AllFreeNovel
Share Us
How can thinking his name be so cathartic and painful at the same time?
Which brings me back around to Gran.
We’ve been at the lodge for two days, and I’m ready to leave. I stay in my room working or go down to the beautiful waiting area late at night, so I don’t have to talk with other guests.
Sarah and Dakota, I like chatting with, but even they’re . . . I know they know I screwed up with Mack, who hasn’t even sent a text.
But I have to move on. I have a house, a fixed car that runs better than it ever did. A career. And he didn’t say that he wanted me to stay. He asked when I was leaving.
“Are you still moping?” Vic asks as she comes out of the bathroom where she’s been getting ready.
She’s got a social life already.
She’s going out.
With Mack’s mother, of all people, with some others. They might have formed a posse, I don’t know.
“I’m not moping,” I say, sounding for all the world like I’m moping.
Gran pats my shoulder where I sit at my computer. “If you say so, dear.” Then she peers at the screen is that—”
“No.” I snap the computer shut. “Don’t stay out late. And don’t—”
“I’ll stay out as late as I like.” Vic fluffs her hair. This time she’s wearing a twist on a sixties dress, chunky black shoes, and hot pink leggings that London would drool over. She refuses, she says to ever act her age. Acting your shoe size, according to Vic, is much more fun. “And we don’t want to bore ourselves talking about idiots. If you leave, just write me a note.”
She sails out the door.
I slump back in my seat and close my eyes.
Why was I playing around designing a landing page for Danny’s non-existent website? Because apparently, there’s something wrong with me.
I need to go. Get out of Norhill Tops. It’s just on the border of late afternoon and early evening, and I know leaving now is stupid, but I can pack.
There’s a restlessness in my bones I need to assuage, so I start to pack.
Actually, most of my things are packed, so I dump them all out on the bed so I can pack them again.
The problem is nothing is sitting right. Not Mack, not me, not anything.
He wanted me to stay. He tried to control me in his Mack way, not out of malice or planning to take over my life, but to protect me. But he didn’t really ask, and that’s him. He might be laid back, but he’s a man who orders, who likes control. At least in some ways.
He didn’t ask me to stay at the garage. He . . . he asked me when I was leaving.
“Mack didn’t tell me he loves me.”
The moment I say the words, something settles in me.
I want him to love me. If he loved me, then everything else . . .
If he loved me.
I close my eyes and breathe. I want him to say he loves me because I’m completely head over heels in love with him.
Is this what Gran’s been trying to tell me to work out? That the motto isn’t about being strong or not when you go through a crisis?
Because right now, I’m thinking it’s a cleanse or a trial and about taking the risk and not having a safety net.
It’s about making the right decision.
