Chapter 12
Twelve
Aspen woke in her childhood bedroom feeling as if she’d been hit by a truck.
A glance at the clock told her she’d been down for nearly twelve hours, partly from pure exhaustion, partly from grief.
It had been past midnight by the time she’d landed in Atlanta, and even later when the Uber dropped her home all the way back in Cooper’s Bend.
Given the hour and the short notice, she hadn’t even texted Linnea she was coming home until she’d walked through the front door.
She rolled out of bed and stumbled downstairs for water, guzzling a full glass while standing at the fridge.
Dehydration was a thing. Though the prospect of food wasn’t remotely appealing, she opened the fridge and pantry to check her options.
Other than condiments and a single, lonely egg, there was next to nothing.
She wasn’t particularly keen on the canned chili she found hanging out on a shelf.
Her dad had already moved most of his stuff down to Savannah, and Aspen hadn’t bothered stocking things before her own trip.
Hell, the house was still full of all the boxes of her stuff she hadn’t taken the time to unpack before hitting the road.
She’d had just enough time to empty her apartment.
The prospect of getting out for groceries made her want to curl up and hide.
She’d spent the whole frantic trip home trying to make herself invisible, lest someone recognize her from the photos circulating online.
The baseball cap and total lack of makeup—she’d cried all of it off—had probably helped with that.
But she wouldn’t be so lucky at home. Would reporters be lurking somewhere?
Worse, what if she ran into the locals who’d been running their mouths about her?
There’d be questions. Lots of questions.
Probably at the top of the list would be, “Where is Brooks?”
That wasn’t a question she was up to answering yet.
She’d known walking away from him would hurt. But God, she hadn’t anticipated the visceral ache of knowing things between them were over. And they were over. Telling him the truth had made sure of that. It didn’t matter that deep down, she knew she’d done the right thing for him. The loss cut deep.
The doorbell rang.
Aspen flinched, wondering who it was. A reporter who’d tracked down her home? Her dad? A neighbor who’d seen her come back late last night?
For a moment, she considered ignoring it, but the bell sounded again, followed by a pounding on the door. Someone knew she was here and wasn’t going away until she answered.
Bracing herself for whatever—or whoever—was on the other side, she went to answer.
Linnea stood on the front stoop, to-go cups in hand.
“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at the coffee shop?”
She pushed inside. “The coffee shop is covered. Where do you think I’m going to be when you text me in the middle of the damn night to say that you’ve already hurried home and that you’re at the house? What the actual hell? Here.” She shoved one of the cups into Aspen’s hand.
The familiar scent of her favorite pomegranate green tea wafted up. It was a kindness Aspen hadn’t expected and didn’t feel like she deserved, and she promptly burst into tears.
Linnea instantly wrapped her in a hug. “Oh, honey. Tell me everything.”
So Aspen did. Over the course of two cups of tea—both of them had been for her—she spilled the whole damned story out, from her impromptu rescue of him at the hotel bar, all the way through to the subterfuge she’d used to get him out of the way long enough for her to run.
When she’d finished, Linnea leaned back on the sofa, studying her. “You love him.”
“Yeah, I do.” No point in denying it here. “That’s why this hurts so damned much.”
“And you just walked away.”
“I had to.”
“Bullshit.” Though Linnea’s tone was mild, Aspen flinched.
“Didn’t you hear anything I said about how he lost his mom? It really fucked him up. He doesn’t need to be in a relationship with somebody else who has cancer.”
“You don’t know that you have cancer. You have Schrodinger’s Boob.
You know, like that cat thing from our gen psych class back in college.
Right now you are in a stage where you don’t know.
You have one reality in which you have some form of cancer.
In the other reality, there is a completely benign reason for your lump.
You’re making assumptions about which reality you exist in and making decisions based on that information that, frankly, is questionable.
You threw away something really great because you’re afraid. ”
Aspen shook her head. “It’s not just that—although, yes, I’m afraid. I’m fucking terrified. But I cannot hurt him like that.”
Linnea laid a hand on her knee. “Honey, I think your heart is in the right place. And it’s admirable that you don’t want to hurt him. But what do you think your leaving just did?”
“It was the lesser of all evils. There was no scenario in which he wasn’t hurt at all. But I had to get out before we got in any deeper. Before he fell for me.”
Her friend arched a disbelieving eyebrow. “Honey, it is way too late for that. Have you looked at any of the pictures of you two?”
“What are you talking about?”
Linnea grabbed her phone, tapping and swiping for a few seconds before handing it over.
There was an array of photos beyond just the Empire State Building.
Several shots had been taken of them at Camp Firefly Falls.
And in every single one they looked like exactly what they’d purported to be—a happily in love engaged couple.
Tears slid down her cheeks again.
“He clearly feels the same,” Linnea said gently. “It seems a shame to let that go.”
Aspen wavered. “Maybe I can contact him again after I get the results of my biopsy. After I know that it’s safe. But I don’t know that he’ll want to talk to me again.”
“He’s gonna want to talk to you again. He’s probably losing his damn mind with you not being there.”
“Maybe not. I left him a letter explaining everything. It seemed more cruel not to do that.”
Linnea seemed to choose her words very carefully.
“I’m sure he’s upset. But if he’s the kind of guy who will consider what you did a good thing and a bullet dodged, then he’s not worthy of your time or affections.
If he is, instead, as heartbroken as you are, then it only makes sense to try to win him back.
” She straightened. “You need food. I’m sure you don’t have a lick of it in the house.
I’m Door Dashing some lunch. You go grab a shower, then we’re gonna sit down and figure out a plan. ”
“I cannot go back to him if I truly have cancer. I’m simply not going to do that to him. I refuse. I’m not going to be somebody else that he cares about and loses. He deserves better than that.”
Though Linnea looked a little like she wanted to throttle her, she didn’t argue. “Okay, fine. We will make a contingency plan for the circumstance under which Schrodinger’s Boob is fine.”
“I can live with that.”
“Go shower off all your travels. You’ll feel better.”
Aspen did as she was told, and she did feel better with clean hair and clean clothes.
The doorbell was ringing again as she got downstairs, so she opened it to find Rita Timmons, one of the Blue-Hair Mafia who were the town busybodies. She and her posse had taken up Door Dash as a means of seeing people in their retirement and in hopes of getting the scoop on the latest gossip.
Rita looked Aspen up and down in such a way that it made her glad she’d just cleaned up. As she offered up the bag with the food, she clucked her tongue. “How dare you break that young man’s heart?”
“Excuse me?”
But Rita didn’t bother replying before turning on her sneakered heel and striding away.
“What the hell was that about?” Linnea asked.
“I don’t know, but I have a bad feeling about it.”
Carrying the food back to the kitchen, Aspen set it down and pulled out her phone to do a quick Google search for “Brooks Hennessy engagement.”
The very first result brought up a photo of Brooks’ face, looking utterly devastated. The headline? Trouble in Paradise for Hennessy and His Honey?
“Oh God.”
Aspen skimmed more articles with similar headlines, all discussing his heartbreak and painting her in the worst possible light.
“How the hell did the media already get wind of this? It’s been less than 24 hours.” Unless… Brooks told them himself.
She toggled back to the photo. It had been taken on the steps of their cabin, and he looked utterly blindsided. By her defection, or by whoever had snapped the picture?
Linnea snatched the phone from her hand. “Okay, that’s enough of that. You are officially banned from social media and the Internet for awhile, until all of this dies down. You have one focus and one focus alone, and that is your biopsy and doing whatever is necessary to see that you are healthy.”
Aspen swallowed back the fresh tears that wanted to fall. “Okay.”
“And we’ll cross the bridge of everything else after you have an answer and go from there.”
And because there was nothing else she could do, Aspen did as she was told.
“Do you think it will work?”
Brooks was only half listening to Rebekah’s reply as he followed the GPS directions from his dash.
“I mean, I don’t know. I don’t think it’ll stop everything, but it can’t hurt. Are you sure you want to do this?”
“The press is eviscerating her over something that isn’t her fault.
Yes, I want to put out a press release taking full blame for everything.
” It wasn’t precisely accurate—their situation was too complicated to lay blame at only one door—but he’d gladly take a knee to protect her from the vipers in the media.
“Okay. I’ll reach out to my media connections and send it out.”
“Thanks, Rebekah. I gotta go. I think I’m almost there.”
“Good luck. I hope this goes the way you want it to.”
“Me, too.”