Page 15 of All I Need

“By the ring on your finger, I assume that means you were going to marry him?”

“Yesterday,” I confirm.

She closes her eyes and presses her lips together.

I feel my face crumble right along with the strength in my legs and I fall to the floor. The tears that I’ve been holding back come on fast and furiously. Polly quickly shuffles my way, crouching down next to me, she curls her aging body around mine and holds me in her arms.

“Shh,” she says, trying to calm me down but the tears started and don’t show any signs of letting up any time soon. I fold over, my head resting on her shoulder as I cry for the first time since I walked in on Gary and Crystal together.

Minutes pass by as she continues to try to comfort me, her arms tightening around my shoulders when I move to pull away. “Let it out, honey. You can’t put it behind you if you’re holding it in.”

Eventually my tears subside. I wipe my nose with the back of my hand and under my eyes with my fingertips. Annoyed that I’ve shed even a single tear for those two assholes, I growl, trying to shake my head of emotion.

“We need to get off this kitchen floor,” I tell her with a small smile.

“Come. This is back porch talk.”

She fills two glasses with some lemonade and I follow her, settling in side by side on a white porch swing with a thick bright blue cushion.

“I started the Inn a month after I walked in on my ex-husband having sex with my best friend.”

I gasp, her words come out so bluntly. Although, having had it happen to me, there really is no other way for it to be said. It’s as ugly as it sounds and there’s no way to soften it.

“The best thing that ever happened to me,” she murmurs.

My eyes cut to her. She’s smiling, a wistful look on her face.

Then she shocks me with, “He was such an asshole. Wanted me to be someone I wasn’t. And when I wouldn’t comply, he thought he’d find a little side piece who would.”

I choke down a laugh. She seems so prim and proper.

She pats my leg and turns to face me. “There are only a few reasons a woman runs away on her wedding day and the fact that you’re still wearing the ring, I assume it was him who screwed up.”

“I walked in on him with my maid-of-honor. I was wearing my wedding dress.”

“So your guy’s an asshole, too.”

This time, I don’t hold back. My giggle bursts out of me and then as hard as I was crying earlier, now I’m laughing.

“He really is. And a jackass, too.”

“I bet you have some other words for him in your arsenal,” she teases.

“That I do.”

We rock back and forth in silence for a few minutes, the gentle breeze blows around us. It warms my skin and brings me an unexpected sense of peace. “Do you have to go back?”

I shake my head. “I don’t have anything to go back to.”

“Family?”

“My parents are… I don’t have any family,” I whisper.

“Job?”

“I was a trophy fiancée who worked for my friend Allison’s boutique so I had something to do with my time,” I say, the words coming out as condescending to myself.

Her eyes soften and she squeezes my hand. “You’ll stay here.” She says it like it’s a final decision rather than a question. “For as long as you need or want. My home is yours.”

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