Love Me for Me(16)

The finality of it sent a wave of sadness over her, sadness like she’d never felt. Through that window, she saw the first person she’d ever kissed, the one who’d been by her side whenever things were tough, the only person she’d ever loved. She let the tears cloud her eyes on purpose so that she didn’t have to see it anymore. A stab of fear shot through her like a bullet as she thought about what she was giving up. She was leaving everything she knew for an unknown future. She tried to rationalize it in her head: They were only eighteen. Surely she’d move on, make a life in New York, and forget the hurt that was sitting on her chest like a cinder block at that moment.

Her fingers were wrapped around the twig, not wanting to let go, gripping it so tightly that it snapped right off in her hand. It was that snap that had brought her back to reality and, with it still in her hand, she’d run as fast as she could in the other direction.

“May I help you?” an elderly man’s voice came from behind her, yanking her out of her memory.

She pulled in a large breath of the musty air to send her back to the present. “I’m just looking, thanks,” she said, willing herself to smile in his direction. The man grinned at her warmly, his lips hidden beneath a white mustache. She recognized him. He was the same person who had worked there when she was a child.

“Let me know if you need me. I’ll be up front,” he said, walking away from her toward the door.

After she’d been left alone again to immerse herself in her memories, she took a moment to look around her. The hardware store hadn’t left any sort of impression on her before, but it was so clearly representative of the town, so different than anywhere she’d been in New York, that it pulled her back to another time. Everything in White Stone was like that. All her memories were right there, lurking around corners, each one startling her as it revealed itself, bringing her emotions to the surface.

The fear that she’d felt that day, seeing Pete in his room, came rushing back in full force—the fear about what she’d given up, about leaving him. Now that it all had come crashing down, she wondered if her choices had been the right ones. She couldn’t focus on the items in front of her. She felt stifled, as if she couldn’t get to the door fast enough, the air around her turning to liquid, like being underwater. Her chest was tight, her heart beating fast; she needed to get out of there. Memories of her childhood, leaving Pete—they were too much. She paced past the man, ignoring his inquiring stare in her direction, and she pushed through the door, sucking in a breath of fresh sea air. The sun was shining, the heat of it calming her. She moved over to the bench that sat between the hardware store and a gift shop next door and took a seat.

At eighteen, she’d thought mostly about herself, how much she missed Pete, and how hard it had been to get over him. He’d always been the one who could calm her, take away the anxiety she’d had about her family or school. When she was with him it was as if nothing else mattered. Being without him, alone in her dorm room every night, knowing that she couldn’t call, couldn’t hear his voice, made her feel as if her heart were actually breaking. She cried into her pillow until she couldn’t breathe some nights, the ache in her chest nearly too much to bear. Mostly, she’d been consumed with how she’d felt, but now, at thirty, her perspective had changed. Now she wondered what he’d thought when she’d left that day, what he’d felt.

A car pulled over to the curb, and she looked up to see if it was him, but it wasn’t. A woman got out and went into the gift shop. Relief flooded her; she wasn’t sure she was really ready to see him yet, she’d decided. She hadn’t worked out what she wanted to say because, unexpectedly, she wanted him to know her side of things. How could she possibly explain it to him—and would it even make things any better? The truth was that the only place where she could have the success she’d had was in New York. And Pete was happy in the life he’d made for himself. Perhaps she should just let it go, let him stay irritated with her…

“Libby Potter?”

She looked up to find a petite brunette with dimples and straight, white teeth grinning at her, her hand on her chest, shopping bags hanging from the crooks of her arms. “I can’t believe it!”

“Catherine?” Catherine had been one of her best friends in school and her neighbor growing up. She hadn’t spoken to her in years apart from the annual Christmas card, but she was one of those people who could be absent from her life for ages and yet when they came back together, it was as if they hadn’t been apart a day.