Page 19 of The Ballad of Us
Rhea is out there in the world, living her life without me. Maybe she’s curled up with a book on a sunny porch, laughing with friends, or learning, bit by bit, how to be happy without me. If getting clean means she never has to fear my self-destruction again, if it lets her move forward free from the shadow of my addiction, then maybe that’s enough.
It has to be because real love means wanting her happiness, even if that happiness unfolds in a world without me.
And for the first time in my adult life, I’m going to try to love her the way she deserves. But what does loving the right way even look like? Is it sacrifice, understanding, or the strength to let her chase happiness on her own terms?
Five
RHEA
The notification sits on my phone. It waits to explode whatever peace I’ve managed to build in the north Georgia mountains. Two voicemails from an unknown number came through today, though I know exactly who they’re from. My heart recognized it was Gray before my brain caught up.
I’ve been staring at my phone for three hours now, alternating between wanting to delete the messages unheard and needing to know if he’s alive. The last time we spoke, if you can call his drunken rambling and my tearful goodbye speaking, he was so far gone I wasn’t sure he’d survive the week.
Setting the phone aside, I force myself off the cabin’s front porch and into the rental car. I need a change of scenery to avoid those voicemails, so I decide to search for decent coffee and a distraction, preferably with human interaction that isn’t tangled up in the wreckage of my heart.
The village in Dogwood Hollow is exactly what you’d expect from a small Georgia mountain town with antique shops and their hand-painted signs, a Mae’s Diner that probably hasn’t changed its menu since 1985, and locals who nod politely at the obvious outsider wandering their streets. I park in front of a coffee shop called “Mountain Mornings” and try to remember how to be a person outside of Gray’s world.
The barista is a woman who can’t be older than thirty with purple streaks in her brown hair, who greets me with the kind of genuine smile that reminds me there’s still kindness in the world. “What can I get you, honey?”
“Large coffee, cream and sugar. And maybe some advice on anywhere a person might want to start over?” I wince when I realize I’ve spoken my thoughts out loud.
She laughs, and it sounds like wind chimes. “Philosophical morning, huh? Well, it depends on what you’re starting over from. Breakup? Job? Existential crisis? The mob?”
“All of the above, except the last one?” I laugh at the mob comment.
“Oof, the full package. Been there. The mob would’ve been a new one for me, though.” She starts preparing my coffee with practiced efficiency. “Are you thinking of staying around here?”
The question catches me off guard because I haven’t really considered it until this moment.
Georgia.
These gorgeous mountains.
It’s a place where nobody knows me as Gray’s girlfriend, Case in Point’s assistant, or the woman who spent three years enabling an addict because she loved him too much to let go. “Maybe, I’m from Tennessee originally, but I don’t think I can go back there.”
“Bad memories?” she guesses correctly.
There are more bad memories than she could possibly imagine. Tennessee holds every painful moment of my childhood and the way I learned to tiptoe around volatility before I was old enough to understand what that meant. It holds my teenage years, when I was too careful, too responsible, and too afraid to take risks, because I’d seen what happened when adults lost control.
And now it holds three years of loving Gray and watching him slip further away from the man I fell in love with. One day, I realized I was living with a stranger who looked like my soulmate but treated me like an obstacle to his self-destruction.
“You could say that.” I take the steaming cup from the barista, accepting it with a nod.
“Well, Georgia’s good for fresh starts. It’s a slower pace, has nice people and plenty of places to disappear, if that’s what you need.” She leans against the counter, clearly in no hurry. “I came here from Atlanta after my ex turned out to be a pathological liar with a gambling problem. There are some situations that require geographical distance to get emotional distance, you know?”
I know exactly what she means. The thought of returning to Nashville makes my chest tight with claustrophobia.
“What’s your name?” I ask in case I stick around.
“Emma. You?” She places a kitchen towel over her shoulder.
“Rhea.”
“Well, Rhea, if you decide to stick around, there’s a little apartment above the bookstore across the street. Mrs. Chen has been trying to rent it out for months, but she’s picky about tenants. She wants a renter who’ll appreciate the quiet life.”
The idea of a quiet life above a bookstore sounds like a plot from one of the romance novels I’ve been devouring.
Simple.
