Chapter 11 #2
“Look, I’ve known you for a lot of years.
You have always been the go-to guy when anybody needs anything.
You’re really good at being what other people need.
But in all that time, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you ask anybody for more than helping you carry something from one place to another.
Hell, you didn’t even do that if you didn’t have to.
You don’t ask people for help. Not for anything.
And given your background, that makes sense.
The last time you did that, your stepfather just threw up his hands and said he was out.
The guy you should have been able to count on let you down, and you’ve spent the past decade plus expecting everybody else to do the same.
“Now here comes Laurel. She snuck right through all those defenses of yours to hand you exactly what you need. You didn’t have to ask.
Didn’t have to say a thing. She just saw and gave, and that’s so different from what you expect, you can’t quite believe it.
And I get it. It’s hard to get over that past experience.
But at some point, you’ve gotta risk trusting somebody again. ”
Ivy leaned forward. “Laurel isn’t with you because she needs something from you.
She’s with you because she wants to be. And she wouldn’t have brought up this whole idea if she didn’t intend to stick with it, to stick with you, to make it a success.
Because that’s not who she is. On some level you know that, or you wouldn’t be in love with her in the first place. ”
Sebastian closed his eyes. He couldn’t deny it. He was in love with Laurel. And it scared him shitless because she was the first person he’d let close enough to hurt him in years.
He thought about that last accusation she’d hurled at him.
You’re so terrified of being abandoned again, you won’t even take the chance on me, on us. You’re standing there inventing a problem where there was none to create a self-fulfilling prophecy, so you can tell yourself you were right. That everybody leaves, including me.
Was that really what he was doing?
He played their entire fight back through his head, actually hearing what she’d said instead of what he’d believed.
She’d never lied. She hadn’t gone back on her word.
They simply hadn’t been on the same page.
And in his haste, his fear, at the first sign of difficulty, he’d broken faith with her.
She’d trusted him to be there for her while she faced her parents, and he’d been the one to bail.
He hadn’t heard her out, hadn’t stuck around long enough to calm down and listen. He’d just walked away.
What kind of man did that make him?
On a sigh, Sebastian scrubbed both hands over his face. “Shit. I screwed up.”
Harrison offered a wry smile. “Well, I mean, in your defense, you’ve never had these feelings before. This whole being in love thing can be tough.”
“He’s not wrong. You wouldn’t be the first one to make an assumption and take off without leaving a forwarding address.”
“So to speak,” Harrison added.
They shared one of those private smiles that made Sebastian’s gut ache.
“The point is,” Ivy continued, “misunderstandings happen, but they can be forgiven. Because love.”
“You just gotta man up, track her down, and tell her you’re sorry.” Harrison slipped an arm around Ivy’s waist.
She tipped her head to his shoulder. “Don’t let her wait, Sebastian. Go find your girl.”
Instinct had her following the path she’d taken with Sebastian that first day.
She wanted that top-of-the-world view, to make her and her problems feel small.
Right now it felt as if they’d crush her.
By the time she and Ginger hit the base of the mountain trail, some of the tension in her chest had eased and her mind began to process more than adrenaline and temper.
Had she lost everything? At the very least, she’d done irreparable damage to her relationship with her father.
Probably with her mother, too, as Rosalind always sided with her husband.
And Sebastian… Her father hadn’t been entirely wrong.
He’d been part of the impetus for all of this. Where did they stand?
How could he possibly be so quick to assume she’d go back on her word?
She could understand how he’d thought that in the moment, but he hadn’t even been willing to hear her out.
His default had been to retreat instead of working through it.
What did that say about their ability to weather the storm?
If they couldn’t come back from this, then he wasn’t the man she believed him to be.
The idea of that—that she’d upended her entire world for an illusion—made her ache in whole new ways.
Was a life being true to herself really worth it without him in it?
At the fork in the trail, Ginger pulled left and Laurel let the mare have her head.
For long minutes, she lost herself in the bunch and flex of the horse beneath her as she picked her way up the rocky slope.
As the trees began to thin, Laurel looked out, expecting to see the first hints of the view, but nothing looked familiar.
She must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.
“It’s fine. We just need to make a U-turn and head back down.”
Ginger’s ears swiveled back at the sound of her voice.
The trail was too narrow to reverse. “Okay, we’ll just keep going. As soon as we get to a spot big enough to turn around, we will.”
The mare quivered beneath her. She needed to get her own nerves under control so as not to make things worse. “Easy. Easy girl. We’re gonna get out of this and then go on back. I’ll give you a nice, long massage with that nubby brush you like so much.”
Thunder boomed so close Laurel felt the vibration in the air.
Ginger screamed and lurched, scrambling up the rocky path at breakneck speed.
Laurel lost a stirrup, but maintained her seat, gripping tight with her knees as she tried to regain control.
But Ginger was too far gone to heed any commands.
Incoherent prayers tumbled through Laurel’s head as she held on for dear life.
Another clap of thunder shook the mountain, and Ginger reared. With a scream, Laurel slipped from the saddle, falling, falling. She landed with a bone-jarring crunch at the edge of the rocky trail. The ground collapsed beneath her, her lower half sliding over the side.
She scrabbled for purchase, fingers digging, feet flailing.
She snagged a spindly sapling growing out of the rock and jerked to a halt, jarring her shoulder.
On a sob, she sucked in a breath of relief.
Shoving back the panic, she reached up to grab the tree with both hands, pedaling her feet to search for some kind of footing.
Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.
But her feet found nothing, and as her body continued to thrash, the roots pulled free, and she dropped like a stone off the side of the mountain.