And the thing that will haunt me long after I leave this room is that none of it’s true. I’ve never for one second felt burdened by Sloane. It’s a goddamned honor to take care of her.
But I haven’t figured out how to love someone without wrapping myself around them so tight I smother whatever madethem remarkable in the first place. After twenty years of vigilance, I’m not sure I have the capacity to stand at her side—no matter how much I love her—without needing a job to justify my presence.
She’s staring at the IV in her arm, her mouth is pressed into a hard line. I know, like I know my own name, that she won’t watch me leave.
I want to take her face in my hands and make her understand that I’m not leaving because things got complicated. I’m leaving because I don’t know how to be at her side without standing in front of her. She deserves someone who won’t block her path.
So I pick up my flannel from the back of the chair and walk to the door. She doesn’t call me back.
The elevator doors open, and I step inside. As they slide shut, I catch my reflection in the steel—unshaven and hollow-eyed. I look suspiciously like my nineteen-year-old self, walking out of a different hospital after a different woman I loved stopped breathing.
Sloane is alive, and she’s going to be fine. Sloane Winslow doesn’t need anyone to save her. She’s already saved herself, and the best thing I can do is get out of her way. Even if it breaks a part of me I’ll never be able to fix.
29
SLOANE
Seven hoursafter Jensen walked out of my hospital room, the doctors decided I was healthy enough to leave even though my heart was still bleeding out all over the floor. Apparently, there’s no scan for that.
Jeremy handled the discharge paperwork, and Avah held my hand in the wheelchair the hospital insisted on. Iris didn’t say another word about Kristen Quinn’s ass-kicking potential, which told me she’d been truly worried. After a stop back to the empty rental house, where I stayed in the car because just…no…we flew home on Jeremy’s jet. I kept my eyes shut the whole flight and let them think I was asleep. Dodging sympathy from three people at once felt like more effort than I could give.
It’s been two days since I watched Jensen walk through that door while I gripped the hospital blanket so hard my knuckles ached. I’m sitting on the sofa in my apartment above Cover to Cover, surrounded by the women I love, and giving myself a mental pep talk about how to share the story of the past week without falling apart.
Physically, I’m better. Emotionally? Still a train wreck.
I’ve tried to go about life as normal. Showering and brushingmy teeth (not up for flossing yet). Running the bookstore (God, I missed those shelves). Eating the food my friends have been dropping off as an excuse to check up on me (mostly carbs, bless them).
I texted the group chat earlier and asked if anyone was available for a last-minute meeting at my apartment. It took less than fifteen seconds for six yeses to appear on the screen.
Molly arrived first with wine and sparkling cider. Then Sadie and Iris, Taylor and Piper—whose belly has gotten noticeably rounder since I left for Montana—and finally Avah, who walked in, deposited a plate of brownies on the counter and said, “Don’t leave out one minuscule moment.”
I gave each of them an update when we got to Tahoe, but they seem happy to listen again. Recounting the details of my days on the trail lets me hold onto the moments a little longer, but every memory comes with the dull pain of knowing I can’t get them back. I miss how happy I was out there with Jensen. I miss everything about him.
Then I tell them about Kristen Quinn, a part of the story none of them, even Avah, has heard.
“She was…” I search for the right word then laugh softly. “Nothing. Nothing like I expected. Not at all how I wanted her to be. She wasn’t fake exactly, but the book made it sound like she’d discovered some secret to fearless living. Really, she had deadlines and a publisher who’d given her a big advance.”
“Sounds like a skank,” Iris says.
“We need to retire that word,” Sadie murmurs.
“No, we don’t.” Iris crosses her ankles. “Not when it fits.”
“How did you feel?” Piper asks, fingers drumming on her round belly. “After meeting with her?”
Pressing my lips together, I stare at the macramé plant holder in the corner. “Devastated. And then furious. And then…” I exhale. “Kind of free? Like the thing I’d been chasing was never real, but the person I became while chasing it is.”
“That’s actually beautiful,” Taylor says, then sighs dreamily. “Seriously, Sloane. You should write your own book.”
“Jensen said something similar.” My voice catches on his name, and the energy in the room shifts. Or maybe that’s another piece of my heart crumbling to the floor.
“Speaking of Jensen,” Molly says, and I feel every one of my friends perk up. Oh, yeah. This is the part I’ve been dreading. “We heard about your trail adventures.”
“Pretty sure you left out some naughty bits,” Piper adds.
Molly nods. “We’ll get to those. But first, where did you leave things with him?”
Avah and Iris, who witnessed how I left things, are kind enough not to make faces or eye contact with me while I consider how to answer.