Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 103119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
The sweat was still clinging to his skin like an accusation.
His stomach burned. He couldn’t even look her in the eye. It only added to the humiliation that he couldn’t get his voice to work.
On legs he couldn’t even feel, he went back to the bedroom and dressed, shoving his watch, his phone, his keys into his pockets.
“No, Julian. No. Where are you going?”
All he could do was walk past her out of the house, away from what had just happened. Just like he’d done four years ago. But this time—and he could feel this in the marrow of his bones—the price was much higher.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Hallie walked down one of the residential blocks adjacent to Grapevine Way, hoping once again to avoid seeing . . . well, anyone really. Even Lavinia and Lorna. Talking and smiling like a normal person only made her feel fraudulent and exhausted.
Two weeks had passed since she came home and found Julian in her front yard looking like death. How long was she going to be dazed and sick to her stomach?
When would the hole in her chest suture itself closed?
She was beginning to think the answer was . . . indefinitely. Recovering from the consequences of being reckless and irresponsible didn’t seem like an option. She’d be living with the reverberations of that night for a long time. Maybe forever. At least as long as she’d be living with this broken heart.
If she could go back in time and just be honest with Julian, instead of sneaking off in the middle of the night like a moron, she would jump inside the time machine and buckle up. Because he might have wanted nothing to do with her after she revealed the truth about the letters, but at least she could have spared him the fear and anxiety that had embodied him, sealed him up in a vacuum pack where she couldn’t reach him for long, agonizing minutes. The fact that she’d been responsible for that . . . like he’d feared she’d be all along? It was unbearable.
The tendons in Hallie’s chest and throat knit together and pulled. Her body had been maneuvering in all sorts of new, torturous ways for the last two weeks. Food made her queasy, but she forced herself to eat, anyway, because the emptiness inside of her was already winning and she couldn’t give it another victory by withholding sustenance. All day long, she walked around feeling sick, her skin hot and cold at the same time. She was too embarrassed and guilty and regretful to face her own reflection in the mirror.
And she totally deserved this.
Her actions had caught up with her in an irreversible way. Julian had been right to drive away and never look back. She’d called him three times since that night to apologize again, but he’d never answered the phone. Not once. Three days later, she’d gone to the guesthouse and knocked on the door. No response. She’d planted the flowers she’d brought in the back of her truck and gone. There was a chance he’d gone into that same numb state he’d told her about. The one he’d landed in after the fire, the low that followed his panic attack.
But, God, didn’t that explanation make everything worse?
After a week passed with no returned calls, she’d woken up with grim acceptance. Julian wouldn’t be calling. Or showing up at her cottage. He’d dealt with her messy disorganized lifestyle, her doggy circus, a citizen’s arrest, and chocolate-fueled toddlers in a wine tent, but this lie and its consequences were insurmountable. She’d lost him.
She’d truly lost the man she loved. Not just loved, but admired and cared about and needed. She needed him. Not for self-worth or success. Just because, when they were together, the air felt clear. Her heart beat differently. Someone saw her, she saw them in return, and they both said, yes, despite the flaws in this plan, let’s execute it. Because she was worth it to him.
Right up until she wasn’t.
Hallie reached the end of the block and hesitated before turning down Grapevine Way. She had no choice but to buy milk. After a cup of black coffee this morning and cereal mixed with water, she’d forced herself into real clothing and out the door.
Please don’t let me run into anyone.
Lavinia had hounded her for a few days, then allowed her to suffer in peace, leaving the occasional box of donuts and wine on her doorstep. Hallie was grateful to her friend for not including a note that said I told you so, which would have been well within her rights. She’d canceled her jobs for a few days before resuming them. But she couldn’t bring herself to go to the library. She’d driven by once, intending to cultivate the soil and prepare it for planting, but she couldn’t get out of the truck.