Wild Love (Rose Hill, #1)(37)

What I don’t love is what she just told me.

“Anyone can wear pink, Cora. And you? You aren’t just pretty, you’re beautiful. Inside and out. And that has nothing to do with the colors you wear”—I wave a hand over her— “or in your case, shades. You could wear pink if you wanted.”

Her eyes drop and her fingers fiddle with the blanket as the credits roll across the screen.

“Do you ever feel like you… like you… I don’t know. Just want to re-create yourself?”

God. Damn. Talk about an unknowing punch to the gut.

“You’re talking to the girl who freaked out and fled her life less than a week ago. So yeah, I know that feeling. I’ve done it successfully a few times.”

Cora nods, a question on her face as she rolls her lips together.

This time, I rub my foot against her leg to reassure her. “Hey, Cora.”

She lifts her eyes to look at me.

“Pink and black go great together. If you want to wear pink, do it. Ten out of ten you can pull it off. I mean, come on. You’ve got the genetics of the World’s Hottest Billionaire.”

At that, she huffs out a giggle, dropping her chin shyly.

“If anyone says anything, just scowl at them and say, ‘Do you even know who I am?’” Now she laughs.

“I’d milk the hell outta that title if I were you.”

“You could too, if you wanted.” Her eyes dance with amusement, and my gaze flicks back and forth between them.

“I don’t think I look young enough to convince people that Ford is my daddy.”

I broke every speed limit to get to you.

That fucking sentence has played on repeat in my head all day. I’ve thought about it countless times, to the point I’m not sure it holds any meaning anymore.

Except… the fact I’m obsessing over it does mean something.

But did it mean something coming from him? Or was it off the cuff? Was it even true, or was he fucking with me?

Right back down the rabbit hole I go.

“Are you going to go back to the city?” Cora’s question drags me out of my spiral.

“Sorry?”

“Are you going to move back?”

“Wow. Most people get to warm up with simple kid questions before they get hit with the hard-hitting ones.”

“Sucks to be you,” Cora says with a snotty little shrug.

I can’t decide if that makes me want to laugh or cry, so I prop my head back on the couch and stare up at the wooden beams stretching across the ceiling. “I don’t know. I feel this pressure to live that city life. Ya know? I’m the first person in my family to go to university. Staying here in Rose Hill would have been simple, but I made it out. I did the thing. It feels counterproductive to come back here in some ways. And yet…”

“And yet?”

My lips quirk. This girl should become a journalist with all her hard-hitting questions.

“And yet I love it here. It feels like home. The condo in the city doesn’t. That life doesn’t. It feels like I’m in a race that I don’t give a flying fuck about winning. One I’m signed up for just to say I took part.”

“What about your boyfriend?” She says the word with a dose of disdain I didn’t see coming.

Next time you ask me that, make sure you are.

That’s the sentence I obsessed over last night. That sentence is the reason I stayed up all night reading my journal. Trying to affirm to myself that I have all these entries that prove Ford and I hate each other the way we’ve always said we do.

But now, as an adult, I’m not sure they read that way at all. I went looking for proof there’s nothing between us, and all I found was evidence to the contrary. I feel like one of those cartoon characters with stunned eyes and question marks circling above their head.

“Ryan?”

“Yeah.”

I’m starting to think he’s avoiding me. I messaged him today. Told him that if he couldn’t make it out here sooner, I wanted to come back for a visit next weekend. I left out the part about how by visit I meant break up. But apparently, he’s going to be away with work. Again.

“You asked me about re-creating yourself, and I think that he and I both have. We’ve changed, our lives have changed. Sometimes you grow together, and sometimes you grow apart. If I go back, it won’t be for him—it will be for myself.”

It’s the first time I’ve given voice to that realization. I’ve thought about it a lot. Maybe I’ve been dragging it out longer than necessary, paralyzed by feelings of obligation. But you don’t just blow up a two-year relationship with a decent person without sleeping on it—without being sure.

Somewhere along the way, I’ve come to realize I wasted a lot of years chasing a life I thought I was supposed to have. Spent a lot of time checking off milestones I thought I was supposed to reach. Achieving goals I thought were supposed to make me feel like I’d finally accomplished something.

I was chasing a fantasy that was supposed to satisfy me. And Ryan was part of that fantasy—the one I was supposed to want.

But now, I know I don’t want what I’m supposed to. And there’s no coming back from that. I’m going to look him in the eye, say it to his face, and give him a hug when I end it. I respect him enough for that.