Page 5 of Happy Harbor
He tilted his head slightly. “Oh? What happened?”
“I got fired.” She blurted it out just to get it over with so she could stop feeling the drunk butterflies in her stomach.
“You got fired?” he repeated. “Why?” She could almost feel the disappointment in his voice.
“It was ridiculous, really. Sandra seems to think I don’t work well with others.” She rolled her eyes and took a bite of the bread she’d been holding.
Craig sighed and looked out the window. “Josie, I don’t know what to say.”
“What do you mean?”
“This isn’t an isolated incident, you know. Your inability to trust other people has been a problem before.”
“Trust people? Oh, come on, Craig. First of all, I trust you. Second of all, you can’t just blindly trust people. I’ve found that people are largely untrustworthy.”
He looked at her. “That’s your childhood talking.”
“Maybe it is, but this wasn’t my fault. I can’t help it if those people weren’t strong enough to work with me. You’ve told me a million times how tough I am, and how you admire that.” Craig was a go-getter. He was someone who never took no for an answer and had big plans to climb as high as the ladder of success would allow.
“I’ve told you that getting out of your hometown and working your way up in your career is admirable, Josie. But walling yourself off from other people and being difficult to work with isn’t something I admire.”
She felt like the air had been sucked out of her chest. “I’m difficult?”
Craig didn’t crack a smile. He didn’t reach across the table to take her hand. He just looked at her like she was at a job interview. “You can be.”
“What’s with you tonight? I thought I could lean on my fiancé after losing a job I loved, but you’re making me feel worse.” She took a sip of her wine and looked out the window again.
“I’m not trying to make you feel bad, but I’ve got a lot on my mind. This dinner...” His words trailed off like he didn’t know how to finish a sentence.
“This dinner?”
“Well, let’s just say this dinner has bad timing. Unfortunately, I can’t delay it any longer.”
“Delay what?”
Craig sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “I love you, but... this just isn’t working for me anymore.”
She stared at him like she didn’t understand the language he was speaking. Craig washer person. He was her rock. He’d believed in her when no one else did. She saw her whole life laid out in front of her, and he was beside her, fighting the good fight. They were a team.
“What?” She tried as hard as she could to stop it, but her face flushed and her eyes welled with tears.
“I don’t want to marry you.”
Josie had never understood what people meant when they said something felt like a knife through their heart... until right now. She could literally feel pain in the center of her chest. “I can’t believe this.” Suddenly, she felt the coldness of the metal on her left ring finger.
“I’m sorry, Josie. I really am.”
“What did I do wrong?” she choked out.
“It’s not that you did anything wrong. I just know what I want, and this isn’t it. We’re not a good match.”
“But you know me, Craig. You’ve known all along who I am. Why am I suddenly unacceptable to you?”
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair and then cleared his throat, not making eye contact. “Do you remember that time I helped you pick out paint colors for your living room?”
She worried for a moment that he was having a stroke or something given the sudden change of topic. “Yes...”
“You wanted that grayish-blue color, and we painted a big section of the wall with it. Then, you went to the paint store and saw this robin’s-egg blue that you loved, and you had me paint a big section of that next to it. Remember?”
