Page 69 of Love Fast

“This isn’t about you wanting me to be different. I know you don’t—you wouldn’t. This is about me trying to second-guess what you want and make myself fit without being asked. I’m not saying I’d deliberately do that. It wouldn’t even happen right away. But little by little, I think I’d change myself. To make you happy.”

My heart sinks right into my boots. I hate that she feels this way. And although it’s the last thing she wants, I want to scoop her up and make her feel better. I want to take all her years of hurt and put them back on the person who created them—her mother.

“You’re a wonderful woman, Rosey,” I say. “You shouldn’t change for anyone.”

She offers me a small smile. “You’re the best man I’ve ever known.”

I slide my hand into hers and we sit in silence, looking out into the dark.

A chill burrows beneath the blanket and I wonder if it will ever leave me. Rosey has been just what I need. She’s helped me see the good in Star Falls. She’s helped me fall in love with all the wonderful things about this town. That was the healing I didn’t know I needed. There’s a voice in my head that says I need her, too.

But life doesn’t always give you want you want. I should have learned that lesson by now.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Rosey

My apartment in staff housing is clean and comfortable. Some people are complaining about the size of the rooms, but having spent most of my life living in a trailer, I feel spoiled having a bedroom to myself. There are built-in shelves and closets running along one side of the room, with the door to the bathroom and a double bed against the opposite wall. Between the two is a small green armchair, complete with a cushion shaped like a daisy and a low table beside it. The floors are polished wood, the view out the window a climb of a grass verge and the bottom of pine trees. It’s not the view from Blossom, but I’ll take it.

Is it weird that I can’t shake the feeling that Athena disappeared just before I moved so I didn’t have to feel bad about leaving her. Cats can’t read minds, right?

I set my weekend bag on the floor by the chair and unzip it. It was Snail Trail’s smallest size, but it’s not even full. Everything I own is in this bag, plus one thing I don’t. I pull out a Ziploc where I’ve put Frank’s ring. Now that I’ve moved and it’s clear I won’t be returning to Oregon, I need to return this to him. That, and transfer the trailer back into his name.

I reach to place the ring on the small table near the chair, knocking the cushion off-center as I do. A small, white envelope with my name on it peeks out from behind the daisy.

I sit on the chair and pull open the envelope. It’s a greeting card, illustrated with a picture of a cabin nestled among pine trees, a swing on its porch. My heart squeezes at the memory of sitting on just such a swing, on just such a porch, at just such a cabin, drinking hot chocolate under a warm blanket with Byron.

I open it tentatively, unsure whether I want it to be from Byron or not.

Happy memories. Be happy. B

I’m flooded with senses of loss and comfort at the same time. Byron must have snuck in here at some point this afternoon and hidden the card behind the cushion. I can’t help but smile at the thought of him in here—risking being seen because he wanted me to have this card. From him. It makes the place feel more like home.

That’s what it is now.

I work quickly, putting my toiletries in the bathroom and the few items of clothes I have in the drawers and the closet. I’m about done when there’s a knock on my door. I snatch the card from where I’ve put it on the windowsill and slide it under the pillow on my bed before I take the four steps to the door and open it.

“Hi!” Eden squeals. “We’re neighbors. Come see.”

Eden’s room is set up just like mine. Only the view out of the window is different—a slightly different stretch of knoll, and different tree trunks beyond.

“Aren’t they nice rooms?” Eden asks.

“Really nice,” I say. “Cozy.”

“Have you seen the kitchen?”

Before I can answer, she pulls me out of the bedroom and leads me down the corridor to a room at the end. It’s larger than I expected, and includes a pine table under the window and six chairs. “Six of us share the kitchen. There are two refrigerators though, and we have a cupboard each, along with shared pots and pans. Only one dishwasher.”

“I’ll take it,” I say.

The blinds at the window are covered in pictures of daisies. The cabinets and counters are bright white.

“Should we have a cooking schedule?” she asks. “So one of us cooks every six nights?”

I wince. “I think that might get complicated. Maybe you and I could cook for each other once a week and the rest of the time we figure it out as we go?”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. We’ll all want to eat different things at different times because of our shifts and all. I got overexcited there for a minute. It’s just I never had a big family, and it feels like this is what I’m getting being here,” she says.

---