dominic standing there. “Where were you?”

“In the garage,” I tell them, trying to act cheerful even though I know my red face and swollen eyes will be a dead giveaway.

“What’s wrong?” Dominic asks.

“Nothing,” I say.

“Rosie,” Emma says.

“Can’t a girl have a good cry in her garage about a truck without her siblings needing to interrogate her about it?”

“Of course,” Emma says at the same time Dominic says, “What truck?”

“Never mind,” I say to Dom. It wasn’t really about the truck anyway. It just happened to be the thing that tipped me over the edge.

“Why are you here?” I look from one sibling to the other.

“I was helping Emma put a shelf up at the library, and she said we should check on you,” Dominic says.