Chapter 43
JOY
Isat on Aunt Victoria’s couch with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey in one hand and a bottle of Kahlúa in the other, alternating between spoonfuls of ice cream and sips of coffee liqueur like they were medicine for a broken heart. Which let’s be honest, they basically were.
The image of Lynn draped on Cooper’s arm kept playing in my mind like a movie I couldn’t turn off.
The way she’d pressed close to him, claimed his attention, made their interaction look intimate and familiar.
The way people had turned to watch, whispers already starting to spread through the crowd like wildfire.
One little second had changed everything. Lynn had staked her claim. That was it. She had the balls to claim her man. I couldn’t blame her. She realized what she lost and that was that.
She was back.
I didn’t really believe Cooper was still in love with Lynn.
Despite all my fears and insecurities. I knew him well enough to recognize that whatever he felt for his ex-fiancée, it wasn’t love.
But Lynn had made their interaction so public, so performative, that it didn’t matter what Cooper actually felt.
People were already talking about them like they were some kind of celebrity couple getting back together.
One of the busybodies practically tackled me near the hot chocolate stand, wanting to know if it was true that “our Cooper and that Ziegler girl were working things out.” By the time I had managed to mumble some excuse and escape, I could see other festival-goers glancing in my direction with that particular look of small-town pity that made me want to crawl under a rock.
That was one of the worst things about small towns—everyone knew everyone’s business or thought they did.
In the city, you could have your heart broken in blissful anonymity.
Nobody cared about your personal drama because they were too busy dealing with their own lives.
There was something beautifully liberating about being just another face in the crowd.
All the more reason to get back there.
I took another sip of Kahlúa and felt the warm burn slide down my throat.
Whatever was happening with Cooper, it was too much bullshit.
I didn’t sign up for ex drama and public humiliation.
When I started having feelings for him again, it felt natural.
Easy. I wanted simple love, the kind where two people cared about each other without all the complications and manipulation and small-town gossip.
If I had to jump through a bunch of hoops to win Cooper’s attention or compete with his perfect ex-fiancée for his affection, then he wasn’t the man for me. Real love shouldn’t require that kind of performance.
The front door opened, and I heard Aunt Victoria’s familiar footsteps in the hallway. She appeared in the living room doorway, took one look at my ice cream and liqueur combination, and her expression immediately shifted to concern.
“How are you holding up, sweetheart?” she asked, settling into the chair across from me. “I made sure everything wrapped up properly at the festival. The night was a complete success, as far as the event itself is concerned. I heard about that business with Lynn, though.”
The kindness in her voice was my undoing. All the emotions I’d been holding back since fleeing the market came pouring out at once—humiliation, hurt, disappointment, and a bone-deep exhaustion that went beyond just the physical demands of organizing a community event.
“I don’t know,” I said, my voice cracking. “I feel like I’m on some kind of horrible emotional roller coaster that I can’t get off.”
She moved to sit beside me on the couch.
I held up the bottle in silent offering. She shook her head.
“Talk to me,” she said gently.
“I was feeling so terrible after losing my job and having my whole life in New York fall apart,” I began, the words tumbling out between tears.
“I felt worthless, like everything I had worked for had been for nothing. Then I started working on the festival, and that felt good. It felt like maybe I had something valuable to contribute after all.”
I paused to take another spoonful of ice cream, trying to steady my voice.
“And then Cooper and I got close again. Closer than we had ever been, even in high school. For the first time in months, I felt like maybe everything was going to be okay. Like maybe I had found something real and lasting and beautiful.”
The tears were flowing freely now, and I didn’t bother trying to stop them.
“But now it feels like it’s all crumbling around me again. The gossip, the drama, the way everyone’s looking at me like I’m some kind of cautionary tale. This isn’t how anyone’s supposed to feel at Christmas time. Ever.”
Aunt Victoria handed me a tissue and waited patiently for me to compose myself.
“Joy, honey, I need you to listen to me,” she said finally. “Cooper does not want Lynn back. I saw how wrecked he was after what she did to him. That’s not the kind of betrayal a man forgives, especially not a man like Cooper who loves with his whole heart.”
“Then why—”
“She’s here causing trouble,” Aunt Victoria interrupted. “She’s trying to rob him of his happiness again, and she’s using you to do it. She knows that if she can make you doubt yourself, make you run away, then she wins without Cooper ever having to choose between you.”
Her words hit me with uncomfortable accuracy. Lynn was manipulating the situation expertly, using my own insecurities against me. And fucking with Cooper.
That’s what pissed me off.
Up until a few weeks ago, he was still in the funk she left him in. Now that she was back, she was going to ruin him. Again. That was not okay.
“Don’t let that witch win,” Aunt Victoria continued fiercely. “Don’t give her the satisfaction of destroying something good just because she can’t stand to see Cooper happy.”
“That’s not really up to me,” I said quietly. “It’s up to Cooper. He has to decide what he wants, who he wants. I can’t make that choice for him.”
“You’re right,” Victoria agreed. “But you can decide whether you’re going to trust him enough to let him make that choice, or whether you’re going to run away before he gets the chance.”
I stared into my ice cream, considering her words. Part of me knew she was right. Part of me recognized that fleeing was exactly what Lynn wanted me to do. But another part of me, the part that had been hurt too many times, just wanted to retreat to safety.
“I’ll finish the festival,” I said finally. “I made a commitment to this town, and I’m going to see it through. But after that…” I trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.
“After that, what?” Aunt Victoria prompted gently.
“After that, I think I need to look for work out of town again. There are too many old memories here, too much history. Maybe it was a mistake to think I could come back and build something new.”
The admission hurt to say out loud, but it also felt like relief. I tried to make Calton Hill work, tried to build a life here, but maybe some things were better left in the past.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Victoria said softly, pulling me into a hug. “I understand why you’re scared. I understand why running away feels safer. But please don’t make any permanent decisions while you’re this hurt and confused.”
“I’m not confused,” I said, though even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t entirely true. “I’m tired. I’m tired of fighting for something that shouldn’t be this hard.”
“Sometimes the best things are the hardest to fight for,” she replied. “But I won’t push you. Just promise me you’ll take some time to think about it before you make any final decisions.”
I nodded, though I wasn’t sure how much thinking was going to change my mind. The humiliation of tonight felt too fresh, too raw. The idea of facing Cooper again, of having that conversation we’d promised to have, filled me with dread.
Maybe some people were meant to find love in small towns, to build lives surrounded by community and history and the kind of deep roots that went back generations.
But maybe I wasn’t one of those people. Maybe I was meant for the anonymity of the city and the kind of life where your personal business stayed personal.
Your mistakes didn’t become everyone else’s entertainment.
“I’m going to bed,” I said. “Thank you for making sure the market wrapped up okay. And thank you for listening.”
“Always,” she replied, kissing my forehead. “Try to get some sleep. Things might look different in the morning.”
I put the liquor back in the kitchen and the ice cream in the freezer. Before I walked out of the kitchen, I grabbed the bottle and took a long drink. I should have got some tequila. I wanted to knock myself out. Unfortunately, I would have to deal with what I had.
As I climbed the stairs to my childhood bedroom, I wondered if she was right. Would morning bring clarity, or just more of the same confusion and heartache?
Outside my window, Calton Hill was quiet and peaceful, blanketed in snow and twinkling with Christmas lights all around the neighborhood. It looked like a postcard. It looked like the kind of place where love stories were supposed to have happy endings.
But maybe not all love stories were meant to end happily. Maybe some were just meant to teach you something about yourself before you moved on to whatever came next.
I fell asleep thinking about job applications and apartment searches in distant cities. There was an odd comfort at the thought of starting over somewhere no one knew my name or my history.
It felt like giving up, but sometimes giving up was just another word for self-preservation. Cooper wasn’t ready. He needed to figure out his situation with Lynn.
He wasn’t ready and maybe I wasn’t either.
It was better to leave things alone as they were before there was any real damage.
Maybe in another five years we would be ready.
Assuming Lynn didn’t convince him to actually marry her.
It was out of my hands. I was going to sit back and let the universe do what the universe did.