Chapter 16
The bell chimed as I pulled open the door of the post office and barrelled inside, instantly feeling the safety and security of these four walls. The love emanating from the gorgeous wedding photos forced me to focus on what was directly in front of me and calm my breathing.
“Why, Miss Stella. What could be the matter?” The cheery voice of the round old man who reminded me so much of my own grandfather brought me back into my body.
“Ahhh.” A sorrowful look crossed Teddy’s face, and I almost regretted my question if not for my burning curiosity.
The most beautiful things were often made up of exceptional moments and the truest hardships. You couldn’t have one without the other. Love was beautiful, and I needed to know more about it.
“We suffered a fire that destroyed our chapel here in 2009. A big storm rolled through with vicious plow winds damaging everyone’s property and crops.”
I remember reading about that in the Love history book.
Winds over 160 kilometres per hour tore through the town, with gusts that reached up to 205 kilometres per hour.
There was an estimated ten million dollars’ worth of damage to the small community.
It wasn’t surprising they were still suffering the aftermath of the events but hearing it from someone who experienced it first-hand was so much more harrowing than reading about it.
Teddy came around the counter to stand beside me and looked at the photos lining the wall.
An expression of fondness crossed his face, like he was remembering the good times amidst the painful memories.
“Lightning struck a nearby tree and then winds tore it down. Not even the torrential downpour was any match against the old, dry building. Afterward, the town tried to come together, to pull something together to fix what had been the staple in our area. Sadly, everyone had enough of their own damage to deal with, and the money ran out before the focus was given to the chapel. And then, once it was gone people started to forget,” he said wistfully as he ran a thumb over one of the teddy bear stamps.
“Do you still have the stamps?”
“Oh yes, absolutely, we do.” Teddy rounded the corner of the front desk and opened up a drawer.
He held something small as he made his way back over to me.
“Not many people send their wedding invitations here anymore, unfortunately. You can have a couple. Maybe you know who to share them with to help spread the word.”
I gratefully took the stamps, eyeing the cute teddy bears on them. It truly was such a unique aspect of this little town.
The story he told me was devastating, but it also inspired my next question to Teddy. “Who owns that old rail house heading out of town near Whispers of Love?”
Teddy hummed as he pondered thoughtfully. “You know, I’m not actually too sure. That building has stood there unused since I was a boy, and as far as I was concerned, it was just a part of the town. You could ask Trixie, it’s so close to her property line, she might know who owns it now.”
Just as I was starting to consider his answer, Olivia came from the rows of PO boxes, obviously coming out of The Warm Hug. “Stella?” She stopped with a start, but a big smile formed on her beautiful face. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you, actually. Well, you, and The Warm Hug. It’s a pretty cozy spot,” I admitted to her, grateful for her little haven of solace.
She beamed with pride as she grabbed my hand. “Come on, Mel’s in there, too, and we were just discussing some plans for supper. You can join us!”
Instead of just going out for supper at Heartstrings Bar and Grill like I expected, I found myself in Olivia’s bright yellow Jeep with her and Melody, bags all packed and ready for a girls’ weekend in the big city a couple hours away.
I promised them I would keep them in the loop if anything else happened, and I wasn’t about to go back on that promise with my new friends.
They knew about my car being spray-painted, but I was a little worried about what their reaction might be to find out someone they knew had done it.
I took a deep breath and braced myself. “It was Valerie.”
Olivia eyed me in the rearview mirror, while Melody turned around to face me. “What was?”
“She spray-painted my car.”
“That fucking bitch,” Olivia spat out with an anger that was so vile, such a stark difference from her sunshine personality, that I couldn’t help the giggle that escaped me.
“I don’t like to talk down about other women,” Melody admitted, “but she has honestly been horrible to us since high school.”
Olivia nodded along thoughtfully. “Ugh, I know, right? Like when she accidentally spilled that entire bowl of punch on you during our Valentine’s school dance?”
“I wish I could forget it,” Melody replied. “Guess some things never change.”
I shook my head at her sentiment. I didn’t understand it. Life was hard enough as it was being a woman. We needed to band together, not pit ourselves against each other.
“Remember how pissed I was when Calvin agreed to go out with her?” Mel asked, nudging Olivia with her elbow.
Olivia giggled, then responded. “Yeah, but remember the party we threw when he broke it off three days later?”
“Three days?” I couldn’t help but interrupt their laughter with my question. Calvin had said it was hardly a relationship, but with the reaction she had, I figured he was underplaying it a bit.
“Yeah, it was a lot more serious for her than it was for him,” Melody explained. “Where is your car now?”
“Calvin had it towed to the shop.”
“Oh good, Sean is great at what he does. He’ll get it fixed up in no time.”
“He also found trackers on my vehicle—that’s how Nick found me and sent the flowers.” Even though it had been nearly two weeks since I’d received those roses—and nothing else had come in since—it still made me feel sick to say the words that Nick knew where I was.
“Fuck him.” The angry tone was much more fitting on Melody than it was on Olivia, but both seemed to be absolutely seething at the information I just gave them. “He doesn’t deserve a single moment of our time this weekend. You deserve so much better, Stella.”
It was still an awkward subject for me to consider what I did deserve. I knew it wasn’t the torture Nick put me through, but I also wasn’t sure what I could be deserving of after being broken beyond repair.
“Where are we going?” I asked, changing the subject. I had never actually been in Canada before, so I was excited to do a little more sight-seeing now that I wasn’t white knuckling my steering wheel and fighting tears like the state I was in when I arrived at Love.
Mel turned around in the front seat with her cell in hand.
“I’ve booked us the cutest Airbnb for the weekend,” she said, turning her phone to show me a picture of a living room that looked like it could have been on Pinterest. The all-white walls and minimalistic decor was a stark difference from what I had been growing used to at Trixie’s bed and breakfast, but I was excited for a weekend with these girls, nonetheless.
By the end of the next day, I felt like an entirely new woman than I had twenty-four hours prior.
We arrived in Saskatoon late in the evening and grabbed a couple pizzas on our way to the Airbnb.
Throwing on chick flick after chick flick, we did nothing but laugh and cry until we fell asleep on a pile of pillows and blankets in the living room like we were kids at a sleepover.
It did things to heal my inner child that I never even realized needed attending to.
After a morning at the spa and an afternoon full of shopping, we were planning to hit up a bar for some dancing to bring our wonderful weekend to a close.
Searching through my bags of new clothes brought a huge smile to my face.
I didn’t pack much when I left Salt Lake City, and over the course of the last couple weeks I was growing tired of my usual legging and sweater combo.
I was grateful Olivia had lent me a dress the night we went out to Heartstrings, but I was excited to have some clothes of my own.
Clothes that felt like me.
Nick controlled a lot of what I wore when we had been together.
At first, I thought it was cute. Of course, I wanted to dress up in ways that impressed him and made him look twice at me.
It felt good in the beginning. But that quickly switched gears when I was berated for just wanting to be comfortable when I was on my period, or when he turned up his nose at me saying my state was appalling when I finished a rather tough workout. I could never just be.
Smiling, I pulled out a dress that Nick would have hated, and as I put it on, I never felt more beautiful.
It was a black flowy fabric with a blue floral print.
A slit up my left leg provided more movement to the dress and a deep V-cut in the font was more flattering than I thought it would be for my small chest. The sleeves billowed as I moved, and I paired the dress with a belt to cinch at the waist and a brand new pair of comfortable cowboy boots.
I felt stunning, and the girls must have agreed as they hooted and hollered when I walked out of the bedroom at the Airbnb.
“Wow, girl! Get it!” Melody cheered while Olivia whistled.
We laughed and linked arms with each other as we piled into the back of the Uber.
The drive passed by in a blur of city lights that suddenly had me flashing back to nights in Salt Lake City.
Big cities all seemed similar in the dark, but as my breath caught, Melody rested her hand on top of my clenched fists in my lap.
I hadn’t even realized I’d been shaking until her touch soothed me.
“Just say the word and we can go back to the Airbnb, okay? There’s no pressure at all.”
I nodded, but words failed me.
“But remember, he wins if you stop living,” Olivia added quietly from beside Mel.
“Exactly! And we are not in the business of letting assholes win,” Melody declared.
That brought a genuine smile back to my face as we pulled up in front of the bar that was nothing like a place Nick would have been caught dead in. And that only made me want to go inside even more.
I looked toward my new friends, beyond grateful for the way they had infiltrated my life. “Well, in the words in Shania Twain, ‘let’s go, girls!’”
I felt light as a feather as I danced around with Mel and Liv in the bar.
We found ourselves at The Rainbow, a gay bar that shined and sparkled.
I was having the time of my life with the loud music, the booming bass, the laser lights and disco ball refractions.
The drinks also helped to loosen me up, and I was just about to grab another one when someone tapped my shoulder.
“Would you like to dance?”
I turned toward the deep voice that sparked a memory in my mind, but it wasn’t the green eyes I was hopeful to see. The brown eyes of a stranger in the bar smiled down at me.
“My name is Steven, and I couldn’t help but notice you over here.” He seemed sweet as he politely looked only into my eyes as he asked me to dance, but I didn’t feel anything more in that moment.
Before I could even answer, Olivia and Melody pushed me toward him. “Yes, she does!” they said almost simultaneously.
I couldn’t turn down the genuine smile on this guy’s face, so I took his hand as he led me to the dance floor. We twisted and turned to the beat of the music with his hands on my hips, sometimes venturing a little lower but responding respectfully when I guided his hands back up.
Dancing with Steven felt freeing in the sense that I finally knew I was no longer tied to Nick. Though he had hurt me, both physically and mentally, I knew it was just a matter of time before all the emotional wounds healed just as the physical ones had. And this night was proof of that.
But Steven’s hands felt nothing like the warmth and comfort I had received from Calvin when he held me after I’d broken the vase.
They didn’t even compare to the spark and heat I felt when we danced together at Heartstrings.
Paled in comparison to the security I felt as he held my hand on the way back to the bed and breakfast.
I thanked Steven for the dances as I left and found my friends, a genuine smile on my face but ready to end the night with people who were beginning to become my whole world.