The One Who Loves You (Tickled Pink #1)(106)

She strokes my back. “This is what we call his loss, Phoebe.”

“No, Mom. It’s my loss too. I ache. I hurt so badly I can’t see a future where I don’t hurt. I don’t want to dig deeper into his lie and expose him to the whole town. I don’t want to hurt him back. And I don’t know myself anymore if I don’t want to hurt him back. And that makes me realize I don’t know where I belong. How do you find where you belong when the one thing that made you belong is gone?”

I can’t stop talking.

I can’t stop pouring out my heart to my mom.

Never—ever—have we done this before.

“Oh, Phoebe. Sweetheart. I didn’t have enough mimosas for this, but I’ll try, okay? Mommy will try.” She guides me back to my chair. “You love him too much to ruin him? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I—”

Oh my Oprah.

I love him.

I do.

I love him. I want to know why he walked away from his family. I want to know how I can help him. I want to tell him I don’t care who he was, because who he’s become is a level of sheer, utter goodness that I can only hope to achieve someday.

I’m an achiever, and I don’t know if I can ever be that good.

I want to tell him that he makes me want to be a better person.

And if I can’t have him in my life, I don’t care what happens to me, because I will never, ever be strong enough on my own to be all that I can be if he’s not beside me.

Oh my Oprah.

I don’t just love him.

I’m so madly in love with him that life is meaningless without him.

I stare at my mom in horror. “Make it stop.”

“Darling, you can’t control love.”

“Yes, I can.”

I shriek so loudly I startle a flock of geese, who erupt in honks and take flight en masse from their spot on the grassy bank. Elmo’s fur stands up on end. His tail too. He hisses, then dives for the gazebo and hides under my chair.

“Oh, my poor baby.” Mom strokes my hair. “I’m booking us a spa day, and then a champagne boat ride across the lake, and then a shopping trip.”

“Will it make me feel better?” It sounds absolutely awful.

“No, my sweet angel. But it’ll give you time to think in comfort.”

I gasp.

“Love is awful, Phoebe. Time is the only thing that heals it. Time and getting back to normal. If you’re up for it, we’ll head back to the city in a few days. Everything looks different there. But heartbreak or not, I refuse to let you return looking like this. Your poor face. And your poor hair. And your poor aura. Don’t worry, sweetheart. Mommy’s here. Even if it hurts, you’re not alone.”

She’s gazing out over the lake, and it’s impossible not to see the sadness in her eyes.

I grab Elmo and snuggle him. I still have Elmo. I still have my kitten. “Did you love my biological father?” I whisper to Mom.

She flinches. “Irrelevant, isn’t it?”

“He hurt you.”

“Do you know the hardest part of being in Tickled Pink? The hardest part was seeing all of those people who were so happy. Married people. Single people. Grumpy people. They were happy. They didn’t have designer clothes. They’d never eaten at a Michelin-starred restaurant or brunched with the rich and powerful. And Coco Chanel knows they wouldn’t know a real facial if it leaped out of that lake and attacked them with the seaweed. But they were happy. They know something we don’t. And I don’t think I’ll ever know it, Phoebe. I truly don’t think I ever will.”

“I was happy there.” I bury my nose in Elmo’s fur while he purrs against my face.

“Then go back,” she says quietly. “Go back. Forgive him. Be happy.”

I swallow against another tide of rising grief. “I don’t think it’s that simple.”

Could I go back to Tickled Pink?

Yes.

I could go back. I could work to raise money to build a new Ferris wheel. I could have coffee at Café Nirvana and do lunch with Jane and volunteer at the cat shelter with Bridget (maybe) and buy a house and live with sixteen cats and have Tavi visit when she wants a hamburger (for however much longer she lasts in Tickled Pink), and I could know that I was doing something good and worthwhile with my life to help someone else.

But I’d know I was in Teague’s territory.

I’d know I might run into him at the grocery store or while taking a walk along the lake or when we break ground for the new Ferris wheel.

He’d be the real estate agent working on my purchase of the adorable little building downtown that I plan to turn into a candy shop where we make our own taffy, and when I say we, I mean someone else, because I want to give Tickled Pink a candy shop but I shouldn’t be trusted in a kitchen.

So maybe I need to find my own small town.

But Shiloh and Ridhi and Willie Wayne wouldn’t be there.

They might not have a snowshoe baseball team or anything like it.

Elmo squirms.

I’m getting his fur wet with my tears.

“Oh, my sweet Phoebe.” Mom strokes my hair again. “It really will get better. I promise.”

“I think you’re right.”

“More often than you can admit, I’m afraid.”