Page 2 of Lessons in Heartbreak

There were always reasons, of course. Valid, believable, sympathetic reasons why I held the reins of my life with an iron grip, keeping every day scheduled and structured in a way that eased my mind. Because it was safe, and I could predict each outcome with surgical precision.

And it was on my thirtieth birthday, when my coworker Lauren surprised me with a present, that I knew I couldn’t avoid the truth any longer. We’d gone out to dinner at her insistence, and after a shared bottle of wine at my house (I never drank in public, because, honestly, someone could spike your drink when you least expected it), she said, “Ruby, I got you the most perfect gift in the world. Something you need desperately.”

“A new planner?” I asked, perking up instantly.

She rolled her eyes. “Thank you for proving my point.”

The box was immaculately wrapped—tiny pink and white flowers on a silver background, tied up with a rose-gold bow—but when I opened it, the thing staring back up at me had my jaw falling open, heat crawling up my neck at an unstoppable rate.

“What isthat?” I gasped.

She laughed, reaching forward to pull it from the box, where it was nestled in brightly colored shreds of paper. It was big. Light blue, with a small arm that hooked out of the front and buttons along the bottom.

“You know what this is,” she said slyly. Then she hit one of those buttons, and it started vibrating. A lot. And the little arm on the front moved.

“That’s supposed to go inside?”

She patted my arm. “Trust me. It’ll do you a world of good, honey.”

My eyes widened, and I snatched it from her grip, dropping it immediately when the feel of it had heat billowing from the surface of my skin. “I am not using that, Lo,” I hissed. “It’s obscene.”

She merely smiled. “It sure is.”

I slammed the top back on the box and shoved it away from me, watching while it slid across the wood floor.

Bzzzzzzz. Bzzzzzzz. Bzzzzzzz.

Now the box was vibrating, and it was moving from the force of those vibrations, the sound echoing through my living room like it was plugged into a massive speaker. I pinched my eyes shut while she laughed.

“Ruby,” she said gently. “Look at me.”

“No.” I buried my face in my hands. Something about the gift made me want to burst into tears. I knew why she was doing it. I knew why she was trying, even if I was not the right audience for that sort of ... apparatus.

Gently, she wrapped a hand around my wrist and pulled. “Take a deep breath, all right? I’ll take it home with me so you never have to see it again.” She sighed. “Probably should’ve started smaller. Maybe a nice little vibrator instead.”

I gave her a look. “You think?”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Would you have used that?”

“No.” My hand fluttered to my chest, my heartbeat hammering away. My eyes slammed shut as I counted the beats to center myself. “I don’t think so.”

Lauren was one of my only friends. Don’t get me wrong, I was friendly with everyone in town. There wasn’t much of a choice withhow small our town was, but when I moved to Welling Springs as the new head librarian, she’d basically forced me into being friends with her.

She was funny and irreverent, with a loud laugh and the kind of irrepressible warmth that seeped into every corner of the room when she was around.

And if there was anyone who knew the corners well, it was me. In a group of people, that was often where I found myself—out of sight, where no one would notice me and I could observe from a place of relative safety.

People like Lauren, the ones who did so well as the centerpiece of whatever conversation they were in, fascinated me. A puzzle I didn’t quite understand and could never really figure out. But as a friend, I was grateful for her.

Usually.

Except when she gave me a monster-size penis replica and expected me to be excited about it. If I tried introducing that to my poor lady parts—which had only ever been viewed in detail by my doctor—I was quite sure I’d hear panicked screams coming from the general vicinity of my vagina.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. She never did anything quietly, so I peeled my eyelids open to study her. “I just know you’ve been”—with a tilt of her head, she searched for the right words—“struggling to let people in.”

I’d spent my whole life in white-knuckled control of the things within my power, so it was terrifying to have someone challenge one of the things that wasn’t. It felt like a rush of icy frost racing up the surface of my skin, eclipsing all the heat her gift had generated.

“That’s a very kind way of saying it, Lauren.”

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