Chapter 22 #2
“Maybe,” I agree. But that’s how it’s always been with us. Jackson has all the drive and ambition, and I have all the instincts to support and nurture. I’ve always let her take the lead while I’ve played the supporting role in our relationship, and I’ve never minded it until now.
“Now that she knows you lied to her on the phone the other night, have you talked to her about it?”
“No. She texted me a bunch of times right after I left, but I haven’t responded.”
“Why not?” Petra asks as she takes the individually wrapped tacos from a bag and sets them on a platter she found in one of the cupboards.
“I’ve never lied to her before this, and I don’t know how to make it right.”
“I am not saying that two wrongs make a right,” Lauren says cautiously. “But she did lie to you—to all of us—about her relationship with Nate.”
“But that was different, she was protecting Marco and trying not to lose her job.”
“How is that different from what’s happening here?” Lauren asks. “Knowing that something happening between you two might mess up his relationship with his family, weren’t you trying to protect Beau?”
“I guess. I wish he saw it that way. He thinks I was just embarrassed to be with him.”
“Are you sure there’s no truth to that?” Petra asks, and Lauren looks over at her like she wants to throttle her, which is a feeling I’m familiar with.
Sometimes Petra’s honesty, and her utter lack of a filter, are a bit hard to swallow.
“Are you positive you weren’t just the tiniest bit ashamed to have fallen for someone so much younger and so different from what you were looking for? ”
“If there was any shame, it wasn’t about him. It was because I’d let myself fall for someone with whom I couldn’t have anything more than a passing fling.”
“I’m still not convinced that you couldn’t have had more,” Lauren says.
“The way he kept asking you to come to Aspen with him, and kept calling after he didn’t get to say goodbye—those aren’t the actions of someone who’s having a fling.
He had opportunities to leave the fling in the past, and he wasn’t taking that option. ”
“Well, that’s the path he’s taking now. And I hate to think that he’s out there somewhere thinking that I’m just another person who has disappointed him.”
“So make it better,” Petra says as she hands Lauren and me each a plate.
I reach for a taco, then decide I need one of each type. I pile all three on my plate as I suck down my second margarita. What is it about tequila that makes you feel like you can accomplish anything? I need some of that right about now.
“And how, exactly, can I make this better? He’s the one who said losing his trust was irrevocable.”
“So show him he’s wrong,” Petra says. “Show him he can trust you.”
It sounds so simple, yet feels so impossible. I push my glass toward Petra and eye the half-pitcher of margaritas sitting there. “Refill, please? I need more tequila if I’m going to come up with a solution.”
“Don’t get her drunk,” Lauren says as she nurses her glass of water because breastfeeding twins takes precedence over alcohol. “Nothing will be solved if Sierra’s drunk.”
“But I’m a happy drunk,” I insist, already feeling the buzz of my first two margaritas. Petra has a heavy hand when she mixes drinks.
“You are,” Lauren says, “but not a creative or productive one. And if you really want to make this better, you’re going to need to come up with a fail-safe plan. Something better than driving to Aspen on a whim because you ran into your ex at a fundraiser.”
“Hey, that’s not fair. I did it because seeing Peter made me realize that Beau was the perfect person for me, and I wanted to tell him that in person. I wanted to see if we could try to make something work. You make it sound like it was half-hearted.”
Lauren raises both eyebrows like she’s encouraging me to see something right in front of me. She does think it was a half-hearted attempt at winning him back.
“It was heartfelt,” I argue, “exactly because it was spontaneous.”
“Sierra, if you want him to believe that you want something real with him, you might need to do more than drive to Aspen to see him for a weekend. How can you possibly make this work long term? That’s the problem you need to solve.”
I take a long sip of my margarita as I consider her point. “Lauren, why are you so damn wise?” I definitely trip over the last word and it comes out more like wyyyyth.
“And . . . she’s past the point of making plans.” Lauren rolls her eyes.
“No way,” I say, sitting up and shaking my head to clear it. Lemieux women can hold their alcohol, no way am I letting a third margarita prevent me from crafting a brilliant plan, even if Petra was heavy on the tequila.
“You never do anything without a plan,” Petra says. “And Beau probably knows that about you, right?”
“Yeah. Except Winston, I didn’t plan on him.”
“Where is he, by the way?” Lauren asks. “We expected him jumping all over us when we arrived.”
“He’s at my boss Heather’s house. Thinking I’d be gone overnight, I dropped him off this morning.”
“As I was saying,” Petra continues. “You never do anything without a plan. So showing up to see him without a plan, that won’t inspire confidence that you’re really in this.”
“I never thought about it like that. I just thought I was being romantic, rushing off to see him because I missed him so much and because I realized that he’s perfect for me in all the ways I didn’t know I needed him to be.”
“That last part is perfect,” Lauren says in between bites of her taco. “Store that away for when you see him!”
“The trouble is,” I tell my friends, “I don’t actually know how we can make this work. He travels all year. I have a job and commitments here in Park City.”
“You don’t even have a lease,” Petra reminds me. “You can keep yourself tied down here because you’re scared to go after what you really want, or you can actually go for it.”
Her words hit me like an anvil.
“Are you suggesting . . .” I pause, trying to convince my tequila addled brain to work it out, “that I just up and leave everything behind to follow him? After one week of being together?”
“I’m not suggesting anything,” Petra says, “I just want you to explore all your options, including ones that don’t adhere to playing it safe.”
“I don’t play it safe!” I argue, and both Petra and Lauren burst out laughing.
“Oh, honey, you’re the definition of playing it safe,” Lauren says.
“Peter? I mean, you were going to marry a man that you didn’t even have strong chemistry with because you saw him as a partner in the life you wanted to build.
A marriage is a partnership, for sure. But it has to be built on more than just shared goals.
You also need someone who loves and cherishes you, and Peter didn’t do that. ”
“There’s no guarantee that Beau will either,” I say, as I stare down into the murky depths of my margarita.
“Based on how you described him to Peter, it sounds like he already does,” Lauren assures me.
“Okay,” Petra says, clapping her hands together in a distinctly all-business way. “Are we helping you develop this brilliant plan? Or are you going to screw it all up again?”
I can’t help but laugh because that’s just such a Petra thing to say. And also because three margaritas and two best friends later, the situation only feels ninety percent hopeless instead of one hundred percent.