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Watching Lindsay now, I almost feel like I’m back in high school and she’s dictating my conversation with Owen. She says we can talk now, so we’ll talk.
It’s foolish. Silly. Misguided. Untrue.
But I feel it just the same.
Being around Lindsay brings out an insecurity I’ve worked really hard to get over.
Hang on a second.
I have worked hard to get over it.
I’m not that goofy, nerdy teenager being low-key berated in the high school hallway.
I’m a goofy, nerdy adult. And this is my store.
I stand a bit straighter.
The cameraman sets his camera on a tripod near the back wall. “There’s great natural light back here by this big window,” Lindsay is saying, and a small crowd starts to gather.
“You look like you’re going to puke.” Reagan tucks a rag in the belt of her apron and stares at me.
“I just might,” I say. “Man the bucket.”
The door opens, and Owen strolls in.
Good grief, he looks even better in the afternoon sun than he did this morning. How does he do that?
I have to look away because my insides are humming again, and he’s the reason why.
The chatter escalates, but this scene no longer has anything to do with me and everything to do with the reunion of Owen and the girl who left him standing at the altar.
It baffles me, sometimes, the small-town mentality. Harvest Hollow isn’t a tiny town, yet somehow, everyone still knows everyone else’s business. Besides, it’s not every day someone gets left at the altar. Especially someone nobody in town was rooting for in the first place.
Harvest Hollow’s runaway bride became a legend.
Owen’s eyes meet mine from across the room. Then, his eyes leave mine and fall on Lindsay.
“I don’t want to do this,” I say under my breath, looking at Reagan.
She shrugs. “Who says you have to?”
I sit with that for a moment.
The unabashed wisdom of teenagers sometimes cuts right through all of the crap and gets right to the point.
“You’re right. I don’t. I know I said I would, but. . .” I stop short of saying I don’t think I can and take a few steps back, removing my apron, then quietly, discreetly, I slip out the back door and into the alley behind the shop.
It’ll help Owen, and let’s face it, I do owe him—for saving my life and everything. But I just don’t want to sit there, next to him, answering Lindsay’s questions, watching the two of them reconnect over my tragedy.
Nor am I a huge fan of reliving it.
I don’t want to keep being the fool.
And since I’m an adult, and I get to decide what I am—and am not—going to do, I get in my car and drive away.
Chapter Ten
Owen
