CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Leanne
Icalled in sick this morning.
I couldn’t find the will to drag myself into the office. I haven’t spoken to a single soul since I walked out of Bryce’s house Saturday afternoon.
The past two days have felt like an entire week. The worst week of my life. Worse than when Craig left. Worse than when I was heaving my guts up ten times a day.
It feels a little like being back there as I lie in a heap on the couch, my phone full of messages I haven’t read or responded to.
The family group chat is full of pictures from the baby shower I can’t bring myself to look at.
Alex, Delia, and Becca have all checked in—I’m positive Bryce told them what happened—and even seeing their names on the screen unsettles me.
My heart leaps into my throat any time it rings, out of fear it will be Bryce and then in disappointment when it isn’t.
He texted me once yesterday and it sent me into a tailspin, which led to a thirty-minute crying session in the shower until the hot water ran out. But I’ve looked at it no less than a hundred times since.
Bryce
You are enough.
I have the thread open now, phone sitting on the back of the couch within reach, while I stare out at the swirling snow beyond the window.
Am I? I’m not sure I’ve ever been enough for anyone—just as I am.
Instead, I’ve either fallen too short or given too much.
But who I really am is somewhere in between.
Craig wanted more of me than I could give him.
With my family, I’ve always had to be more than just me.
I had to be the eldest daughter, the sister who took care of everything, the reliable and responsible one.
But with Bryce… Everything is different with Bryce. It’s always been different with him.
I keep replaying everything from Saturday in my head. Overhearing him with Delia and Alex in the kitchen. Everything we said in the nursery. Him telling me he loves me—the exact words I’d wanted to hear but refused to accept.
My hand coasts over my baby bump and the protruding foot by my ribcage. I swear I’m even bigger than I was yesterday. How big will my stomach be when I see him again? Will he be able to notice the change? What will that day look like? Will he love me still?
Like he can read my mind from miles away, he texts me—the screen lighting up from where it had dimmed since the last time I looked at it.
Bryce
I’m not giving up on you, blondie. Don’t give up on me. I’m sorry. I love you.
I want to believe him. I want to trust.
But I need reassurance, and as much as I hate it, I need it to come from someone else.
I tap the blue arrow in the corner and find Rebecca’s name, reading the single message she wrote me yesterday.
Rebecca
I’m here if you need to talk.
Well, I do.
Me
Can you meet me for lunch?
The bubbles pop up immediately and I bite my lip as I wait for her to reply.
Rebecca
I’m on shift, but you could meet me at the hospital in an hour. I promise the food isn’t as bad as you might think :)
Me
Okay. See you in an hour.
I’m surprised to find that the hospital cafeteria looks more like an airy café with white walls, huge windows and skylights, and more trees and plants than I would think appropriate for the inside of any building that isn’t a greenhouse.
Outside the windows is a picturesque view of the mountains, their tops disappearing in a misty white cloud that will surely leave behind a fresh line of snow to cap them off.
Rebecca is sitting at a corner table that’s comfortably squished between two Ficus trees, giving it the air of privacy in this world of people moving about with trays.
“I grabbed you a grilled cheese,” she says when I sit down. “It’s not as good as Whiskey Ditch, but they’re not bad and I knew it would be a safe choice. I only have about thirty minutes.”
She scans my face, and I’m sure she’s taking in the dark circles and my puffy eyelids that give away how much I’ve cried. She doesn’t bother asking how I am; she can tell I’m not good.
“I’m sorry you found out the way you did. We never wanted that,” she says. “I can understand that you feel betrayed… by all of us.”
I shake my head. “I don’t blame you.”
“Just Bryce?” she asks.
I reach for my sandwich in lieu of answering and take a big bite. I haven’t had much of an appetite since the baby shower, only forcing myself to eat because I know the baby needs it.
“I won’t sit here and defend his choice not to tell you.
But I know him better than a lot of people, and he’s a good man.
” I look up and see the softness in her expression, the love she feels for the man who is her brother in almost every way.
There’s grief there too, for the sister and nephew she lost. “Bryce has lost a lot in his life. He was abandoned by his biological parents, unwanted by either of their families. He was in and out of so many foster homes because no one wanted a teenage boy from a junkie family. He lost Sarah and he lost Sam. Losing people has become an expectation, and he didn’t want to lose you too.
He let his fear hold him back from being honest with you and…
” She pauses and looks down at her plate.
I knew enough of his history that getting the details doesn’t surprise me. It’s her next words that do.
“Right or wrong, you brought those fears to life when you walked away on Saturday.”
I know she’s not trying to make me feel guilty, she’s just being honest… and she’s not telling me anything I don’t already know. But I feel the fiery burn of guilt just the same.
“I love him,” I whisper, keeping my eyes downcast, afraid she won’t believe I have a right to love her brother now.
She reaches for my hand and I look up, tears forming in my eyes to match the sheen in hers. “I know.” Her smile is slight, but it loosens something in me, enough that I can ask what I came here for.
“He says he loves me too…”
“Leanne,” Rebecca says, and there’s a shift in her tone. “I know better than almost anyone what Bryce looks like when he’s in love.”
I squirm under her stare, afraid of what she’ll say, afraid to be compared to the sister who was Bryce’s first love.
“He loved my sister and she loved him. It was always easy between them. I swear I never saw them fight. Their love was… soft. It was beautiful.”
I’m going to be sick. Bryce and I are nothing like that. My skin feels prickly and tight. I want to look away, but she squeezes my hand tighter.
“When she died… when they couldn’t save Sam… Bryce broke, and I worried his jagged edges would keep him from ever finding someone who could make him happy again. But then he met you.”
I choke on the words begging to be let out. “But I’m broken too, and there’s nothing soft or easy about us—”
“That’s not true, not entirely. You might think you’re broken, Leanne, but your jagged edges fit. His and yours. And finding a perfect fit when everything is stacked against you, when everything feels hard… That kind of love might be more beautiful than the effortless love he had with Sarah.”
I shake my head. “You can’t mean that.”
“I can, and I do. Of course he loved my sister, I’m not denying that, but the way he loves you is wholly different and it’s wholly yours—all of it. You just have to decide if you want it, all of it, because that’s what he’s offering you. His whole heart, in exchange for yours.”
I stare at her, this woman who is wise beyond her years, and I finally let myself believe.
The miles between the hospital and the ranch feel like a never-ending series of curves and bends. A physical manifestation of my relationship with Bryce from day one. A path I’m following in my brain after the conversation with Rebecca and the understanding it brought with it.
I thought I needed her reassurance that Bryce truly does love me—but really, I already knew he did.
What I needed was something I didn’t even know to ask for, and that’s the knowledge that he loves me for me.
Not because I’m pregnant, not because he has some void to fill.
What we have is different from what he had with Sarah, from what I had with Craig.
Our love is our own, influenced by our pasts but not defined by them.
The sign for the local ski resort, Bridger Bowl, looms ahead through my windshield and I realize I’ve been driving on autopilot for twenty minutes, hardly aware of how far I’ve come.
A yellow caution sign indicates a sharp bend in the road, and I lift my foot from the accelerator, heart racing.
The snowfall is high in the mountains now, but the roads are wet, so I nudge my brake carefully.
My tires grip the pavement, and I breathe a sigh of relief that I won’t go sliding around the curve.
But the relief is short-lived when the view of an elk fills my windshield.
My eyes go wide and my grip tightens on the wheel as I swerve, slamming hard on my brakes.
This time my wheels lock, losing purchase on the wet asphalt.
In the split second before the passenger side collides with the huge animal, I wrap my arm around my middle, offering the only protection I can to the most important part of myself and praying it’s enough.