Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Marlowe felt like she was in a daze. She also didn’t feel like it was really over.
She just didn’t believe it.
And maybe some people would see that as denial. Maybe there were people who would hear about the breakup and think that she was only standing upright, working at her desk, because she didn’t believe in reality.
Maybe she didn’t believe in reality. She believed in herself, though.
And in the end, she believed in Cody. Believed that he was good. Believed that he was something altogether different than he seemed to believe.
He was afraid, he wasn’t bad, he was a traumatized kid inside, he wasn’t actually incapable of love or feeling or any of the things that he thought.
Maybe it would take time. She wanted him, it was true.
But what she wanted more than anything was for him to be healed. What she wanted more than anything was for him to finally be able to accept love, even if it wasn’t from her.
Even if.
She opened up the reservations tab on her computer and started to look at the incoming people for the week. Most would come in on Friday evening, but there were a few on Thursday. And she needed to look at the special requests and just confirm with concierge that they had been arranged.
She made a couple of notes on a sticky pad and tore it off, ready to walk into her concierge’s office when the doors opened.
She looked up, and she felt like she was having an out-of-body experience.
Because the person who walked through the doors was genuinely the last person she had expected to see.
Not just in the hotel, but in the state. On this side of the country.
Aiden.
His face was so familiar, and yet, a stranger’s now.
Because it was like he was from another life. Another time. Not just three months ago, but an eternity ago.
He didn’t seem quite as tall. She was very aware of how lanky he was, mainly because Cody was just so big and broad.
Not that she was trying to be mean, she wasn’t, but there was just a faded quality to him, and she had a feeling it had nothing to do with him specifically, and everything to do with her.
He had once been the centerpiece of her life. And she had made an image of him out of his best attributes. Had maximized those, held onto them, and intentionally diminished every bad quality.
Because it was the way that she kept things going. Because it was the way that she convinced herself she was living in a fairytale.
And that fairytale had been really important to her then.
It wasn’t now. Not in the same way.
She was more open to things being complicated. Messy. Because she didn’t feel quite so desperate to wrap everything up in a bow.
She trusted herself too much for that.
Just like she trusted herself now, standing there looking at the man she had once placed all of her hopes and dreams in.
“What are you doing here?”
Her immediate worry was that he wanted to contest the divorce. Wanted something from her. The thousand dollars he’d left her when he’d taken everything else?
What?
She didn’t even need any of that, she just felt worried. Like he might sweep in and try to take this job, or something.
“I got the papers,” he said.
Only then did she realize how tired he looked.
“Yeah? You could’ve signed them in Brooklyn.”
“I don’t want to sign them.”
She was taken aback, completely. She didn’t even know what to say, she just stood there, staring at him.
“Say something,” he said.
“I don’t know what to say. I don’t understand. What do you mean you don’t want to sign them? You were the one who said that you wanted to separate.”
“But I didn’t realize how I would feel. Actually, getting divorce papers from you.
Irreconcilable differences. Us being apart forever.
Marlowe, you’ve been in my life for so long, and I think I just…
I really fucked up. I think losing my mom, the way that I did, slowly, made me afraid.
It made me realize that life was passing me by, and I thought that maybe I needed to try different things. ”
“By different things, you mean sex with other people.”
“Yeah, I guess. I kind of did mean that. But I wasn’t thinking of it that way.”
“You cheated on me,” she said.
“And I’m sorry. It’s like I lost myself in a total haze, and I wasn’t thinking clearly. I made really stupid mistakes, I lied to you, and I…” He looked so genuinely upset, she didn’t know what to do with that.
This whole time, she had imagined him the way that he’d been in their last conversation.
Detached, sneering even, blaming. He had been so superior and so awful, and a version of himself that she didn’t recognize, and this, this was the man she knew.
A man who actually had a sense of accountability, who actually cared for her.
A man who seemed really, really sorry that he had thrown their relationship away.
And there was a version of her that would’ve run straight into his arms. Who would have wanted the safety, the security, back so much that she would’ve done anything to have it.
There was a version of her that would have yearned for that.
But it wasn’t this version of her. She had tasted something different. A different kind of love, a different sort of connection. An intensity, a fire, longing, that she had always been afraid of. She had kept things in her life deliberately smooth and easy, and Cody wasn’t that.
Cody was reaching for the stars, taking a chance. Risking it all.
And now, she would rather be alone than be with a man who didn’t make her feel all that passion. Who didn’t access those deep parts of herself that only Cody had ever reached.
It hit her then that when she was a teenager, she’d thought Aiden was unique. That his caring for her was something rare and sacred. No one else in her life had loved her enough to show it, and so whatever he gave to her felt big. Special. Huge.
She hadn’t realized she was lovable. That to love her wasn’t a superhuman feat.
If only she’d been more patient. She’d have made different choices. Been loved in small ways in other relationships, by other men.
Funny, she should realize this now, looking at Aiden, when Cody had just rejected her. But the reason she’d had to tell Cody she loved him was because it was a different sort of love. A rare sort of love.
She couldn’t even hate Aiden right then. They’d loved each other.
It just hadn’t been forever.
He was resisting now, probably because the unknown scared him. Because of his own issues, which frankly they hadn’t mined all that much. Now they never would. Maybe he would, alone. Maybe he would with someone else.
Just not with her.
“What are you saying, exactly?” she asked, because she had to be sure.
“I want you back. I understand that it isn’t going to be easy, I understand that I’m going to have to earn your trust again, that I’m going to have to start over, but I want you back.”
Because having her back right now would improve his life in every way.
She had been good to him, she had cooked him dinner, she had managed him. His schedule, his life. She had been a good wife.
And he hadn’t been a horrible husband, but he had been a lying husband. Taking him back would require a rebuild. For her, it would require an immense amount of work. Her life would not be better for taking him back. She was better by herself than she was with him.
It was kind of wonderfully clarifying to have him return while Cody had just told her that he didn’t want her.
That he didn’t want her love. Because if she hadn’t changed, if she hadn’t healed, she would’ve run right back to security.
She would’ve done anything rather than be alone, left adrift, left to her own devices, facing the sorts of fears that had rattled around inside of her since childhood, a not insignificant one being that she would end up like her dad.
By herself with no one to take care of her. No one to love her.
That was yet another reason she had clung to Aiden.
But she wasn’t making choices because she was afraid anymore.
She was deciding what she wanted to do with her one, perfect life based on positive things only.
What brought her joy. What made her feel whole.
It was this place, these mountains. It was even loving Cody when he couldn’t love her back.
When he couldn’t receive it. It was learning how to ride a horse, and getting up early and walking to Juniper and Sage.
It was her friendship with Cara, her friendship with Laney.
Parties in the big barn, and barbecues with the Graysons.
It was the main street of Mustang River.
It was the whole acceptance of herself, every version of her.
From the scared little girl who had done her best to keep her family together, to keep her life on track, to the woman who had said yes to Aiden because she had believed that it was the best thing for her.
The woman who had walked away from him and moved across the country.
The woman who had given in to the powerful attraction she felt for a stone cold cowboy because it had felt bigger and more and better than anything else ever had.
And the woman who was standing here now, looking back at her past, and realizing that what she wanted was in the future. Not behind her.
Even if she couldn’t predict the outcome.
Even if she couldn’t guarantee her happiness, her safety, her dreams.
She would take a step out into that blank canvas and trust that the paint that filled in around it would be as beautiful as everything else had been. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t struggle.
It didn’t mean there wouldn’t be hardship.
But it would all belong to her. It wouldn’t just be the consequences of someone else’s actions.
She felt pretty damn good about that.
“I don’t want you back,” she said.