Chapter 28
Catherine Celia
By the time I arrived at Billie Rose’s parents’ ranch, I had spent seven days pretending I was fine even though I was the opposite of fine.
Work helped because I was pulled into the structure of a busy day.
At home, I was just a girl staring at her phone, refusing to answer the man she missed so badly it felt like a physical ache.
Hunter texted every day. I never answered.
Not because I didn’t want to, but because I wanted too much.
“Wow,” Billie said the second I stepped onto the patio. “You look emotionally dehydrated.”
I stopped beside the pool gate. “Hello to you too.”
She stood by a lounge chair in a bikini and oversized sunglasses, holding a drink with a tiny umbrella in it even though it was barely noon.
Liv floated on a raft in the pool. Taylor sat on the edge with her feet in the water.
Wren was under an umbrella, looking like someone had forced her to relax.
Taylor’s eyes moved over my face. “You aren’t sleeping.”
“Am too,” I answered like I was five.
Billie snorted.
Liv pushed her sunglasses onto her head. “Come sit.”
All four of them stared at me. I dropped my bag onto a chair.
“Okay, I’m not fine.” It was obvious so why try to hide it?
“Progress,” Wren said.
“You guys did a horrible job of hiding your relationship,” she added with a grin.
“TMI,” I countered with a blush. She clearly must have noticed us sneak into the towel closet.
Wren winced. “Sorry, but you guys were the real deal.”
I sat on the lounge chair and took the iced tea Billie handed me. “Please don’t psychoanalyze me.”
“Too late,” Billie said. “We already started before you got here.”
“Great,” I murmured.
Taylor leaned back on her hands. “Have you talked to him?”
I looked down at my drink. “No.”
“Have you read his messages?” she continued.
I hated how fast my throat tightened. “Yes.”
Billie softened. “And?”
“And he misses me.” I shrugged. “But missing me doesn’t fix the root of the problem. He walked out of my parents’ house without finding a real solution. Feelings don’t matter if he doesn’t know how to stand beside me when things get hard.”
“That’s totally fair,” Taylor said.
I stared at the pool; at the way the sunlight broke across the water.
“Maybe he feels bad and wants to make it up to you,” Billie Rose said.
“Sending me messages about how much he misses me doesn’t fix the root of the problem,” I noted.
Liv’s face went soft. “That’s a very solid point. He has to do more than miss you.”
“I can’t make him do anything. He has to want us badly enough to try,” I said.
Billie sat beside me. “Do you miss him?”
I laughed once, but it hurt. “I miss him so much it hurts. I miss his kitchen, his stupid responsible dad voice. I miss Isla and watching movies and the way he looks at me like I’m not too much.
” I pressed my fingers under my sunglasses, trying to stop the tears before they started. “And I know that’s not enough.”
“But at least give him a chance. Hear him out,” Wren said.
“I’m with Wren on that,” Billie said with a shrug.
I looked at her in shock. It was the last thing I thought she would say to me. Moving on was more her style.
“What? I can be emotionally mature by accident,” Billie snickered.
Liv climbed out of the pool and wrapped herself in a towel. “Do you love him?”
My heart tripped. The answer was there. “I’m falling in love with him,” I whispered.
Billie’s face softened in a way that almost undid me.
“But things are more complicated than I originally thought. At first, I assumed if I chose him, I’d lose something else.
My internship. My dad’s trust. My reputation.
I worked so hard to be in that room, and now I feel like everyone will only see me as the coach’s daughter who slept with the captain.
But now I see it’s more than that. Hunter is still hurting because of what his ex did to him, and I don’t know if he’s ready to take a chance on me. ”
Taylor’s phone buzzed beside her. She glanced down, and her face changed.
I noticed immediately. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” she replied. She was hiding something.
Billie sat up. “That was not a nothing face.”
Taylor sighed. “It’s Hunter.”
My whole body went still. “Why is Hunter texting you?”
Taylor hesitated, which made my stomach drop. “He asked if you were with me.”
Heat rushed to my face. “So now he’s checking up on me?”
“No.” Taylor shook her head quickly. “Not like that.”
“Then like what?”
“He wanted to make sure you were okay before he spoke to your dad.”
The pool area went silent. I sat up so fast my drink almost spilled. “What?”
Taylor looked apologetic. “That’s all he said.”
“He’s gone to speak to my dad?” My voice came out too high.
“I think he’s going to, from the sounds of it.” She nodded.
I stood, panic already crawling up my throat. “I need to call him.”
Wren’s voice stopped me. “Do you?”
I turned to her.
She held my gaze. “You’ve had a week of space. Maybe this is him finally taking action. Showing you that you matter to him.”
That hit because it was exactly what I wanted. The missing piece.
Billie stood and gently took the cup from my hand. “Sit before you pass out and ruin the vibe.”
“I’m not going to pass out.”
“You’re pale and dramatic. I’m not taking chances,” she insisted.
Taylor checked her phone again, then stood and walked to her bag.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
She pulled out a cream envelope and a folded piece of paper decorated with blue marker waves. My breath caught.
“He asked me to give these to you,” she said. “But only when you had emotional backup.”
Billie blinked. “Damn. That’s annoyingly thoughtful.”
The envelope had my name written across the front in Hunter’s handwriting.
Catherine.
My fingers shook when I took it.
“And this is from Isla,” Taylor said softly, handing me the folded paper.
I pressed my lips together because if I opened that card in front of everyone, I was going to lose it. “I need a minute.”
Billie pointed toward the guest house. “Go. We’ll be out here pretending not to stare through the windows.”
I walked into the guest house and shut the door behind me. I sat on the edge of the couch, Hunter’s letter in one hand and Isla’s card in the other. I opened the letter first.
Catherine,
I’m done trying to protect you by leaving you alone.
The first line stole the breath from my lungs. I kept reading.
I told myself space was respectful, but I think I also used it because I was scared every choice in front of us would cost you something. I was wrong to decide silence was protection.
You deserve the truth. I’m in love with you. I want to be with you no matter how complicated this gets, and because I love you, I will not ask you to give up anything you earned. Not your internship, career, your parents’ respect or yourself.
I’m going to stand beside you now, even if that means facing every person I was scared to disappoint. I don’t know the answer yet, but I know it cannot be you disappearing from a room you worked your ass off to stand in.
Sorry isn’t enough, so I’m going to say it better by doing better. If you still need space, I’ll respect it. But if any part of you misses us too, I need you to know I’m not trying to pull you away from your life. I’m trying to make room for me inside it.
Hunter
By the time I finished, my eyes were full of tears.
They were the kind that came when something inside you finally unclenched.
He loved me. Hunter loved me. And he was not asking me to choose between him and myself.
He was stepping into the mess instead of leaving me alone inside it.
Into my father’s anger. Into the team’s rules.
Into every hard thing we had avoided because wanting each other had been easier in the dark.
I opened Isla’s card next. Blue waves covered the bottom of the page.
A little figure stood near the ocean with hair that looked more like an octopus than Moana, and across the top, in careful handwriting, she had written:
Dear Catherine,
I miss you. Dad is trying to be less weird. I drew the ocean because you like Moana.
From Isla
A laugh broke out of me, wet and shaky. Then I cried. I missed her too. So damn much. The guest house door opened softly. Billie stepped inside, took one look at my face, and closed the door behind her.
“Oh, babe.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re crying over Disney ocean art.”
I laughed, wiping my cheeks with the back of my hand. She sat beside me, her shoulder pressing into mine.
“Is it bad?” she asked.
I looked at Hunter’s letter and at Isla’s card.
“No,” I whispered.
Billie waited. I pressed the letter against my chest. “That’s the problem.” My voice broke, but this time it did not feel like breaking apart. “It’s exactly right.”
For the first time in a week, I did not reach for my phone just to stare at Hunter’s name. I held his words in my hands instead and let myself believe, just for a second, that maybe loving him didn’t have to mean losing myself.