Chapter 8
Garrett
The rest of the drive is completely silent.
I know I shouldn’t have said all of that, but especially the part about her not being happy. As the words tumbled out, she practically crawled inside herself, getting smaller inside her puffy winter coat, turning her face to the dark window.
There’s such a thing as too much honesty.
Fuck.
But what’s done is done.
I need to find a way to salvage the holidays for her. Rory loves Christmas, her whole family loves Christmas and goes over the top for it. I forced her into my truck and made her to talk about something that should be left as water under the bridge—done and dusted months ago.
As we pass the sign on the highway that Pine Harbour is ahead, I say, “I’ll come in with you. I’ll tell them that we’re not together anymore, and I’ll one hundred percent take the responsibility. I won’t leave until they accept that.”
“Oh, great,” she says, staring out the window. “Just how I want my Christmas holidays to begin—with an awkward and frustrating conversation.” She pauses. “But it’ll be good to rip the Band-aid off, and then go our separate ways.”
Rip the Band-aid off, I repeat to myself.
We turn off the highway. Mac’s Diner is lit up, and the parking lot is full. Maybe I’ll loop back there to grab dinner after I drop Rory off.
Main Street is quiet, all the stores closed now for the night.
At the end of the main drag there’s a hill that separates the town from the harbour itself. During the day, we’d see the wild, frigid waves of Lake Huron crashing against the shore, but now that it’s dark, the lake is just an endless stretch of darkness.
Like we’re driving to the edge of the world.
Growing up, that’s what it felt like for sure.
At the bottom of the hill, at the T-junction of Main Street and Old Whiskey Harbour Road—officially just Harbour Road now but nobody who grew up in Pine Harbour calls it that—is my cousin Josh’s garage.
Across from it is the marina, and behind that is a long-abandoned motel that features a new “Re-opening soon!” sign.
A spark of progress in our little hometown.
Behind the garage, across from the motel, is another new business, the Pine Harbour Brewery.
And then there’s nothing but forest.
We curve south along the lake. A drive I’ve done hundreds of times, starting in high school when I’d wait for Rory after class just for a chance to give her a ride home.
This might be the last time I ever deposit her on the doorstep at the Pine Harbour Little Tree Farm.
My throat squeezes tight.
I can feel her tensing up, too. And I know why. Her parents are going to open the door and smile like everything’s fine, like their eldest daughter is home with her steadfast boyfriend. As if we are still a singular unit. Rory and Garrett are here!
RoryandGarrett.
That’s what we’ve been for more than a decade.
No wonder she hasn’t told them yet.
There are two entrances to the farm. The first one is for the public, and as we pass it, I can see the lights strung up throughout the rows of Christmas trees are still on, so someone is working the stand.
One less person to worry about telling in person. But also, one less person who will hear it from me, ergo making them Rory’s problem alone.
Her mom opens the front door before we even make it to the porch. The golden glow from inside spills out onto the snow, warm and inviting. Damn it. I don’t want to miss this farm. I don’t want to think about the memories attached to this place.
I follow Rory, her backpack in one hand, my gift for the Minellis in the other, ready to execute my plan: Merry Christmas, we broke up, it’s amicable, here’s a nice cutting board. Then I’m gone.
The plan disintegrates before we even step across the threshold.
“I should warn you,” Carmen Minelli says to Rory, her voice low. “Your sister’s just arrived and she’s upset.”
“Jules?”
Carmen shakes her head. “She’s not getting in until tomorrow. Cassie is here.”
I slow to a stop behind them. Cassandra, the middle Minelli daughter, lives just outside of Pine Harbour with her husband, Nate, a helicopter pilot. He’s a decade older than her and Rory had misgivings when her younger sister got married, but I thought they were happy.
Carmen lowers her voice even further, but I still catch her words. “And she’s alone.”
Rory races ahead. I’m right behind her, and my heart sinks as I watch her clock the miserable tableau in the kitchen.
Cassie leaning against the counter, mascara streaking down her cheek, their father hovering helplessly with a dish towel. An oversized, overstuffed suitcase next to the entrance to the hallway.
Rory spins around and gives me a desperate, pleading look I’ve only seen a handful of times over the last ten years. “Garrett, babe, can you take our bags upstairs?”
Babe?
Our bags?
Fuck me.
“I need a minute with my sister,” she adds, her voice tightening up, as if she’s worried that I might bail on her.
Probably because I told her that her unhappiness was unbearable, and now her entire family is unhappy at the supposed-to-be happiest time of the year.
Part of me resents that she doesn’t know I’d help out in this moment. That she doesn’t know I still care about her needs. Haven’t I fucking shown that over the last four months?
And it’s not like she’s shown a fucking moment of caring about my needs.
What I need is to get in my truck and drive to my cousin’s place. I need distance and boundaries and probably several beers. So no, I can’t take our bags upstairs, because where the fuck am I going to put them?
Her bedroom?
Like that won’t absolutely wreck me.
Because the only end game on this playing out is us pretending that we’re still together, which means falling asleep next to Rory and waking up next to Rory and—
But from the look on her face, what I need doesn’t matter.
“Yeah, sure,” I say slowly. You wanted to save Christmas for her, you fucking chump. This is how you save Christmas for her.
Her shoulders drop slightly in relief.
“I’ll, um, come up in a minute? Just need to…” She gestures vaguely at her sister.
“Of course.”
Her dad grabs onto the lifeline of escape. “I’ll help bring stuff in from the truck.”
“No, I’ve got it—” I start to say, but he’s already heading outside.
So I take what I’ve got in my hands already and escape up the familiar stairs.
I dump Rory’s backpack on the same double bed where we lost our virginity at seventeen, then put the wrapped cutting board on her little desk where we prop up her computer so we can watch stand-up comedy as we fall asleep.
It still has the same faded periodic table poster pinned above it.
Our matching Christmas bathrobes from last year, a gift from Cassie and Jules, are still hanging on the back of the bedroom door.
Everything is the exact same…except us.
“What do you got in these bags, Garrett?” Rory’s dad pushes his way into the room and plunks down the totes full of Christmas presents for my cousins and their kids.
Apparently I’ve got it means nothing.
Bottles of booze to buy off people I was planning to beg for couch space, I want to say. I hope he didn’t notice the sleeping bag, aka my backup plan.
Instead I say, “I’ve got the rest.”
He nods, and doesn’t move anywhere.
Ah, fuck. More Minelli emotional chaos, incoming.
“Hell of a thing,” he says quietly. “They seemed so happy just a few days ago.”
Yeah, I think. I know the feeling.
“Did she, uh, say what happened?”
He shakes his head. “She just arrived right before you. We thought her car was your truck, actually.” He claps me on the shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here, son. You and Rory have always been so steady.”
Oh, the painful irony.
When I follow him back downstairs, Rory’s wrapped around Cassie, holding her tight.
She looks up at me over her sister’s shoulder, then whispers something quietly. Cassie nods, and Rory slips away.
Her hand catches my wrist. Just for a second. Just long enough for her fingers to press against my pulse point and make me yearn in a way I should be used to, but still find catches me off guard every time.
We used to be so steady.
“I need to get one more bag from the truck,” I mutter under my breath. “Then can we talk?”
She nods. “Upstairs?”
By the time I get up to her room, she’s mostly unpacked and is shoving her empty bag under the bed.
I close the door and lean back against it. “What the fuck is going on?”
She sits down on the bed. “Cassie’s getting divorced.”
“A divorce? They aren’t just fighting?”
“She’s packed her stuff and is moving home.”
“Did she say what happened?”
Rory’s gaze drops to the floor. “Um, he works too much and doesn’t listen to her.”
“Ah.”
She takes a deep breath. “I don’t think right now is a good time to tell them that we’ve broken up.”
“I got that from you calling me babe.”
“That wasn’t a plan, you know. That was just…I panicked.” She runs a hand through her hair, sending dark curls twisting in all directions. “Can you— Can we just take a few minutes here? Please?”
I shove my hands in my pockets. “Yeah, okay.”
“They’re gonna blame me,” she finally says quietly.
I stare at her, incredulous. “How is Cassie’s breakup your fault?”
“I know my mom’s gonna be like, ‘Why didn’t you see this coming?’”
“Okay, well...” I scrub my brow. I really do love the Minellis—not as much as I love Rory, but her family came with her. It was a package deal, and there was a lot to be said for them. But they’re too hard on their oldest daughter. It isn’t her fault that her sister got married way too young.
Especially when Rory did the exact opposite. But I’m not going to think about that now.
I scrub my hands over my face. “Well, I was going to suggest that you say you want alone time with Cassie right now, and I’ll get out of your hair and go stay somewhere else.”
She gives me a panicked look.
“But I get now that would be a bad idea,” I add.
I also don’t want to lie to Rory’s family, though. Because lying to everyone else also drags us into the lie and that’s where everything gets murky. It’s way too easy to pretend to be important to Rory. A dumb fuck like me could fall for that trap and start to think it’s true.
Fucking hell.
“We’ll figure this out,” I mutter, more to myself than to her.
The door behind me thumps as someone tries to push in.
“Oh, sorry Garrett,” Carmen says when I step aside and she bustles in, oblivious to the tension. “Dante said he brought your bag of presents up here. Do you want them under the tree?”
“Not those,” I manage to say. “But, uh, this one is for you guys.” I grab the wrapped cutting board and hand it over.
“Oh, that’s so sweet. Thank you. Are you hungry? You must be exhausted from that drive. Rory said you did it straight through?”
“Yeah, wanted to beat the storm.”
“Such a good man.” She pats my arm. “Taking care of our girl.”
Rory makes a sound that might be agreement or might be choking.
I cover for her by grabbing at random weather small talk. “Storm seems to have fully missed the peninsula, though, eh?”
“We got some fresh flakes this morning, but nothing since then. And the temperature is supposed to go up above freezing tomorrow. Should be a good skating day.”
That is genuinely good to hear, I wasn’t looking forward to freezing my ass off. But as long as there’s a chance I’m going to be stuck helping with the Minelli Christmas Eve tradition, then I might as well have some homecooked food to fuel up. “And I think we’re both hungry, yeah.”
As soon as her mom leaves, Rory stands up and crosses to me, her eyes wide, her cheeks pink. “Thank you,” she whispers under her breath. “I owe you.”
Fuck. That look on her face pretty much seals the deal. Time for me to make myself comfy in my ex-girlfriend’s childhood bedroom, pretending to be the boyfriend I haven’t been for eight months.
“Probably no chance in actually having privacy to talk about this until everyone else turns in for the night, right?”
She winces. “Sorry.”
“Yeah.”
“Garrett...”
“I know,” I say. Because I do.
I know what she needs even when she can’t say it. I know when she needs space, and I know when she needs company. I know when she needs me to run interference, or to stand back and let her have a go at something.
I have spent almost fifteen years studying Aurora Minelli’s every mood, every whim, every dream, and every despair.
Even if we fell out of love, I can’t forget all the ways I consumed her when I did love her with all of my heart.
Because even when we’re not together, I’m still hers. Even if it goes against every act of self-preservation I have left.
Fuck.
Tonight is going to be a long night in this little room chock full of memories, because there’s two of us and only one bed.