The Design(85)

I rambled on and on and Brooklyn silently listened.

“I thought Paris was your dream?” she asked quietly.

I sniffed. “I thought it was. I really thought I’d be happy here. Happiness for me is a moving target, I guess.”

She hummed, mulling over my confession. “Were you happy in LA?”

I didn’t even have to think about her question. “Of course I was happy there, but that’s because you were in charge of every difficult thing in my life and Grayson was paving and paying the way for me. I never had anything to challenge me. How could I not be happy?!”

“Wait,” she interrupted, “What are you talking about with Grayson? Just because he was your boss doesn’t mean he paved the way for you.”

I laughed, a cruel, sarcastic laugh.

“Oh, yes he did.”

I told her about everything Grayson had done, about all of the emails I’d found and the way he’d gone behind my back. I relished getting to talk about him, even if it was in negative light. For the last month and a half I’d had no one to discuss him with. He’d been secluded away in my thoughts. And boy, did I think about him. The good. The bad. The ugly. The beautiful. I couldn’t stop thinking of him.

“You know this is very similar to what happened with me and Jason. When our relationship got tough, I left Montana with things still in limbo with us. I should have stayed and listened to him. Just like you should have stayed and listened to Grayson.”

I scoffed, wiping residual tears from my cheeks. “This is nothing like that. I left because I wanted to. It had nothing to do with Grayson. I had a dream of coming to Paris and I knew I wouldn’t forgive myself if I never actually did it.”

She laughed. “So, you’re fine with everything you found out the night before you left? You’re fine with the fact that he fired you and you’re fine with the fact that he hasn’t shown up in Paris yet?”

I swallowed those questions, knowing I’d have to digest them later, when I was alone and could really delve into my feelings.

“Y’know, I’m peachy. In fact, I’ve hardly thought about Grayson while I’ve been here. It feels like all that happened ages ago.”

“So you don’t think you should have stayed and worked things out?”

“Those are two different questions, Brooklyn. I honestly don’t think there’s any way it could have worked out between him and me. If our paths cross in the future it’ll be good to see him. We’ll say hi and he’ll introduce me to whatever girl he’s dating. I’m not sure about a lot of things, but leaving and starting fresh felt like the right move.”

“You sound so calm about everything,” she said, disbelief clear in her tone.

I shrugged, though she couldn’t see it through the phone. “So why were you crying when you first called?” she asked.

I bit down on my lip, trying to keep my emotions at bay. “I think I just realized that I’m not the person I thought I was. I wanted to be the cool girl who could travel around Europe and experience the world. I’ve been here for a month and a half and I think I made a huge mistake.”

“So are you going to come home?” she asked tentatively.

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, I have something that might convince you…”

“What?” The elation I felt at the idea of going home to LA was practically tangible. “What is it?”

“Jason asked me to marry him last week.”

“WHAT?! ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? You let me ramble on about dumb Paris while you were sitting there freaking engaged? Are you completely insane? Send me a picture of the ring. No, wait. Tell me how he did it. No wait, have you picked a date yet?”

She laughed. “Alright, settle down, you weirdo. We haven’t picked a date yet but we know we don’t want to wait long. It was a really simple proposal. He and I write on the upstairs balcony at his ranch—you know the one I’m talking about?”

I tried to envision Jason’s ranch from my stay a few months earlier. It basically looked like a ski lodge transplanted into the Montana forest. It was breathtaking and the balcony she was talking about was the focal point of the entire house.

“Yes, I remember what it looks like.”

“Well, we were out there writing a song and he paused right in the middle and dropped to one knee. He’d been carrying the ring around in his pocket for the last month, trying to think of what the most special proposal would be. When we were out there writing, he told me that there wasn’t a moment that would feel more right to him. That balcony, and that house, hold a lot of memories for us and he thought it was only right to add one more.”