Chapter 23 #2
Aiden looked like he’d been hit upside the head with a bag of quarters.
It was clear it had never occurred to him that she would reject him.
Why would it? She’d arranged her whole life around him.
Around keeping him happy, keeping their marriage running smoothly, centering him, fawning on him.
She’d given him very unrealistic expectations of a relationship, and it was pretty clear he was happier with that sort of relationship.
It wasn’t even all his fault. She’d trained him to expect that. She’d let things be that one-sided. She didn’t hate either of them for that.
She also could never go back.
“But you… you didn’t want to separate,” he said.
“I didn’t,” she said. “I really didn’t. I didn’t want to be without you.
I didn’t want a life where we weren’t together.
” She swallowed hard. “But guess what? Now I’ve lived one.
And I’m okay.” She felt her eyes filling with tears, and she hated that, because she wanted him to know that it wasn’t because of him.
It was because of Cody. Cody was her loss.
And it was going to take time to heal from that, but she wasn’t devastated.
She didn’t feel numb, she didn’t feel like she had lost her agency, didn’t feel like she had lost herself.
Because Cody had not reduced her to half in their relationship. He had built her into something more. Something stronger. And that was a gift, even in all this heartbreak.
“I’m all right,” she said. “But I… I’ve been here for three months. My life has changed. What I want has changed.”
“I don’t understand.” He sounded angry. Confused. Completely blindsided, which was hilarious since he was the one who’d wanted to split up. He was the one who cheated.
She also knew he was being completely genuine.
What an idiot.
“No. Of course you don’t. Because you always saw me as somebody who is dedicated to you, devoted to you, no matter what.
And I was. I was. Because I was really scared of what would happen if I didn’t have you.
But do you know what happened? I didn’t die.
In fact, I’m thriving. I’m better than I ever have been.
I’ve worked through things that I had never really looked at before.
Parts of myself that were keeping me stuck, holding me down.
None of that is actually your fault. We had old patterns built around my trauma, and protecting it, and I just can’t… I can’t go back. And I don’t want to.”
She could tell him that she’d been sleeping with a cowboy who lit her soul on fire, made her feel things that no one else ever had, but there was no point in doing that.
It would be petty, and while she was petty, and wasn’t so healed that she wouldn’t enjoy it, her relationship with Cody actually just felt too private to fling it at him like a weapon.
“I flew all this way,” he said.
She wondered right then if being inconvenienced hurt more than losing her.
He might not be able to see it now, but someday he would.
Their love had been real. They’d made a life. It might have been able to continue just fine if he hadn’t detonated a bomb in the middle of it.
But it had been a small love. The kind you used to prop up all the issues inside you, so that all your pet problems could stay right where they’d always been, protected and safe.
The love she’d found with Cody had rearranged the landscape of everything she was. He had made space in her for healing.
He had fundamentally changed her, in the best way.
“You should have called,” she said. “I’d have told you on the phone. But you’re welcome to stay for a little bit.”
“What?”
“We have a vacancy. I can book you into a room for a few days. You can get a look at the life that you chose not to have. And then you can go back home. Don’t you have a girlfriend?”
“Well…”
“Did you break up with her?”
“I…” She snorted as she typed on the computer, checking him into a room even though he hadn’t confirmed that he was staying yet. “Not yet.”
“Hedging your bets,” she said.
She was not doing that. She had maybe lost both of the men who had ever been in her life in the span of two days.
Forever.
And she would do it every time, because demanding love from Cody was the best thing for her. And telling Aiden no, when she knew that she could love someone else more, better, more fully, was what was best for both of them.
“Are you going to stay or not?”
“I… sure.”
“Great. Might I suggest you go get some baked goods from your sister? I think you guys have some talking to do.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
She could see that Aiden didn’t fully believe that she was booking him into a hotel and also denying him a chance of them ever getting back together. But he would realize it. Before the end of the day, he would realize it.
When she went up to her room later that night, all she could do was laugh and then cry.
Aiden had come for her. And she wasn’t happy about it. Even funnier, it basically didn’t matter. It was an irritation.
Because what she felt for him wasn’t love. Maybe it hadn’t been for a long time.
But what she felt for Cody was real.
So real that it had fundamentally changed the deepest parts of her.
“But if it’s not the same for him, you can’t go back.”
He had turned her into this. This woman who wasn’t going to take crumbs. Not ever again.
This woman who wasn’t going to take less than absolutely everything, a herd of wild mustangs.
She could only hope that in the end, he decided he was a man who wanted everything more than he wanted his fear.