Trouble (Dogwood Lane #3)(80)

“It’s not sad.” She pauses. “Okay, it is kind of sad, but it’s normal.”

We laugh, a welcome break from the frustration of the day. I lay my head on the back of the couch and say a prayer of thanks that I’m here with her going through this instead of being in LA by myself.

“What are you going to do?” she asks.

“I’m going to eat this bag of cookies that will only make things worse. Then I might see if you have any rum around here because I might as well go all in. Then, depending on how well the rum stays down, I might get a bath or go to bed or, hell, Harper, I might end up having a karaoke night in your living room and sing sad love songs. Time will tell.”

She patiently lets me vent. There’s no rush to get to whatever she wants to do, no glossing over what I’m saying and then telling me why I’m wrong. She just lets me feel the things I want to feel, or have to feel, and stays present.

I owe her. Because the longer she allows herself to be a sounding board, the more I can work this out. It gets it out of my soul and lets me hear my feelings out loud. It helps.

“Regardless,” I say, “I will wake up tomorrow and get dressed and go to work and have lunch, and I’ll be fine. I’m well equipped to deal with rejection. It would be a forte of mine if those kinds of things were braggable qualities.”

“I wasn’t there, so let me start off by saying that. But it doesn’t sound like he all-out rejected you.”

“No, I’m sorry. He just embarrassed me repeatedly by acting like I was one of his . . . what does Matt call it? His harem?” I snap down on a cookie out of frustration. “You know what it is, I think? I think that what makes me the angriest about this, and maybe the most hurt, is that he’s acting like there are two of him. The Penn that wants me, that’s so sweet and gentle and kind. And then there’s the Penn that’s so afraid of feeling that way that he’s an asshole and he doesn’t even know it. If he were just one or the other—either one of them—I could handle it.”

“I’m so sorry, sweet pea.”

The bolt of sadness that comes and goes hits me again, and I set the cookies down. I’ll never be able to replace the way it felt to be alone with him with all the cookies in the world. But the highs of those times aren’t worth the hit to my self-worth and confidence from the lows of the times in public.

I’ve been given a list of ways to act while out and about since I was a little girl: don’t do this, don’t do that, always be polite in case a story is written, even if you’re having the worst, most human day, because we can’t hurt Mom. I can’t go through a period again of walking on eggshells because someone else is messed up.

Tears hit my eyes as I think of his warm hugs and silly grin and the way he’d nuzzle his face in my hair. And how he’d listen to me and tell me stories and open up about his life. He’d text me throughout the night when I’d stay at Harper’s, like we were teenagers.

How he’s the realest, deepest, most vulnerable man I’ve ever met.

“I feel weak saying this”—I sniffle—“but I really liked him.”

Harper gets to her feet and sits by me. She pulls me close. The contact dissolves the wall that was holding back the majority of my tears, and they begin to fall.

My hair sticks to my cheeks. My lips start to swell. I’m a hot mess and I know it, and I don’t care, because falling apart and having someone care is freeing and needed.

I get it out—the sadness and the pain and the feeling of rejection. When I pull back, I know my anger lies within myself.

“I’m my own worst heart-keeper,” I say, brushing my hair out of my face.

Harper looks at me with the deepest concern. “That’s why we give our hearts to the people we can trust with them, sweet pea.”

“But how do you know? I mean, clearly you probably don’t know since you’ve been married so many times.” I fight a grin as I watch those words sink in.

“Touché, Avery. Touché.” She laughs before taking a cookie. Sinking back on the couch beside me, she nibbles on the dessert. “I think these are stale.”

“Good. I was afraid I was losing my cookie connection.”

I take another, anyway, and fall back into the cushions. We chomp away, both lost in our thoughts. I forget that I’d even asked a question when Harper sits back up.

“Okay,” she says. “Here’s how you know: you trust the person that doesn’t give up.”

“You just go with the most persistent? No offense, but that doesn’t sound like solid advice.”

“Hear me out.” She tosses the last half of the cookie on the end table. “Everyone makes mistakes. It’s human nature. I screw up, you screw up. We all do, but that doesn’t make someone a villain because they don’t know what they want right off the bat. Heck, sometimes it takes the eighth or eighteenth try to get it right, if they ever do. We’re all just trying our best.”

“So we’re all screwed up, so pick the less screwy one?”

“No,” she says. “The people worth giving your heart to are the ones that keep coming back and trying to do better. You can’t hold out for the one that’s perfect because you’ll never find it. Think about that—the people you’ve known in your life that look like they have everything figured out. Do they?”