Chapter 3 #2
I do. Her blue eyes are serious, and there's no teasing left in them. This is Emma at her most honest, which means I'm about to hear something I don't want to.
"I'm saying this as your best friend. Okay?"
Oh God.
"Okay."
"You need to let Ace go," she says it gently, but there's iron underneath. "You've done your job. You protected his family with that story. It's done. Over. He's fine. You're fine. More than fine. Live your life for yourself now. Please?"
I take in a shaky breath that rattles all the way down to my ribs.
Every morning, Ace Sterling is my first thought. Before the alarm. Before the coffee. Before I remember where I am and what my life looks like now. He's there, those dark eyes, the way he used to say ‘mornin', Goldie’ like the word was invented just for me.
Every night, he's the face I see as I fall asleep. The arms I imagine around me. The voice in my ear telling me everything's going to be alright, even when it isn't.
When I'm stressed at work, I hear him. Breathe, baby.
You've got this. When I'm sad, I feel the ghost of his hand on the back of my neck, his thumb tracing circles on my skin, grounding me.
When I'm scared, I reach for the space beside me in bed, and it's always empty, and it always will be because I'm the one who made it that way.
How do I let that go? It's been nearly six years, and I can't do it. I've tried dating. I've tried therapy. I've tried burying myself in work until I'm too exhausted to think. Nothing works. Nothing even comes close.
"Then how do I get him to let my heart go, Emma?" My voice comes out small and broken. "He's holding onto it so tight I can't stop loving him."
But I made the decision to leave him because I thought it was right for us both at the time.
My parents put so much pressure on me to move to LA and live the life they had always dreamed of.
The big city was their dream for me. The opportunities.
Ace was ready to throw his whole life away to follow me here.
And every time we spoke about living here, I saw that spark die behind his eyes.
I could not let myself be responsible for dimming that beautiful soul's sparkle.
I reach for my phone on the nightstand and pull up his messages. The thread is almost entirely blue, his texts, stacked one on top of another like letters slid under a door that never opens.
Merry Christmas, Goldie. Hope LA is treating you right.
Happy birthday. 24 looks good on you. Bet you're shining out there.
Hey. Just thinking about you. No reason. Always no reason.
Merry Christmas, pretty girl. Hope you're doing okay out there.
And last night, sent at 1:47 a.m:
Twenty-seven today. Got into a bar fight. You would've loved it. Miss you.
I feel so guilty ignoring them. Every single one lands like a stone on my chest, and I want to reply so fucking bad my fingers actually ache.
But I can't. Because I know that the second I do, it's over.
All of it. The distance, the discipline, the carefully constructed lie that I'm fine without him.
We're magnets. Always have been. Since the moment I literally bumped into him in high school.
That was it. One conversation and I was in love with Ace.
No matter how far apart we get, the pull doesn't weaken.
It just stretches, gets tighter, more painful, until one of us snaps and closes the gap.
And if I text him back, even one word, I'll be on a flight to Arizona by morning, and everything I tried to build here will crumble, or he'll throw away his career to come to me, and we'll destroy each other all over again. Because Ace won’t be happy here. And I don’t know if I can face walking back into New Falls a failure.
With every moment that passes, I get more embarrassed about my choices, and it makes my stomach sink.
So I don't reply. And it kills me every time.
I pass the phone to Emma. She reads through the thread, scrolling slowly.
"He probably felt guilty for taking another woman home, Harper."
I shrug. Maybe. Or maybe it was his birthday, and he was drunk and lonely, and he wanted the only person who's ever really known him. The same way I do on every one of mine.
She hands the phone back and blows out a breath.
"Running from him doesn't seem to be fixing the issue, does it?" She tucks her black hair behind her ear. "What about closure? What if he's meant to be in your life as a friend or something? I don't know. I've never seen someone so attached to a man she broke up with."
I laugh. Not because it's funny. Because it's absurd. I broke up with him to save him. To set him free so he could become the champion I knew he was. And it worked, he's everything I always believed he'd be.
"If you really love him and think he's it…" Emma trails off. "Your other option is to try? I'm lost here, Harps."
I pause. For a split second, I think she’s right.
But the same issues spring up. If I reach out, it’s a cycle.
We can’t cope with long distance, and now I’m deep into investigating his family to cover that mess up.
I know what they’re involved in isn't safe. So it’s best if I stick to my guns and I let him live his life.
"So am I, Emma. So am I."
She holds my gaze, then stands, crosses the room, and throws open my wardrobe doors with a dramatic flourish.
"Shall we pick a dress for your date, hmm?"
She starts flipping through hangers, pulling things out, holding them up, putting them back with increasing disapproval, and then she spots it on the top shelf. My cowgirl hat.
She grabs it and tosses it at me.
"You think Hudson's into cowgirls?" She grins.
I catch it and turn it over in my hands. The inside still has a faint scent of sunscreen and dust. I bought this at the same shop where I got Ace his Stetson, the same afternoon, with birthday money from my grandmother.
"Jeans, boots, and a hat." I set it on my head and look at her. "That'll impress a man trying to steal his dying father's company, right?"
She laughs, and I catch my reflection in the mirror on the back of the wardrobe door. For a second, I don't see a twenty-six-year-old journalist in an Echo Park apartment. I see a girl from New Falls, Arizona. The girl who rode horses before she could read and fell in love with a boy.
I smile. Because it feels like home.
But then I pull myself back to reality. LA is home. And they don't wear these here.
I pull the hat off and set it gently on the bed.
"It's a gala. So, no hats allowed." I touch the silver ring in my nose. "Or nose rings, apparently."
Emma rolls her eyes. "Please tell me you're keeping the nose ring."
"Obviously."
She pulls a black dress from the back of my wardrobe that I forgot existed. It’s simple and floor-length, with a slit up the thigh.
She holds it up against me and says, "Wear this. Be polite. Smile at his dying father. Come home. And then we're done with Hudson Blake and his bullshit favors. Deal?"
I look at the dress. I think about Hudson's green eyes scanning my body. About the cold flash behind his smile when I told him no about the nose ring. One night. That's all this is. One night, and then my debt is clear.
"Deal."
Emma tosses the dress on the bed and heads for the door, pausing in the frame. "Come and eat the pancakes, Harper."
"Fine."
I pick up my phone one more time. His last message stares back at me.
Miss you.
Two words. I press my thumb against the screen, right over his name, and hold it there.
Then I put the phone down, face-first on the mattress, and go eat the damn pancakes.