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“You don’t have to be afraid to show yourself to me. We were both in the same position during such a fragile time in our lives. You should’ve been experimenting with everything and going away for college and having the time of your life. But you didn’t just run away from your problems. You ran away fromme.” I find relief in my words, in speaking so many of them that they free me.
So, I continue. “I was left behind with this idea that if I put my all into this place, I wouldn’t feel like I was wasting my life away. But I’ve failed at all of it. Miserably.” My head hangs with shame. Shame for it all. For the things I’ve done and didn’t do.
For the way I managed to save it, giving myself to a man for a price.
No one’s heard from Ezra. There are no whispers of him taking the bookstore, but I still feel dirty over it all. I still feel like someone’s going to barge into my bedroom, a copy of my filthy contract in their hands.
“The store wouldn’t be here without you. It would have been sold off a long time ago if it was left in my hands. I would have let Mom’s dream be sold on the courthouse steps as I swallowed my grief. I never told you how much it meant to me that you kept it afloat while I was gone. And not just gone from Cherry Cove.” She places her hand on her heart. “Gone in here.”
“I can’t stay here anymore, Sophie.” I sniffle with my confession, trying to push the tears away before they even have the chance to fall. “I judged you for leaving because it was the one thing I wanted to do. I’m sorry. I can’t stay any longer.”
This time, my truthwillset my free.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
ALONE
EZRA
I usedto be good at lonely nights.
At the idea of not having a woman waiting for me, wanting company after a long day. I didn’t know what it was like to experience someone like Eloise; so unwilling to budge that I ended up falling in love with even her tough exterior. With her hard-earned smiles and rough edges that made for the most excitement I’d had in a long time.
But she’d warned me that we had until the end of summer all along, and I failed to listen. Now I’m wondering how the fuck to undo what I’ve done to myself.
I was good at being alone until the day I walked into a struggling bookstore and saw a beautiful woman sitting there, as if she’d been waiting for me. That day changed my course entirely, shoving old plans out of the way and making room for newer, better ones.
With the absence of those plans, of her few and far between smiles, I sit up alone and nurse my cognac. Alone.
Why did I let her go?
I shake my head.
Because it hurt too much to stay for scraps.
It hurt too much to know that she thought so poorly of me that she’d jump to the conclusion that I’d ever take something that means so much from her.
After everything, is that who I am to her?
Still some asshole trying to steal her family’s bookstore?
For that, I’ll stay alone and give her the peace and solitude she seems to crave.
My phone vibrates with an incoming text and I can’t help the way my heart leaps, as if it’s Eloise telling me she loves me and wants me to come back. But even as I reach for my phone, I know better.
And it isn’t her.
Is this Ezra? It’s Eloise’s sister, Elizabeth. We met when you bought a book at the store a while back.
Do I want to respond? Hell yes.
Should I? Probably not.
Will I ever learn my lesson? Never.
Is she okay?
She’s leaving. Get your shit together if you still want her.
