Foolproof Love(60)

 

She strode across the room and through the door into the back, not looking at anyone for fear of seeing more pitying looks. Jamie jumped about ten feet when she barged in, but Jules ignored her cousin and just kept walking, up the stairs and into her apartment. Aubry jumped nearly a foot in the air when she walked through the door, but her surly expression disappeared the instant she saw Jules. “What happened?”

 

It took two tries to get the words out. “Adam and I are over.”

 

Aubry straightened, her amber eyes narrowing. “You were fine three hours ago. What did he do? Do I have to get out my body-burying kit?”

 

She was only half sure Aubry was joking. It didn’t make her feel any better that her friend was willing to go to such lengths for her. “If you go to jail, I won’t have anyone.”

 

“That’s not true. Your parents love you very much, even if they live a million miles away, and your extended family is as meddling as they are numerous.” She huffed. “Though I guess they’re pretty cool, too.”

 

“Aubry…” She stumbled over and sank onto the couch. “Something happened—something bad. I knew he was leaving—I couldn’t escape that fact—but I thought we had more time. Maybe I’m asking too much. I just want him to let me in, but it feels like he shuts me out of anything that isn’t the good parts of him. What kind of relationship is that?”

 

“I’m not going to pretend I know a damn thing about relationships, but even I know that wanting the whole of someone isn’t a bad thing.” She glared out the window as if he was standing right there. “He’s an idiot. A big-headed, knuckle-dragging, troublemaking idiot. He doesn’t deserve you.”

 

That was the problem. She wasn’t sure it was the truth. She took a deep breath. “I should have known better. It shouldn’t matter so much what the town thinks of me. Instead of coming up with some crazy plan with my fake boyfriend, I should have done what every normal single woman in her twenties does and joined an internet dating site. There’s a world outside Devil’s Falls, and I’m sure I could find someone who isn’t a troll or a serial killer to love me.”

 

“Jules—”

 

She stood. “I don’t want to hear it.”

 

“Too goddamn bad.” Aubry grabbed her elbow and yanked her back down onto the couch. “Life is about risk—don’t you look at me like that, I know I don’t follow that rule—and you took one. And for the last fucking time, you’re not boring. A boring woman would have married Grant and been his little wife with no identity of her own. You don’t have to be a wild child or fuel for the gossip mill to be unique and amazing, and I’m stopping now before we both start to cry.”

 

She shook her head. “But everybody—”

 

“I know for a fact that the only person who thinks less of you for the choices you’ve made is Grant. That’s why you get your back up when anyone else says anything remotely close to you being a cat lady or on the shelf or whatever other hot-button terms you don’t like.”

 

Aubry had a point. She knew Aubry had a point, but it was so hard to agree with her with Adam’s words ringing in her ears. Stability. That’s what she’d always sought for herself. She’d known Adam wasn’t the most stable guy around, but… “He just walked away. He wouldn’t even talk to me.”

 

If there was one thing she learned from her parents’ twenty-five-year marriage, it was that people had to be able to fight in a relationship and still have the security to know it wasn’t the end of things. She didn’t have that with Adam. She wasn’t sure she ever would, even if their fight hadn’t happened today.

 

“Adam’s a broken individual. Trust me, it takes one to know one.” Aubry hugged her. “And, just like me, you can’t fix him through sheer force of will. The world would be a better place if your sunshine could drown out other people’s rainstorms—it just doesn’t work like that.”

 

But she didn’t want to change him. Not really. She liked all of Adam’s hidden depths and a thousand other little things about him. The only thing she wanted was for him to let her in, to let her help him shoulder the burden. If his mom really was terminal, then he’d need someone to lean on. He couldn’t do it alone, not without breaking, not when he obviously loved Amelia so much.

 

But he wouldn’t take help from her. She suspected he wouldn’t take help from anyone.