Page 95 of Pick Me
And when I’d stopped to deliver it, I might also have gotten sucked into “stepping inside to enjoy a slice with a lonely old woman, dear,” but in my defense, Betty Ann’s green eyes had reminded me of Knox’s and I couldn’t argue.
It was only after I’d gotten down her driveway and headed toward the highway that I remembered one very large, lumberjack-shaped oversight.
I hadn’t told Knox I was leaving town.
I’d planned to! Ihad. My intention had never been to flounce away or to leave in a huff, because I wasn’t flouncy or huffy or angry at him at all anymore. It wasn’t his fault I’d broken the rules, right? It wasn’t his fault I’d smashed them to smithereens and wantedmore.
I’d tried calling him, but his phone had gone straight to voicemail, and I hadn’t known quite what to say in a message other than, “Hey, I’m purposely leaving before you get home and volunteer to chauffeur me because I don’t think I could handle spending time in your truck with you again while all this unrequited love juice is flowing from my pores,” which I thought maybe sounded just a tiny bit desperate.
I’d been so discombobulated, I’d gotten halfway down the snowy, deserted road toward the highway before I’d remembered that texting was a thing and I could send him a message, but when I’d pulled over into one of the scenic overlooks on Route 26 and opened my phone, the Pond App had already been open from my impromptu tutoring session with Marco, and I’d realized maybe there was something better than texting. Maybe I could message him through the messaging section of the Pond App as a way to remind him that I was still part of the orchard and that I’d be back.
Back at least for a while.
Back at least long enough to say goodbye.
Me:Hey! Your phone was going straight to voicemail, so I’m messaging instead. I had to head to Boston for a second interview, and I’ll be staying at a hotel tonight. Call me if you want!
I debated for a full half minute about adding a heart emoji before deciding I didn’t like the person I was becoming—second-guessing and overthinking were not my favorite or my best, thank you very much—so I’d added the heart and hit Send. Then I’d immediately thrown the phone onto the passenger’s seat so I wouldn’t be tempted to watch it and pulled back out onto the road.
It felt odd driving down this road without Knox. It was strange how quickly you could get used to something and how fast you could come to miss it. Case in point: both sides of the road out here past the Apple of My Eye Bed and Breakfast were lined with cow fields interspersed with scenic overlooks, and I was feeling nostalgic forboththose things.
Yes, me, feeling sentimental attachment tobovines.
How lowering.
I wondered if maybe this was what Knox had been looking to protect me from back at the beginning with his “Gage, I don’t want to hurt you” schtick. He’d known I’d fall for him, and he’d known he wouldn’t pick me, and I hadn’t listened, and…
Damn it, I was crying. Actual salty fluid leaking from my actual eyeholes, and no one was showing me pictures of sad puppies while Sarah MacLachlan played “Angel” or anything.
This day got worse and worse.
I reached down for a napkin to dry my stupid eyes—one of the twenty-seven napkins Drew had packed with my pumpkin bread—and in that literallyone secondthat my eyes were off the road, a giantbeastgalloped into my path. I swung the car left into the opposite lane to avoid it and found myself sliding all over the road despite there being only one inch of snow on the ground.
I hit my brakes hard, and the whole car juddered and slid, juddered and slid, in a super-dramatic fashion, until I ended up on the other side of the road, facing back in the direction I’d come, with my two passenger-side wheels in a ditch and the car tilted at a crazy angle.
Meanwhile, the cow that had sauntered into my path watched me judgmentally from the other lane.
“Oh, holy shitballs,” I said out loud. My head felt stuffy, and everything smelled metallic, and I couldn’t stop shaking, and I needed to pee—Marco had been right!—which made me start laughing hysterically and then cry some more.“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.”
I’d almostdied. Or okay, maybe not, but it was as close as I’d ever come. My entire life had flashed before my eyes—all the people I loved, all the good times I’d had for the past twenty-four years—and the biggest, best part of it was Little Pippin Hollow.
With Knox.
I gripped the steering wheel—squeeze, release, squeeze, release—with both hands as my heart pumped pure adrenaline through my body.
What was I doing? What the actual fuck was I doing, heading off to Boston tomaybeget a job I’dmaybelove?
Ihada job I loved.
I had a place to live and people I cared about who liked and cared about me. I had a purpose. I was making an impact on people’s livesalready, in a way that didn’t require me to put my ideas through a committee first.
I heard Jay’s voice in my head saying, “Follow your instincts. There are lots of ways to be happy and successful,” and I realized that I didn’t need to go out in the world and seek that, because I already had it. I’d found it. It wasmine.
I could seek-no-further.
Knox had interpreted that story entirely wrong—which should not have been surprising, I thought with a quick burst of affection. He’d taken that tale to mean that you were supposed to go taste the apples on everyone else’s tree to assure yourself that you had the best, because to him, being happy was asking for trouble. But it was okay to be content with the apple you had. In fact—
“Okay, cute and delightful baby Jesus, I’m being sincere this time. Please do not let this tendency to think in apple metaphors be a permanent condition. Amen,” I murmured.
