Page 88 of There's Pumpkin About You
My front door opens and in walk Finn and Jamie, each holding a six-pack of beer and a weary smile.
“What on earth is this?” I ask my best friend.
“An intervention,” she replies, holding up a hand before I can protest. “And before you even start, yes, Mr. Finch is currently receiving his own one, too.”
Finn and Jamie take a seat on the floor and pass us each a can of beer. I open mine eagerly, downing half of it so that I can mentally prepare for what’s to come.
“Okay,” Oakleigh begins. “Now, we’re here to talk some sense into you and make you realize why you’re being stupid.”
“So you’ve said,” I grumble. “But I’m not being stupid, Lee. I’m simply protecting myself, which is exactly what I should have done last time.”
“Protecting yourself how?”
“By saving myself the pain that will come when I’m inevitably let down again. Like I said to Gus, my job is one thing I can rely on to never let me down.”
“Your job did let you down, dumbass! Or are you forgetting the part where you had little to no work for almost six months and were struggling to pay the damn bills?”
Okay, I’m not particularly liking my best friend right now. Why choose now to bring up valid points?
“Wren, you can’t push people away before they’ve given you a reason to,” Finn steps in. “If you do that, then you’ll find yourself alone for a very long time. In life you need to have your heart broken, otherwise how are you going to know when you finally find something that’s worth it? Something which we all think you have with Gus.”
“Gus is the one who came at me, okay? I never even gave the twins an answer when they told me about working out of state, and all of a sudden he was yelling about me leaving him.”
“And you think that—what?—none of that stemmed from some unresolved trauma like your reaction was?”
Okay, another good point.
“Look, I really don’t think the three of you can talk. I mean this is all coming from the two people who hate each other more than Gus and I did, but who think we don’t know they sleep together once a year. Oh, and let’s not forget the guy who thinks he’s secretly dating Sam. Thinks being the key word in that sentence.”
All three of them look shellshocked, and I feel a hint of vindication. They have absolutely no right to talk to me about my relationship issues when they have their own to deal with.
“Okay, when you come, you come to play,” Jamie mumbles. “But for the record, Sam and I are not dating. We’re just fucking.”
“Oh, even better,” I retort.
“It shows you were wrong!”
“Okay!” Finn interjects. “We seem to be veering slightly off topic here. The point is that deflecting isn’t going to get you anywhere, Wrennie. You need to understand that it’s okay to love someone. The difference between Adam and Gus is that Adam never accepted that you wanted to remain your own person whilst also being a couple. Gus accepts that because he wants the exact same thing. Even when you two were arguing every day, you never once attacked each other maliciously. You both knew exactly who the other one was and carried on anyway. Doesn’t that say something about him?”
I will concede that Gus never did any of the crap that Adam did. He never made me question my ability to run my business, never made me feel like less purely for wanting to do something I love. My job is Gus’s worst nightmare come to life, and yet he still helped me, still encouraged me to do it because he knew it’s what I love to do.
Gus did the one thing that I wanted someone to do for me—accept me, and I pushed him away for it, all because I’m scared to love again. I’m scared to be vulnerable, knowing I can get my heart broken again.
“I think it’s finally landed,” Jamie laughs, and the three of them begin a conversation whilst I continue to sit here, wondering what the hell I’ve done.
* * *
GUS
Wren Southwick is someone who would have abandoned me had I given her the chance. I was an idiot to believe that she would have stayed—accepted me for all I am and thought me to be someone worthy of sticking around for.
I understand that this is a small town. Smaller than even her town. But I know for sure that staying in such a town doesn’t equal failure. Yes, the people in this town make me want to punch something. Yes, my farm isn’t the most successful thing in the world, but it’smine. It’s not much, but it’s a nice life, whether Wren thinks so or not.
If she wants to run off and plan events for the stars in the same place my dad ran off to, then fine. Let her. See if I give a shit.
The wood splits clean in two as I bring my axe down swiftly. My shoulder aches with how much I’ve been working it, but I don’t care. I can finally hold an axe with both hands, and I can finally do more than sit there and do fucking admin, so pain or no pain, I’m chopping wood.
“You’re going to wind up back in a sling if you keep this up.”
