Page 44 of Secondhand Secrets

Balmy night air hit her, and she stormed out across the small paddock leading to the parking lot, Chip’s voice following suit.

“Ally!”

Twenty

“Ally, stop and listen to me!”

Though Chip still called for her, Ally increased her already fast steps away, her pace now just short of a jog while the paddock’s long and uncut greenery whipped at her bare legs.

Pissed as she was that she’d had to endure a fumbled apology from his sister, followed by this ridiculous chase to her car, she shot him a glare over her shoulder, warning him to back off. “Doesn’t anyone in this town think I’m capable of surviving without a parade of secret help?”

The grass’s rushing sounds half-swallowed her words, and she tugged at her knee-length dress, the hem repeatedly catching on the long blades.

“Jesus, Ally, I was fourteen.” His harder tone had her slamming her eyes shut, although her desire not to fall had her once more glaring ahead. “An immature goofball who thought all women needed protecting.”

Maybe that much was true, maybe she did overreact here, but she also deserved a little solitude to process the gut-churning news that so many looked down on her. In particular, two people she’d known and loved for as far back as her memory reached.

Her feet hit the packed parking lot’s gravel, and she weaved through cars to get to hers, Chip’s louder footsteps crunching just behind her. His pace did not sound as hurried, as though he gifted her a minor lead. “Ally, please.”

Her heart clenched at his sinking tone, but she focused on digging out keys from her purple purse, the cheerful violet hue taunting her.

Did she like to stand out? Or did standing out serve as a defense?

A defense against what?

She peered up at Chip and found her answer before peering back down and pressing the OPEN button on her key, all while allowing her chin-length hair to fall about her face and curtain any show of emotion.

Chip already meant something to her. In all honesty, he always had. Only now, the stakes were raised, and she had a whole lot more to lose. And he had things to lose too. Way more than her and her broken heart. The career and opportunities he’d worked toward for years. She wouldn’t be the reason for him losing any of that.

“It hurts, okay?” She sniffed, dropped her keys into her purse, and then wrenched the door open. So close to an escape. “It hurts, and I’m leaving.”

Only she merely stared at her open car door and failed to take another step.

If I run, I prove them right.

I might be sensitive, but I’m not fragile. I’m not weak.

So, she spun around, set to give Chip her unvarnished thoughts and full attention. “It hurts to put the effort in, yah know? To wake up every day vowing to be positive, to put forth my best show, and be honest about my feelings. I know that’s not how you, and especially Sarah, operate, but I don’t know how else to be. I don’t know what you all want from me, okay?”

Even as the pain of that admission still scraped against the inside of her throat, he said nothing, his hands curling and uncurling at his sides, the unblinking tension of his face suggesting he held back to allow her space to elaborate.

And so she did.

“I know I’m not as smart as you, Chip. I know that.” She dropped her hand from the top of her car door, shoulders sagging along with the cooling of angry heat in her belly. “My prospects aren’t so glittering or refined. I make rash decisions, this relationship with you included. I’m overly bubbly and a complete scatterbrain—and trust me—nobody ‘round here lets me forget it. So, you can stop thinking I need you or Sarah to save me. I know who I am, and I’ll survive just fine.”

His white shirt fluttered in the breeze as did the longer wisps of toffee brown hair along his hairline, all while he held his silence.

She’d poured her heart out only for him to leave her hanging. Did he really have nothing? Her throat constricted with a burgeoning cry, but she nodded her acceptance and turned away.

“It hurts me too.”

She paused at his statement, which echoed through the open space, the gravity in his tone forcing her to twist back and catch the hard press of his jaw, a muscle ticking under his light stubble there.

His skin paled to match the silver moonlight, a hint that maybe, for the first time in his life, he grappled with the difficulties of not knowing. Like he questioned every aspect of what he did. Whether he’d said too much. Or should say more.

“It hurts me to see you and Sarah fighting.” His brow drew down, as did his lips, into another reluctantly lost look. “And even though it seems irrational, it hurts to hear about your past feelings for Dean. Ally, do you know that I spent years in Boston just wanting to jump on the first plane back to Harlow? Back home? And yes, back to you?”

A dull pain spread through her chest, her heart being the epicenter of all that hurt.

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