Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Olivia
Once the door clicks shut, Callie immediately drags Lauren and me onto the couch. “Who’s up first?”
“First for what?”
“Girl talk. Which one of you is going to tell me all about your life first?”
Lauren drags one of the throw pillows in front of her, crossing her legs and remaining silent.
“How about you go first?” I offer.
“I don’t have anything going on in my life, though.”
“There has to be something.”
Callie purses her lips, thinking hard. “Nope. Nothing. My life is boring. I need to bring some more excitement into it.”
“Um, what do you call tonight?”
“You know what I mean. Don’t worry. I had a lot of fun tonight, but I don’t have a wedding coming up or a big fundraiser I’m planning and a handsome roommate I’m this close to finally getting with.” She pinches her thumb and forefinger together.
“Wait, isn’t there something going on with you and Rhett?” Lauren asks Callie. “I heard he was at your place late last week. Some ladies at Sweet Mae’s Diner were talking about it the other day.”
My stomach sinks. Am I a total idiot who tried to come onto someone else’s man? Not just someone else’s, but Callie’s! Callie is my friend. I adore her, and I value our friendship.
Callie’s brows knit together. “Oh, that’s just talk. I promise you there is nothing going on with Rhett and me. Whatever someone thinks they saw, they’re just plain wrong.”
Relief washes over me immediately. I’m not sure what would make people spread that rumor, but I’m smart enough to know the talk around this town is never true. If Callie says nothing is going on, then I believe it. I think.
“You’re sure there’s nothing? I’m not stepping on any toes?”
Callie reaches across, taking my hands in hers. “I promise you there is nothing going on with Rhett and me. Never has been, never will be. He’s so far gone for you.”
I scrunch up my nose. “See I kind of thought so too, but we spent all day together last week, and he still won’t completely open up to me. It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m leaving soon.”
“I thought you just told Rhett you wanted to stay?” Lauren pipes up.
My stomach somersaults. I was supposed to keep this a secret until I had everything figured out. This is what I get for opening my big drunk mouth.
Sighing, I tell the truth. “I do want to stay, but I need to figure some things out first. I haven’t wanted to tell anyone I’m thinking about it because I’m scared I won’t be able to find a job here or convince my dad that it makes sense for me to quit my job in tax. I don’t want to become a burden or ruin my relationship with my parents that I’ve started to build back up over the last couple months. There’s just so much I have to work out still. You have to promise not to tell anyone I’m thinking about staying.”
“We promise.”
“You don’t need to worry about finding a job,” Callie says. “You already have a source of income from the café, and we can find you something else. The world has changed. You can work from anywhere in the world. Living in Roots won’t hold you back from having whatever job you want.”
“I looked at jobs this morning before I came in for my shift, but I don’t even know what to look for. The accounting jobs all seem so dull. I get that same sense of dread reading the job descriptions for those roles as I do when I think about going back to my public accounting job, but I’m not qualified for anything else. I’m just so scared I won’t be able to figure out how to make it work.”
“What if you do figure it out? Isn’t it worth trying?”
“Yes, but my life in Roots was always supposed to be temporary. What if staying here doesn’t solve any of my problems? What if my anxiety comes back and I push my parents away again? What if Rhett finally realizes I’m too much of a mess to ever love?”
“You are in control of your life. It’s up to you to keep getting the help you need to manage your anxiety and up to you to put in the time for your relationship with your parents. It’s even up to you whether you keep trying to get through to Rhett or give up. Just don’t let fear keep you from being happy.”
I’m speechless. I look from Callie to Lauren, hoping she will help me.
Thankfully, she does speak up. “What brought you here?”
I explain how my coach found me at work and then how my parent’s concern for me brought me to Roots during my time off.
“Have you had any panic attacks since you came here?”
“Just one, but I haven’t been working, so it’s not a fair comparison.”
“You have been working. You’ve been planning the fundraiser, volunteering at Resilient Paws, and working at the café. You’ve been busy, ” Callie says.
“That doesn’t count. I haven’t been working a job that stresses me out like my job in San Francisco does. Plus, none of those would pay my bills if I moved to Roots.”
“You can’t tell me planning that fundraiser hasn’t been stressful for you. I’ve seen all the hard work you’ve been putting into it, all the details you’ve had to figure out. Maybe it’s not that you aren’t experiencing any stress here. It’s more that the stress you have now is outweighed by the support system you’ve created and all the beautiful things you’re working toward. You’re doing something you believe in. Are you passionate about taxes?”
“No.”
“Maybe that’s been your problem all along. You just needed to realign. You found a solution here that works for you, whether that was intentional or not. I don’t think that will change if you stay. I think it’ll just improve your life.”
“You don’t think it’s me running away from everything?”
“You’d be running away if you left Roots. It’s easier to stay in your old habits, but to actually have to start over and find a way to make life work in Roots, to take a shot at a relationship with Rhett, and to let your parents back into your life again, that’s difficult. But I think it’d be worth it. There’s something more out there for you.”
I give Callie a nudge with my knee. “Thank you. Why do you have to be right all the time?”
“It’s a blessing and a curse.”
Laughter breaks free, and it feels good. The last several minutes have been more intense than I expected.
“Your turn!” Callie says, turning to Lauren with a smile on her face.
Lauren starts rambling, trying to evade the question and steer the conversation in another direction, but as Callie keeps prodding her, the conversation takes a turn.
Lauren chokes on a sob, and as tears stain her cheeks, she whimpers, “Am I just stupid? I thought Austin and I were meant to be. From the moment I laid eyes on him, it felt that way, and we just made sense. Both our families are ranchers. He’s the perfect person to run the ranch with me. But now, it just hurts to love him. I feel like I’m clinging onto us so tight, and he’s just pushing me away. I’m starting to think maybe he never even cared about me. He just cared about the ranch.”
I leap up from the couch, running to grab a box of tissues, and setting it in her lap as I wrap a comforting arm around her. “Why do you think Austin just cares about the ranch?”
“You know how I said he’s on a business trip right now?”
I nod.
She brings a tissue to her nose, blowing loudly. “He’s been going on a lot of these trips. He says he’s building relationships with other ranchers and seeing what they are doing so we can improve Copper Hill, but he’s yet to come home with a new idea. He doesn’t tell me much of anything about his trips, and honestly, I’ve felt us drifting apart for a while now.”
She dabs a tissue under her eyes before continuing on. “And the worst part is, I think he’s cheating on me. I haven’t proved it yet, but I could’ve sworn he came home smelling like another woman the last couple trips. I know I’m probably just being paranoid, but I can’t shake the feeling.”
“Never doubt your intuition. I always hated that prick,” Callie says.
I give her the eye, murmuring, “Cool it,” before turning back to Lauren. “I’m sure there has to be some other explanation. I don’t know Austin well, but I’d like to think he’s a good man if you saw something in him. Maybe it’s just the stress of the ranch now that he realizes it’s going to be his responsibility.” Growing more confident by the second, as I think about the ways I’ve previously closed people off to protect them, I add, “Yeah, that has to be it! He’s probably just trying to prove that he is worthy of you and the responsibility of taking care of the ranch, so he hasn’t focused on you as much. He will come around. Have you talked with him about how you’re feeling?”
“Loads of times! Nothing has changed. It usually ends up with him storming out on me.”
“Have you mentioned the cheating thing to him?”
“No, I want to believe in Austin.” She pauses like she’s plucking which parts of the truth to tell. “He was my first love, and I always pictured him being the person I grew old with. I’m trying not to let my mind get the best of me and ruin our relationship. I’m trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. We’ve spent eight years of our lives together. I owe it to him.”
The hurt in Lauren’s eyes is evident, and I’m finally understanding what has been weighing on her since the day I met her. It pains me to see that she feels so stuck. It’s clear she’s unhappy, but she’s afraid to do something about it. I just want to fix things for her.
Then it hits me. That must be how everyone else around me feels, watching me suffer when I have the power to make a change.
Callie interrupts my thoughts as she leaps up from the couch. “We just need to get you proof! That will give you peace of mind.”
I narrow my eyes at her. She didn’t even want Lauren to come out with us tonight. Maybe it helped to see that “Little Miss Perfect” isn’t so perfect after all.
“How would we do that?”
“I don’t know. We could show up tonight and surprise him. That would either be great for your relationship as a spur of the moment little getaway together, or it would finally give you the proof you need. Do you know where he’s staying?”
Panic rises inside of me. “We aren’t just going to show up at his hotel room tonight. It’s late, and Amarillo isn’t exactly close.”
“But Lauren needs to know. She deserves the truth. She can’t just keep sitting around thinking her relationship is okay if it’s just going to end.”
The silence that falls over us is suffocating. I think of Rhett and how I’ve been wanting him to open up to me, but I haven’t given him anything to indicate that it’ll be worth it. I’ve always made it clear we had an expiration date. I can’t blame him for not wanting to take the next step with me, or any step for that matter.
“I bet Jax would drive us.” I can practically see Callie’s heart pounding out of her chest. She seems way too invested in this, like maybe she’s familiar with the feeling of losing someone she thought she had a future with.
“I don’t think we should do anything rash tonight. Let’s just sleep it off, and we can regroup in the morning. If you think there’s a chance there’s something going on with Austin, then we can make a plan to find out for sure. He won’t be able to keep that hidden for long.”
“I don’t have time! We are supposed to get married in two months. I can’t be planning a wedding to a man who doesn’t think of me as the only woman in the world.”
“And you shouldn’t settle for anything less than that. I promise we will figure this out. Let’s go to bed.”
Callie and Lauren exchange a glance but nod somberly. The cottage is silent as we brush our teeth and wash our faces, but I swear I hear the sound of the door creaking open after I’ve slipped into bed.