Chapter 7
“You sure you’re okay?” Meadow asked me for the hundredth time, since I asked if I could crash at her place. Everyone else would pry. One person would say something to someone else, and by noon the entire town would be dissecting my love life over coffee and pastries.
I wasn’t ready to answer anything. I wasn’t ready to talk or accept that Wyatt and I were no longer together.
Meadow had become a good friend over the last couple of months after moving to Vine Valley and taking over as bartender at Brady’s distillery, making time for Brady, who was losing his dad to Alzheimer's, to take care of him.
Meadow existed slightly outside the town’s orbit, having only lived there for a short time. She was friendly but not nosy, observant without being invasive. She listened when you needed her too, and when she spoke, her blunt honesty was appreciated.
I forced down the sob that tried to surface. “I’ll be okay,” I said with about as much confidence as a person being sent off to slaughter.
Meadow plopped next to me on the couch. Her wavy brown hair was piled high on her head.
Her face was free of makeup, yet she still looked gorgeous.
Even in ratty sweatpants and an oversized band t-shirt, she emanated a stylish bohemian-chic vibe.
Her personality, her biggest accessory, was as warm and bright as ever. “Even you don’t believe that.”
“No,” I said through a humorless, snotty laugh. “But what’s the saying? Fake it until you make it?”
“That’s for when you don’t know what the hell you’re doing, not when you broke up with a man you’ve been with for a third of your life.”
“But I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.” A tear slipped past my resolve, rolling down my cheek and causing a cascade to follow.
“Oh sweetie.” Meadow wrapped her arms around me and pulled me tight. “You sure you don’t want me to call your sisters? I’m happy you came to me, but they’re your sisters.”
“No!” The denial burst out of me like a rocket. “I’m not ready.”
Meadow tightened her hold on me, rubbing slow circles across my back. “We’ll keep it between us. No questions, no lectures, no fixing. Just tea, tissues, and bad reality TV.”
A watery laugh slipped out of me, muffled against her shoulder. “You forgot ice cream.”
“Tea first. Ice cream later. It’s only seven am after all.” She eased back enough to look at me, her brown eyes kind but firm. “You need to cry this out before you drown your feelings.”
“I think I’m already drowning.” My voice broke somewhere between humor and heartbreak. “I keep replaying everything. What I could’ve said differently, when I should’ve walked away, when I should’ve stayed quiet. And then I wonder if I ruined everything for nothing.”
Meadow tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “You didn’t ruin anything. You were honest. That’s brave, Rose. Hard, but brave.”
“Doesn’t feel brave,” I whispered. “Feels like I ripped my heart out and handed it to him.”
“That’s love, babe. The ugly kind people don’t post about.”
“I thought love was supposed to make you happy?”
“Ha!” Meadow’s laugh echoed through the small space. “Love has only ever made me miserable.”
Her admission cracked something inside me, and before I could stop it, an ugly, body-shaking sob tore through me. Meadow didn’t say anything. She just held me.
When the tears slowed, she handed me a tissue and brushed a thumb beneath my eye. “You can stay as long as you need. We’ll make pancakes in the morning, watch terrible movies, and pretend the world doesn’t exist for a while.”
“Thank you.”
“Always.” She stood and crossed to the kitchen, giving me space. “You want me to grab your bag from the car?”
I nodded, sinking into the couch cushions. My hand instinctively moved to my stomach, palm pressing lightly against the faint ache there.
The test I took this morning, after throwing up for another five minutes straight, sat hidden in my overnight bag: two pink lines changed everything.
I tried to convince myself that something from the night before wasn’t sitting right, but as I stared at my reflection, something in the back of my head told me it wasn’t the food. My period was late. Later than usual. And I had been too busy to notice.
I thought of all the times I’d had wine in the last month. Scared out of my mind I had harmed the baby that was now growing inside me.
What the hell?
A baby.
I just wanted marriage. Now I was going to be a mom. Wyatt didn’t want marriage, and he definitely didn’t want a baby. If I told him, he would do the right thing because that was who Wyatt was. But I didn’t want to force him into something he clearly didn’t want.
What if he thought I got pregnant on purpose? He already accused me of manipulating him; this would just reinforce that. I had to tell him. I couldn’t keep that from him, but I needed time. Process things. Let him know I didn’t do this to trap him into a shotgun wedding.
Maybe that time would be exactly what we needed.
Meadow stumbled into her apartment, one bag strap draped over her entire body, the other strap haphazardly falling down her arm.
The loud clunk of her elbow hitting the wall knocked me out of my thoughts, and I pushed up from the couch.
Everything hurt, but I ignored the pain and grabbed my bags.
“As much as I want to stay on your couch and watch bad reality TV, I have to get to work. I have a photoshoot scheduled for our new reserve.”
“Bummer, but my brain thanks you for keeping me away from the rot.”
“Anytime.” I forced a smile. “You sure you don’t mind me crashing here?”
“Not at all. The number of couches I have slept on in my life—it is my honor to extend that same courtesy I was given. I don’t have family. I have a community. And you, my dear, are the best part of it.”
“Right back at you. Well, not the family part; I have more family than I know what to do with. Honestly, you can take some of mine.” We both laughed, and it didn’t hurt as much as I expected, but it still didn’t heal me in the way I had hoped either. “Didn’t you say you had a grandpa?”
“I think I do. Never met the man. According to my mom, he turned to the bottle after my grandma died. He pretty much was drunk from then on out. My mom left, never looked back. Can’t say I blame her.”
“Love really is miserable, isn’t it?”
Meadow wrapped her arm around my shoulder and steered me toward the bathroom. “I sure as hell hope not. Now go fix yourself up. If you don’t want anyone to know about you and Wyatt, you’re going to need to do some serious concealer to hide those puffy eyes.”
“Gee thanks,” I joked.
“Have you spoken to him? Does he know you don’t want the world to know yet?”
I shook my head. My heart ached just thinking about him alone in our home. “No, I’ll text him.”
I glanced at my phone. He had already texted me. Five times. He called too.
Without tapping the screen, I turned the phone over. I was a coward who couldn’t face her own consequences.
“I’m not one to give relationship advice, considering every relationship I have ever been in has been a fucking nightmare, but after eleven years, I think he deserves more than a text.”
She was right. “I’ll stop by his office when I get to the winery. He’s usually there before everyone, anyway.”
***
I stood outside Wyatt’s office, terrified for the first time in my life to just walk through the door. Normally, we would have already seen each other before even getting to work, but once I realized why I was puking my guts up, I panicked.
I grabbed my duffel bag, shoved what I could into it, and snuck out before Wyatt woke up. Maybe I was a coward, but I didn’t know what else to do. Wyatt was who I talked to, and now… I swiped a stray tear away angrily, knowing this was all my fault.
We were happy. So why the hell did I suddenly have this desire to be married?
I knew exactly what I was getting into with Wyatt.
He never made me false promises, yet no matter how hard I tried, how desperately I attempted to convince myself that I didn’t need a ring or a piece of paper; I only wanted them more.
“You’re going to wear a hole in the floor.” Wyatt’s voice drifted out, and I hated how it wrapped around me like a familiar warm hug.
I inhaled deeply, bracing myself for whatever the hell was about to happen, and stepped into his office. His hair was a disheveled mess, his eyes bloodshot and glossy. My adorable, lovable Wyatt looked like absolute hell.
My fingers twitched to reach across the desk and run my fingers through his hair and fix the slight curl that was always so unruly. An ache landed deep in my gut when I realized I’d lost that privilege when I gave him an ultimatum.
A fresh wave of hurt and guilt flooded through me, but I refused to break in front of him. It wasn’t his fault. He did everything right. I just wanted more.
“Hi,” I said, having no idea how to navigate this.
“Hi.” He didn’t even bother to look up from his computer screen. Not that I deserved his undivided attention.
“I—”A lump formed in my throat, making it impossible to speak. He finally glanced up at me, and I waited for him to crack a joke, to break the awkward silence, but he didn’t; he let us stew in it. I cleared my throat and tried again. “I’m not ready to tell anyone yet.”
His jaw tightened, and he yanked at the collar of his favorite shirt. “So you expect me to put on a happy face and act like nothing is wrong? Lie to your entire family?”
“When you put it like that…” My fingers twisted the hem of my shirt. “It sounds horrible.”
Wyatt leaned back in his chair, eyes dark, jaw working as if he were physically biting back words. “That’s because it is horrible, Rose. You just walked out. No explanation, no note, nothing. Do you have any idea what that did to me?”
Guilt sliced through me, hot and relentless, making my voice tiny as I answered. “I panicked.”
He laughed, a harsh, bitter sound that didn’t belong to him. “Yeah, I got that part. What I don’t get is why. One minute we’re us, and the next you’re gone. You don’t answer my texts, you don’t come home… You can’t just vanish and expect me to play along like everything’s fine.”
“I didn’t expect you to play along,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady, but it trembled anyway. “I just needed time to breathe.”
“Time?” He slammed the laptop shut, and I flinched. “I gave you eleven years of time, Rose. I thought we were past running when things get hard.”
“I’m not running,” I said, but even to my own ears, it sounded weak.
He came around the desk, hands braced on the edge as if he needed it to stay upright. “Then what are you doing?”
The words pressed against my chest, heavy and desperate to get out.
I wanted to tell him everything. Tell him the nausea wasn’t from stress, that my entire world—our entire world—had changed that morning, but fear rooted me in place.
The memory of his voice echoing I love you too much to marry you cut too deeply.
“I’m trying to figure things out,” I managed.
He huffed a humorless laugh. “Well, while you’re figuring things out, I’m over here trying to remember how to breathe without you.”
His honesty slammed into me like a dagger to the heart.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“You did anyway.” His voice broke, and it undid me.
“I just…” I swallowed the sob rising in my chest. “I didn’t want to say something I couldn’t take back. I thought if I had a little space, maybe I’d stop feeling like everything was falling apart.”
Wyatt shook his head, eyes glassy. “You could’ve told me that instead of disappearing.”
“I know.”
The silence stretched until it became unbearable.
Finally, he exhaled and looked away. “You don’t have to lie for me, Rose. If you’re done, just say it.”
My heart pounded. Say it. The truth burned at the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t. Not yet. “I’m not done,” I said quietly. “I just… need time before everyone knows.”
He blinked, confusion flickering behind the pain. “Knows what?”
Panic clawed at my throat. “That we broke up,” I blurted, the words tumbling out before I could stop them. “I don’t want questions. Not yet.”
He stared at me for a long, unbearable moment, searching for something in my expression I wasn’t giving him. Then he nodded once. “Whatever you want, Rose.”
I turned before he could see the tears threatening to spill again, my hand instinctively pressing against my stomach as I walked out.