Page 116 of Slow Hands Cowboy

It was an ache inside of her she couldn’t let go of. She’d gone so many years without her mom. Because of anger, fear of rejection, so many things, and she was just tired of it.

Which was how she ended up on a road trip to California, blasting Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter, singing along with them about the evils of men, and feeling no nuance at all in her personal heartbreak, just giving in to her sadness, her anger.

It was cathartic.

But the catharsis stopped when she reached the driveway of her mom and Thomas’s little blue house on the corner of a quiet street in Vacaville.

She got out of the car and walked on numb legs to the front door. Then she pressed the doorbell.

It took a moment, but when her mom answered, her eyes went wide. “Addison? What are you doing here?”

Addison tried to speak but no words came out, and then her mom reached up and just hugged her, held her close while Addison cried and cried.

She needed a mom right now, so badly. And she was so glad she had one.

“I’m sorry,” her mom said. “I’m so sorry.” She leaned back and looked up at Addison. “This isn’t about Alan, is it?”

Addison sniffed. “No, very definitely not.”

She told her the whole story. About everything that had happened with Walker. About how it was supposed to be fake, but had become real. About how she’d confessed her love for him and he’d rejected her.

“Wow,” her mom said, now sitting at her kitchen table with a cup of tea for Addison, and one for her. “That’s a big heartbreak.”

“Yeah,” she said. “It is.”

She paused for a long moment, tapping the side of her mug. “Fear is the biggest threat to love, and it sounds like he’s very scared.”

“Yes.”

“Fear is what kept me away from you kids. Once I had made the decision to leave... I had to cut myself off for a little bit. But then I missed you, and I wanted to go back, but I was afraid that you would reject me. I was afraid that I had left it too late. And leaving it even longer only made it worse. It robbed me of so much. It robbed you of so much.”

Yes, fear. But also anger. Walker had talked about that too. About holding onto his anger because it fueled him. She had held onto anger at her mom and right now she just felt like even if some of it were justified, it wasn’t an important thing to keep.

“Do you want to stay here for a few days?”

Addison nodded. “I’d like that.”

Her mom made pot roast, and cookies. If she had to be heartbroken, she was glad she was doing it in her mother’s house.

Then when she went to bed in the guest room that night, Addison couldn’t help but reflect on what her dad had said. About how his fear had prompted him to be stricter, to crack down on them, to parent the way that he had.

Fear was the greatest barrier to love.

And that was Walker. He was afraid. Of course he was.

Walker was choosing fear right now.

But the thing about Walker was that he was brave.

So in the end, she hoped that he would choose love.

Because that’s what she was going to do.

Chapter Twenty-Six

His house was empty. Like it had been every day before Addison had come to live with him, so it shouldn’t be strange at all.

He shouldn’t have gotten two plates out for dinner on accident. Shouldn’t feel like he couldn’t pick a goddamn movie without someone else’s input. The silence should feel comfortable. Normal. Not oppressive and alien.