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Because if we were honest? She’d lost him too.
“Do you think Silllvesssterrr will be at Miss Violet’s house today?” Katie faced every new day with optimism about Sly’s return. That was where her heartbreak over losing him differed from mine. I knew it was over.
“No, honey. He had to go back to his real home, remember? To get back to his real life.”
“Playing hockey.” She frowned when she stated this.
“Yep. To play hockey.”
“I hate hockey.”
I wished it was as easy for me to take my anger and hurt at Sly’s departure and aim it somewhere else. At hockey or at summer or skating. But I was too old to transfer my feelings so easily. I was mad at him.
I’d picked up my phone hundreds of times in the weeks since he’d gone, planning to text him or call, to tell him exactly what I thought of him slinking away without a goodbye, leaving me here alone. But I’d always been stopped by the futility of it.
I knew, didn’t I? I knew when he came that it would be temporary. He was famous. And he didn’t live here. And there was nothing in our past—beyond his recent words to the contrary—to suggest that anything had changed in the way he saw me. Or the way he saw women in general.
All that said, I didn’t regret it. Even the empty ache inside me didn’t remove the glee and validation that had come from being the center of his attention, even if it was only for a little bit. I knew it was pathetic, but I couldn’t help it. I would always have that knowledge. For a little while, the man I’d loved my whole life had chosen me.
* * *
Zara and Beck were staying next door the weekend before the wedding, and Zara had suggested that we use Saturday to head to the boutiques downtown to find Katie the perfect flower girl dress.
“You ready?” Zara asked, bouncing on my front steps at exactly ten Saturday morning. She looked gorgeous and happy, her pale skin lit as if from within by a luminescence that I was sure came from her heart. I tried to be happy for her—and I was. It just hurt a bit to smile.
“Yes!” Katie pushed past me to join Zara on the steps. “I hope we find something sparkly! With a lot of pockets!”
Zara and I exchanged an amused glance as I stepped out and locked the door behind me.
“You never know,” Zara said. “The bridesmaids are all wearing shades of grey and silver,” she told us. “And the accent colors are peach and dark green.”
“That sounds gorgeous,” I said.
“I like green,” Katie told us as we climbed into my car. Zara had offered to drive, but Violet had Katie’s booster in her car, and it seemed like a lot of trouble to move it again. I was happy that Sly had remembered to pull it from his car before he disappeared, though a tiny part of me liked the thought of him turning around to back out and seeing it there. A subtle reminder of the two girls he’d spent time with back home in Half Full.
“How are you doing?” Zara asked in a low voice as we drove toward Main Street.
“Oh, you know. Good. Work is a little slow now that I’m in the office all the time.” I did my best not to sound grumpy.
“I meant with everything else, really. I know Sly kind of snuck away. Beck told me.” Zara’s voice held a soft note of sympathy and I wanted to push it back at her, tell her I didn’t want it.
Except talking with her was different than the discussions I’d had with Andie and Betty, who were furious on my behalf. She was on the inside.
“It’s fine, really. I knew we were just a temporary thing while he was home.”
She was looking at the side of my face and I could feel her frown. “Why, though? Did something happen?”
“What, to make him leave?”
“Silllvesssterrr had to go back to play hockey,” Katie told her. I wished I believed that was the only reason.
“We didn’t have a fight or anything,” I told Zara in a low voice, doing my best to keep Katie out of my misery. “But it was like something shifted in him when he found out about Sam being sick.”
“Huh.” Zara sounded as confused as I felt by this information. “Well, you’re still going to come to the wedding, right?”
“I’m IN the wedding,” Katie reminded her.
“I know you’ll be there,” Zara laughed, turning around to smile at my daughter. “I’m hoping your mom will come too.”
