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“Is she a shy girl?”
I wanted to laugh. If there was one thing Daisy wasn’t, it was shy around me. “One of the things I’m most attracted to about her is the way she just lets it all hang out. She’s so far from being shy, it’s not even funny.”
“Well, maybe she’s just busy. If she was on the trip for the same amount of time as you, perhaps she’s trying to get caught up at home and at work. I think you should just send a text to let her know you’re thinking about her.”
The last thing I wanted to do was make my sister even more worried by telling her that Daisy didn’t have a job she worked. Instead, I offered another smile and a nod. “You’re probably right. I’ll reach out to her tonight when I go home.”
“Forrest? Viv?” our dad called from the door.
“Yeah?”
“Dinner’s ready.”
“Okay. We’ll be right there.”
After he stepped back and closed the door, I returned my attention to my sister. “Thanks for listening.”
She rolled her eyes. “I only had to force it out of you.”
I laughed and threw my arm over her shoulder. “It’s not like you didn’t know you’d have to do that.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. I’m starving. Let’s go eat.”
With that, I led my sister back into the house, where I took some time to catch up with my family for the first time since before I left for the trip. Of course, they’d brought out cake to celebrate my birthday like we’d planned.
It was nice, and I appreciated it.
But I’d have been lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about Daisy when I put the first bite of cake into my mouth.
FIFTEEN
Daisy
“That’s everything I need, then, so I’m going to get out of here.”
“Perfect. Thank you for coming by and taking care of this for me, Marci. I’m just going to take another minute or so here, and then I’ll be on my way.”
Marci offered me a nod in return. “I get it. I’ll be in touch with you soon, Daisy.”
I said goodbye to Marci and walked with her to the door of my place. After I closed the door behind her, I spun around, looked at the empty space, and inhaled a deep breath.
This was it.
I couldn’t do it.
I’d never been a woman to hold myself back from anything in my life, and after six weeks of trying and failing, I couldn’t do it any longer.
Technically, it was about two days into it when I realized I couldn’t do it, but it had taken me this long to get my affairs in order.
Other than the sale of my place, I’d managed to get everything else squared away. A lot of my stuff had gone into storage, stuff that I’d eventually get out once I got myself settled somewhere. Anything that I didn’t need, or no longer wanted, I got rid of by either tossing it or donating it. And once I had my place completely cleaned out, I contacted Marci, asked her to come over, and together, we went through my home. She’d given me a punch list of a few items to take care of before we would take pictures and list it, and since I was doing everything on my own, it took me a bit longer than I would have liked.
But now it was all done, Marci had the spare keys, and would be getting the property on the market immediately.
As for me, I was done with Birch Creek. I had only two reasons to come back—to get my things out of storage, and to handle a legal matter that was still months away. Beyond that, I had no business here.
So, for now, I was going to go and make myself happy.
I was going to go see Forrest.
