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“So you’re in the cabin together?” Kayla prompts, sticking with her more serious approach of information gathering.
“Yeah, and at no point in there did you think . . . this is a bad idea? Sleeping in a cabin in the ‘middle of nowhere’, as you said, with a grunting Neanderthal a foot taller and wider than you who’d already shown anger management issues?” Samantha asks, now sounding like she thinks I might be too stupid to live. I suddenly remember that she’s a psychologist and is probably analyzing my (lack of) self-preservation skills.
“Of course, I did, but I trusted my gut. I could tell that Cole was sweet and kind, caring, and considerate. I mean, maybe not at first, but there were circumstances there. After that, he slept on the couch, made me coffee, and . . . Oh! You should’ve seen how gentle he was putting lotion on my back when I got poison ivy.” I’m throwing out his good points like I’m narrating his highlight reel, but they don’t look like they believe me.
“It rubs the lotion on its skin,” Luna says vacantly, and I think it’s a quote from an old movie because it doesn’t sound like her voice.
“Did he push you into the poison ivy in the first place?” Samantha suggests, and I laugh at the idea of Cole pushing me anywhere.
Maybe to the bed?
Well, yeah . . . that’d be fine. But that’s not the kind of shove Samantha means.
“What? Of course not. I was lying in it when we were—” Oops! I stop abruptly. Selling them on Cole’s awesomeness doesn’t include telling them what he does. He’s intentionally kept that secret, and it’s his truth to share. So, I can’t say we were spying on Mr. Webster. Instead, I continue, “Uhm, watching an owl that flew overhead. I didn’t recognize that it was poison ivy when I laid down. I probably still wouldn’t, even though Cole told me how many leaves it has. But just between us, if someone held up two pictures of plants and asked me to identify the one that turned my back and hip into scaly patches of hellacious itchiness, I wouldn’t have any idea.”
“Lying in the forest, watching an owl?” Kayla repeats doubtfully.
“Yep, that’s what we were doing,” I confirm. It sounds like a lie even to my ears, but given the sparkle in the three women’s gazes, they don’t suspect we were doing something with Cole’s job. They think we were engaging in some ‘nature nookie’ when I was exposed to the poison ivy. Not wanting to discuss that any more than his work, I rush to add “But Cole helped me up, put calamine lotion on all the areas I couldn’t reach, and took great care of me. He even ran an oatmeal bath for me one night.”
I look at them expectantly, hoping they can see it now. A jerk wouldn’t do that. It’s irrefutable proof that Cole’s awesome.
“Okay, I’ll accept that he was decent in the woods,” Kayla offers, with Luna and Samantha nodding along like they concur. “What happened when you got back? I saw him at the coffee shop and he was in bad shape, giving me his assistant’s number in case of emergency and talking non-stop about the someone he met.”
“He did?” I can feel the happy hearts bursting out of my eyes at that good news. Cole said as much already, but his version sounded less romantic than the way she’s telling it.
“He also told me about your shitty family attacking you over a bouquet. Sorry about that,” she says.
“What the fuck?” Samantha mouths, probably trying to imagine something like that at her own wedding and failing because it was seriously crazy.
“Yeah, they’re not great,” I admit. “But I’m okay. Or I’m getting to be. They’re not bad people, but that doesn’t mean they’re good for me.”
“Somebody’s been doing their therapy work,” Samantha praises with a light golf-style clap. “I don’t know your family, but hearing that, can I add . . . it’s completely acceptable to cut people out of your life for your own sanity. Fuck knows, I have. Toxic is toxic, and you don’t have to keep exposing yourself to radioactive waste because you share a bloodline with it.”
She’s definitely in psychologist mode, but it sounds pretty personal too. “Thanks. I’m doing better every day. Of course, it helps that no one’s called me since the wedding. They’re probably waiting on me to apologize, which isn’t happening.”
It’s a reminder to myself, one that I haven’t needed as much anymore. I honestly haven’t even thought of my family in days, and considering they’re probably still gossiping about my audacity at keeping the bouquet, that says something—about us both.
“Yes! Good girl!” Samantha cheers. “Peace doesn’t come easy or cheap, but once you let go of the war, knowing it’s for the last time, you feel so damn good.” She pats her chest with a serene smile I suspect is hard-won given her comment about cutting toxicity out of her life even if it’s a blood relative.
