Page 120 of The Summer of Wild

"Yani keeps choosing the wrong people at the wrong time."

I run a hand over my face, annoyed. "I'm not getting your point."

"The point is that we're all trying to figure out who's best for us while living under a microscope. You're allowed to mess up, Ingrid. You're allowed to get your heart broken and figure out who you are. Yani is going to learn that lesson too late in life. But you? You have a chance to do it now. So, ignore the microscope."

"I don't want to be Yani."

"Me neither," Pierre winks.

"What if I never figure it out?"

"What if you do?"

"I thought I had."

"Did you?"

I exhale heavily. "You're giving me a headache."

"This town is a worn-out microscope, but you are not Yani Habib. You're Ingrid Winthrop, and you're going to be talked about, put down, and pressured into things because that's what small towns do. They force you to conform. You don't have to, though. You can choose to figure out what's best for you without worrying about what everyone thinks."

"I don't worry about what everyone thinks," I raise my eyebrows. "But Wilder does."

"He's been through a lot," Pierre reminds me. "Lots of gossip over the years. Maybe he's tired of it."

"Maybe he is."

Maybe he's tired of being the screw-up. The odd man out. The guy trying to find himself in a town that lets the rumor mill run rampant.

"Thanks, Pierre," I say as I stand and grab my purse.

"Where are you going?" he whips his head back. "You're not off the clock for another half hour."

"I have to go talk to the microscope."

"Ah," Pierre grins. "You get it now."

I rush out the door, hoping I'm not too late to make things right.

Because Pierre is right.

This town might try to tear me apart, but they won't be able to if I don't let them.

The faded red paint on the wood door brings back a plethora of memories. I raise a steady hand and firmly knock on the wood. It swings open with a vengeance as Fanny Allred and her plastic nose come into view.

"Ingrid," she smirks. "Back so soon?"

"I'm here to see Cash," I tell her.

"He doesn't live here anymore," Fanny stares down at me over the bridge of her upturned nostrils.

I glance at the driveway. "Then why is his truck here?"

Fanny blinks slowly. "What do you want?"

"I want to speak with Cash," I tell her. "And after all you've put my family through, the least you can do is step aside so I can."

"I don't want you anywhere near him," she narrows her beady eyes at me.

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