Chapter Twenty-Four
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The cell phone drops from my hand. A steady stream of sound rises around me, filling my ears, blocking everything else out. Laine rushes in from outside, and only after her arms wrap around me do I realize that great, tearless sobs are barreling out of me. She’s cooing soft, soothing questions at me, asking what’s wrong and promising she’ll make it better without even knowing what’s happened.
But she’s leaving, isn’t she? After all her promises to include me in her decision, she’s taking her family’s money and leaving. I break free from her embrace, still gasping for breath.
“Zoe, please . Talk to me!” Laine reaches for my face, taking it between her hands. “I wanna be there for you, baby, tell me what’s going on!”
Her words sting like a rubber band snapping against my tender heart.
“How are you going to be there for me in Oregon?” I hoarse out, my vision narrowing down to her. My Laine, who’s been planning her escape from Blue Ridge all summer, who lied to me. Who, it turns out, was never my Laine at all.
Laine’s eyes widen, confusion and more telling, dismay settling on her face. “What do you mean?”
“You’re buying a vineyard.”
“ What? That’s not—”
“I saw the documents, Laine!” I jab a finger at the envelope, its contents spilled out across my desk. “You’ve been planning to leave for months! That weekend trip you took to California—that was really to Oregon to see the property, wasn’t it?”
Laine’s jaw flexes, her eyes making quick calculations between doubling down on a lie and finally owning up to the truth. “Well, yes , but—”
“You lied to me— why? So you could use me for a job and sex, then leave me here?”
“No!” Laine’s voice is vehement. “When Cosimo gets back, I won’t have a job. What am I supposed to do then? I’m a vintner , Zoe, you helped me believe that again. I want to make my own wine, run my own vineyard. This opportunity opened up, and I thought if I could get everything ready for us there while giving you enough time to realize we’re meant to be together, that when the time came, you’d come with me. We could run the vineyard as equals, baby, a place that could belong to us both . Is it so wrong to want to do what I love with the woman I love?” Laine holds her hands out to me, her eyes beseeching me to hang on to the life preserver she’s offering. But what good is a life preserver in the middle of the ocean with no boat waiting to rescue me, no shoreline in sight?
“I can’t leave Bluebell Vineyards.” The statement barrels out, my ever-present reflex that kicks her words away from my heart. “And you know it!”
“I know that you believe that,” Laine says softly. “You see me, Zoe, but I see you, too. You’ve been unhappy here, and for so long . You’ve chained yourself to this vineyard as though it deserves your life more than you do, but that’s not true. You can leave. You can have a different life with me. You can let yourself be happy.”
“I can’t leave my family! I have obligations here, I’m part of something here. Bluebell is the one thing I have, and you’re asking me to turn my back on it!”
“It’s not the one thing you have, Zoe. It’s the one thing you choose.” Laine’s voice crumples at the edges, and it rips my heart in half. “Even over me.”
“Then don’t make me!” I beg. “ Why are you making me choose?!”
“Because I shouldn’t have to give up my dreams to be in this relationship!” Laine finally yells. “I want both!”
I swallow, the painful ache in my throat metastasized throughout my entire chest. “Then that’s that. You won’t stay, and I won’t go.”
“Do not do that, Zoe! Do not give up on us!” Laine’s eyes burn. “We can make it work, if you just try— ”
“How?!” I demand.
“We’ll do long distance, then!” Laine pulls at her hair. “We’ll keep trying until—”
“How many months do you think we’ll make it once you leave?” My voice trembles in the face of our oncoming reality. “Are we going to talk on the phone every night? Text each other all day long? How many plane tickets can you afford a year? Three? Four? How long before your trips home become little islands of time that grow farther and farther apart, and the visits turn into just sex? Sex I’ll be too weak to say no to because—”
Because I love you.
Because I’ve always loved you.
“Because I’m pathetic !” I hurl the word at her, willing her to see me as I really am. “It’ll be like Harlow all over again, no strings attached ! Well, I’m all strings, Laine, a messy, tangled knot of them, and those strings keep me here.”
Keep me trapped here.
“This is why I didn’t want to tell you yet! I knew you’d use Oregon as proof I don’t love you so you can throw us away, because despite everything I’ve done to show you how I feel, it’s still easier for you to believe that I’m lying than believe that someone could love you. Well, I love you, Zoe, and I won’t let you tell me I don’t. When Cosimo returns, then we can figure out—”
My dad. I press a hand to my chest, as though I can brace my lungs from the outside in, willing them to expand properly. Laine’s form swims in front of my eyes.
“Zoe, you need to sit down. I think you’re having a panic attack.” Laine takes my arm, and I snatch it out of her hands, then stumble. With a grimace, she grabs me around the waist and hauls me into the tasting room, taking no heed of my flailing arms. I sag against her, struggling to breathe, and let her set me down in a chair. She returns a second later with a glass of water and squats before me.
“Drink this.” Her tone brooks no argument, so I try, but my hand’s shaking so hard that water spills down my chin. Laine steadies the glass before I drop it altogether. “Now tell me what’s going on.”
“It’s my Nonna,” I finally gasp out. “I just got the call that she’s—she’s—passed away, and my dad’s not—handling it well.” My voice breaks, remembering the vacant expression my father wore for years following Mom’s death. I knew he wasn’t strong enough to go out there alone, to live alongside another person he loved and watch them die. “He needs me out there, but how can I go? The festival’s only two weeks away—there’s so much to do, how am I going to get it all done, how can I—”
Laine gathers me in her arms and shushes me against her shoulder, and I let all the questions resolve into wordless sobs again. Landing the showcase was a dream come true, our big chance to break free from our suffocating financial position. The one thing, ironically, that could’ve made Laine’s dreams of taking me away possible. But how can I manage the showcase and bring my broken father home, too?
“Here’s what’s going to happen.” Laine’s hand is firm against the back of my head, the pressure there helping to stifle the fear burgeoning in my chest. Fear for my father. Fear of ruining our vineyard’s big chance. Fear of not being enough, of never being enough, to hold up the world around me. How am I going to hold it together now?
How am I going to hold myself together without Laine?
“I’m going to buy us some plane tickets. We’ll get on the next flight to Italy, and then—”
“We can’t both go to Italy, Laine!” I yank my head back and disengage from her arms. “I’m not even sure I can go!”
“Of course we can go,” Laine says firmly. “Nothing’s more important than being there for your family, not even the showcase.” She tries to pull me back to her chest, but this time, I don’t let her.
“What do you know about being there for your family? You left them before, and you’re going to leave them all over again!”
Laine swallows. “I did. And I know now it’s a mistake, choosing work over the people you love, and I’ll never let distance come between us again.” A thin current of hurt spikes her words. “But that’s a mistake you don’t need to make, too.”
Is she talking about me and Italy, or me and her? Because Bluebell has never been a choice for me. It’s all I have.
The tears come then, finally, and I let them pull me down, down, down.
In the end, Laine handles everything. She alternates checking on me with calling in favors from our friends, finding my passport, and booking my travel arrangements while I lie curled up in bed, falling apart. The tears break me down, but they put me back together again, too. When the heaving sobs finally stop, I’m exhausted and devastated, but I’m also breathing normally again, and the imprisoning spiral of my thoughts has slowed from mad carousel of terror to the stable, sleepy swings of a pendulum. Back and forth, up and down, the grief and fear rise within me, then retreat again.
We don’t talk much. She holds me, though, all night long, and in the small hours of the morning. I lie there, memorizing the feel of her skin against mine. The warm brush of her breath across my neck. The weight of her arm resting on my hip, fingers splayed across my stomach. Her body is so relaxed lying atop mine, as though it’s easy for her to trust in my solidity. As though she doesn’t live in fear that I’ll disappear. Maybe because she knows that I can’t. Like Rapunzel trapped in her tower, I’m as much a part of this vineyard as its wine.
At the unholy hour of four a.m., Teddy comes ripping into our parking lot like braking is for amateurs, my ride to the airport. Laine and I are outside waiting for him, the small suitcase she packed waiting by my feet like an obedient dog. Teddy comes to a stop right in front of us, his window rolling down. He’s wearing his gold wire aviators propped on his head even though the sun won’t rise for hours.
“Get in, loser, we’re going to Italy!”
I huff out a confused sound. Teddy pops the trunk, and there’s barely enough room for my small carry-on amid a suite of matching designer luggage.
“Um …” I stand there, frowning at his open trunk. “Teddy?”
“Once I decided to take your mopey ass to the airport, I thought, why stop at the boring part?” he yells over his shoulder. “You need me and my sunshine, Zoe. Now get your ass in.”
I turn to Laine. “Did you do this?”
Laine shrugs one shoulder, the corner of her mouth quirked up to match. Her eyes are dark and tired, though, worn thin from the weight of my despair. “You won’t let me come with you, but you never said Teddy couldn’t.” She takes me by the wrists, pulls me to her, and after a second’s hesitation, kisses me.
Teddy lays on the horn.
Laine locks her eyes on mine. “You take care of you , Zoe. Leave the rest of the world to the rest of the world, okay?”
I nod, a hollow promise. It all falls on me, one way or another.
Her goodbye’s still lingering on my lips as I close the car door.
Teddy exhales loudly and throws us into drive. “ Finally. Jesus.”
“Thanks for doing this, Teddy,” I say quietly to his profile, framed by the dark mountains beyond.
“What, canceling Mr. Gibbons’s root canal? Gladly.” Teddy turns on his blinker for a split second before jutting into the next lane. “That old bastard can go to the twisted sadist down in Jasper for all I care.”
I sigh against the window at the world rushing past us.
“But, Zoe?”
“Yeah?”
“You better have TSA pre-check, so help me God, I will not wait for a bitch.”
By the time we’re settled into our assigned seats, two middle ones in the long middle row on a massive plane stuffed with loud, excited high school students on a field trip, Teddy’s had two spiked coffees, a small meltdown in the Popeyes line, and a full recovery when he found the newest Alexis Hall rom-com at the bookstore. I’m infinitely glad he’s here. The world’s indignities and insults never land as hard when Teddy’s there to chew them out for me.
Something in my expression stops him from diving into his book, though. With a sigh, he closes it and takes out his earbuds, aka teen-murder-prevention devices as he calls them.
“All right, Zoe. Out with it.”
“Huh?”
“Your fears. Your worries. Everything that’s troubling your pensive little mind.”
“Hey.” I frown. “My mind is really big.”
“At least ten inches, sure, whatever.” He rolls his eyes. “Point is, let’s get it out, right now. This is all part of the Teddy Does Italy package. Free therapy.”
I start to argue . Push away my own needs, like always, but I’m too tired to pretend, and there’s too much wrong to keep it all bottled inside, so I pick the biggest thing, the thing that’s scaring me the most.
I blow out a deep breath. “I’m really worried about Dad.”
Teddy’s face is serious. “That makes sense. He didn’t handle your mother’s death well, and you’re worried the death of his mother will bring all that old dysfunction back.”
I nod, my pulse picking up just from hearing him say it aloud.
“Okay, let’s play out that scenario,” Teddy says, his matter-of-fact tone bracing. “We get there, your dad’s extremely distraught. What will you do?”
“I—don’t know. Take him home?” I breathe in for four, out for six, willing my lungs to stop constricting in my chest.
“Well, that’s not that hard. We know how to pack a bag and buy a plane ticket. Then when we get home, let’s say he’s all jacked up. Then what?”
I blink. “Um. Get him into therapy?”
“Right!” Teddy nods encouragingly. “That takes making a call. Maybe finding an insurance card, not that they’ll pay anything, the bastards. We can do that, right?” He puts a hand on my shoulder, squeezes, and all I can do is nod again.
“They don’t teach therapy in dental school, but I think I understand all the same,” Teddy says, his voice softer than usual. “The first time your dad checked out, you were a helpless, scared kid who’d just lost her mom. You needed your dad to take care of you, and he couldn’t. But you’re not that kid now, Zoe. You’re a grown woman, and your dad’s mental state can’t threaten your survival anymore, even if it feels like it will, in here.” He taps lightly on the space above my heart.
I sit with that for a moment. The panic and fear I’ve been feeling both come from the same dark blot in my heart. When I think about it, most of my hard feelings originate there. The anxiety that edges every venture that’s not business, the resigned feeling of doom that escorts every romantic attempt I make, the loneliness.
“How long does it take for a bruised heart to heal?” I swallow, my throat tight.
“I don’t know.” Teddy takes my hand in his. “But it’ll go a lot faster if you stop pressing your thumb into it all the time.”
I shake my head, annoyed at how simple he makes it sound. “What does that even mean, though? Just … stop hurting?”
Teddy rolls his eyes and smiles. “You’re such a little storm cloud, Zoe Brennan! You’re so sure you’re meant to suffer that you live your life waiting for the next bad thing to happen.”
“But bad things do happen, Teddy!” I’m tempted to list each of my life’s tragedies as proof to wipe that smug expression off his face when he surprises me by nodding vehemently.
“They sure do! So what good does it do worrying all the time when they’re not happening? You’re living in what Brené Brown calls the stress rehearsal , baby, but no amount of worrying can prepare you for life’s real punches.” He leans close to my face. “So. Stop. Flinching .”
I sit back with a loud exhale, and the two teen girls sitting in front of us snap back to their normal seated positions, as though they haven’t been gaping at us through the gap between seats.
“Hope she’s listening,” one says as she puts her AirPods in.
“Love that growth for her,” the other replies, then leans her seat back right into my legs.
“Teddy, just one more thing.”
“What is it, baby?”
“You read Brené Brown?”
Teddy sticks his index finger straight in my face. “You bet your ass I do.”