Chapter 13 Sabrina
Sabrina
I stare at my phone long after the call ends, Cole’s words looping in my skull like a bad song.
You don’t have to go through with this.
I’m too old for you.
You deserve someone closer to your age.
Every sentence slams into me harder than the last. I should be furious, should be storming into the woods to hex his brawny ass, but all I feel is hollow.
I thought I finally found someone who wanted me. Not tolerated me, not flirted for the fun of it, but wanted me. And now he’s handing me an escape route like I’m a trapped animal he’s trying to set free.
The cats are no help. Onyx yawns, Obsidian leaps to the top of the fridge, and Oswald meows for dinner instead of offering life advice.
So, I do the only thing I can think of. I call Noel.
She picks up on the first ring.
“Spill. Was the dress shopping as traumatic as I warned you it would be?”
Her teasing tone is the final straw. My throat closes, and before I can stop myself, I’m crying. Ugly, hiccupping tears.
“Noel—” I choke out. “He doesn’t want me.”
There’s a pause, then her voice sharpens like a knife.
“What happened?”
I pace the length of my tiny kitchen, words tumbling out between sobs.
“He called me. Said I don’t have to marry him, that he’s too old, that I deserve someone closer to my age.”
The silence on the other end is deadly.
Then Noel snarls, “That fucking idiot.”
A watery laugh slips out of me.
“You’re supposed to tell me I overreacted.”
“No. I’m supposed to tell you that you’re gorgeous, brilliant, and terrifying in the best way, and if he can’t see he hit the fucking jackpot, he’s dumb.”
I sink onto the couch, Oswald hopping into my lap like he knows I need the weight.
“I thought he wanted me.” My voice cracks. “That he saw me.”
“Oh, he does,” Noel mutters darkly. “He’s panicking because he actually landed the best woman in Crescent Ridge and doesn’t know what to do with himself.”
Her words should help. They don’t. Not really. The image of Cole’s face when I tried on my dress burns in my mind. Hungry. Reverent. Like I’m exactly what he wants. How do I reconcile that with him trying to shove me away mere hours later?
I press my face into Oswald’s fur.
“I can’t do this, Noel. I can’t walk into that courthouse tomorrow if he doesn’t even want me there.”
Her sigh crackles over the line, long and loaded.
“Listen to me, Sabrina. If there’s one thing I know about men in this town? They’re idiots. But Cole? He’s not playing games. He’s scared. And when men get scared, they say stupid things instead of admitting they’re in over their heads.”
“So what? I’m supposed to ignore the part where he basically called me a mistake?”
“No,” she says firmly. “You’re supposed to make him eat those words.
You show up tomorrow in that dress you love, dyed black like you wanted, and you look him dead in the eye.
If he wants to push you away, make him do it in front of the judge, and all the busybodies in Crescent Ridge.
Let him own it. Or,” her tone softens, “he’ll prove that he loves you the way you deserve. ”
My throat tightens again, but it’s not from crying this time. It’s from hope, fragile and treacherous, rising in my chest.
“What if you’re wrong?” I whisper.
Noel chuckles, dark and dry.
“Only one man was able to fool me, and that’s because my head was too far in the clouds to notice the obvious.
I’m never wrong about men. Especially not lumberjacks with hearts bigger than their biceps.
He’s already gone for you, Sabrina. He just hasn’t figured out how to stop sabotaging himself yet. ”
Oswald sprawls across my lap, purring like nothing in the world has gone wrong. Maybe Noel’s right. Cole’s problem isn’t that he doesn’t want me. He can’t believe he deserves love.
Still, the hurt lingers sharp under my ribs.
“I don’t know if I can face him,” I admit.
“You can,” Noel says simply. “And you will. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned about you, it’s that you don’t back down from a fight. Not with tourists, not with this town, and not with a man too dumb to realize he’s already yours.”
Her words hang in the quiet. And for the first time since Cole’s call, a spark of defiance stirs in me.
The hurt still lingers but it’s duller now. Noel has always been the optimistic one out of the two of us. At least she was until her fiancé proved himself to be a lying piece of shit. Now a year later she’s finally reclaiming that spark of joy and optimism and I’m happy to see it.
“Hang on,” I mutter as a thought strikes me. “When did you figure out it was Cole?”
Noel’s giggle echoes loud and bright in my ear.
“I made a list of all the single men in town.”
“No!” I shout in disbelief.
“I did,” she sing songs. “Did you know there are exactly two-hundred and thirty-seven?”
“No,” I repeat in awe.
“Yes,” she says. “And I eliminated them one by one.”
“How long did it take?”
“I narrowed it down to him and that bossy carpenter living in the old clocktower.”
“So, you didn’t know it was Cole?”
“Not until I saw you at the Fall Festival yesterday.”
“No!”
“Yes!” she chirps. “You’re lucky I’m the only one. Calhoun and Madison were there too with Stella.”
“It would ruin my grand reveal,” I mutter.
“You’re so melodramatic.”
“It’s a lifestyle.”
“If you don’t marry that man, there won’t be any grand reveal.”
“Shut up,” I grumble. “You’re making too many good points.”
Later after we end the call, the silence in my apartment is deafening.
Even the cats sense it. After they’ve eaten, Onyx curls tight against my thigh, Obsidian settles like a gargoyle on the bookshelf, and Oswald climbs back into my lap, pressing his warm little body against me as if he can anchor me here, keep me from unraveling.
I stroke his fur, but my hands shake.
Cole’s voice keeps replaying in my head, flat and final.
You don’t have to marry me.
Like it was mercy. Like I was doing him a favor he couldn’t stomach accepting.
I should be furious. A true witch would storm into the woods, set fire to his cabin, and leave him howling in the ashes. Instead, all I can do is sit here in the dark with my cats, aching like someone carved out my chest like a jack-o-lantern.
Noel’s pep talk replays in pieces.
He’s scared. He’s in over his head. Make him eat those words.
She’s right. But tonight, it doesn’t feel like fear. It feels like rejection. Like he saw me in that dress, saw all of me, and decided I wasn’t worth the gamble.
The worst part? For a flicker of a second, I agree with him.
I curl onto the couch, dress still hanging on the back of the bathroom door across the room. I should be dyeing it right now, coaxing it into the black silk-and-lace dream I pictured. Instead, I can’t even look at it.
The hours crawl by. I try reading, tea, and eventually I muster the courage to dye the dress to keep my hands busy, but nothing sticks.
When I close my eyes, I see Cole’s face.
The reverence when I stepped out in my gown, the hunger when I showed him the lingerie, the hollow finality when he told me I didn’t have to marry him.
I’m up with the sun, no more than an hour or two of sleep under my belt. My eyes are raw, my chest is tight, and the only thing I know for certain is if Cole doesn’t want me, I won’t beg him to marry me. Even if I can’t imagine marrying anyone else.