Page 85 of Dandelions and Smoke

He wraps his arm around her and kisses the top of her head while they admire a photo together of the two of them barefoot and running toward a pond that’s here on the ranch. Looking back over their shoulders, they both wear the same childlike wonder in their eyes as they smile at whoever snapped the picture.

“Pretty soon we’ll have a little one that looks like both of us running around here,” he murmurs, earning a collective and drawn-out ‘aww’ from all of us.

“Stop. If you make me cry, I’ll be all blotchy when people arrive in an hour.”

My pulse stutters, and my happy thoughts quickly turn as a cold sweat breaks out across the back of my neck.

“Wait, what?” I look at my phone to check the time, seeing that we’ve somehow been at this for three hours and it’s already half past twelve. “But the party doesn’t start until two-thirty.”

I should still have two hours to get this done and look presentable.

“The invitations you sent out say one-thirty,” Abby replies.

At the same time, Sammy pulls up the invitation on his phone to show me, confirming that they say one-thirty and not two-thirty, meaning I have not only messed up again, but I have lost a complete hour. My hands shake as I grab the checklist from my pocket for what has to be the tenth time in the last three hours.

I know I’ve already checked off that the tables are done twice now, but if I don’t look again, I’ll convince myself I’ve forgotten something else. Halfway down the list, I spot the baby books and glance up. That’s right, the cards and gifts table is missing the books. I move toward the books before catching myself. No. Finish the list first.

I reach the bottom and start at the top again, reading until the words look blurry. It’s not until Sammy rests his hand on my arm that I realize the reason the words look blurry is that they’re shaking.

“Is everything alright?” he asks, and it’s like my brain doesn’t just start buffering, but it seizes completely.

His question opens up the floodgates of thoughts of everything that’s most definitely not alright, and my breathing becomes erratic.

“I think I broke the short one,” Sammy says loudly, his voice full of worry.

“What’s wrong with her?” Abby asks from somewhere out of sight, completely unaware of the meltdown I’m having but about to find out.

“What’s wrong with me?” I laugh, knowing she only means it in this moment, but unable to help the way my mind starts to make its long list in my head. “What’s wrong with me? Ha, let’s see, do you want the list or the PowerPoint? The PowerPoint has pictures. It’s quite a delight. Let me tell ya’.”

Noticing the strain in my voice, everyone stops what they’re doing and turns their matching furrowed brows and wide eyes at me.

“Let’s see, shall we?” I start listing as I’ve done so many times before. “My mother was an alcoholic, my father wanted me aborted, I have ADHD that sometimes can be a real bitch especially when I think I have a whole extra hour, but I don’t because I messed up, like I always mess up everything.”

“Rory,” Hannah says softly, but the gentleness in her voice only reminds me that I’m losing control and now everyone can see it.

“You haven’t messed anything up,” Lettie says sternly.

“Ha,” I laugh, but there’s little humor in it. “Except that’s exactly what I’ve done. I finally get everything I’ve ever wanted, and it’s like the universe noticed and said, ‘Not today’. Now I’m going to lose my friends, my home, and the only man I’ve ever loved because apparently being me means never being able to have love.”

The tears are spilling uncontrollably down my cheeks now, and soon I’m being smothered by a large body as two arms wrap around me. Lucas holds on until my silent tears turn into sobs and only backs away when Abby appears and ushers me to a seat beside Lettie.

Sniffling and embarrassed, I sit down, muttering apologies for losing my shit, but no one here is looking at me like I’m the problem.

“Don’t do that. Don’t apologize for being brave enough to ask for help,” Hannah says, pulling a seat over to sit with us.

“I didn’t. I’m not,” I stutter. “I’m fine, really. I want to focus on getting this party ready. Please. Today is Lettie’s day. Let’s forget I said anything.”

Similar to how Sammy’s been keeping Lettie seated, now it’s Lettie’s turn to do the same to me. She places her hand on my shoulder as I try to stand.

“Absolutely not. My day means I get what I want, and right now that’s some answers,” Lettie declares as a matter of fact. Her brows lift slightly, the tight line between them disappearing as she takes my hand and smooths her thumb over it. “Rory, what’s going on?”

I open my mouth to deny the truth again, but close it. After my little crash-out, there’s not much that denying anything will do now to change the minds of the five people standing around and staring at me expectantly with different expressions of concern written on their faces.

The words that I’ve been holding on to for weeks sit heavy on my tongue. Every instinct screams to keep quiet, to swallow the words before they can escape. But another part of me, the exhausted part, wants nothing more than to stop pretending and let someone else carry a piece of this with me, even if there’s nothing they can do about it.

I swallow hard over the knot of emotion lodging in my throat and fiddle with my hair ties as I try to find the words.

“Why don’t you boys go grab Rory and Lettie some water?” Abby suggests giving us girls some more privacy.