If I was being honest, the consistency of my brain matter was mostly due to me beating it with a blender trying to figure out everything with Anderson. My mom had opened my eyes in a bad way, Momma Von had smoothed me out to reality, and last night I’d come to a lot of truths on my own.
I cared about Anderson—maybe more than I should. And though I knew he had come into my life at exactly the right moment, I still couldn’t deny the fact that I’d let my happiness with him distract me from trying to find the very thing I’d been searching for when I booked the cabin two months ago.
Clarity.
I needed to spend time with myself, to face what I’d been running from, and I couldn’t do that if I was spending all my time with Anderson. Still, after he’d opened up to me about how I inspired him, it was like adding a new ingredient to the bowl that I needed to blend and mull over.
I wanted it all.
I wanted to spend time finding myself and also spend time getting lost in him. It didn’t seem impossible to balance, it didn’t feel like it had to be one or the other, and yet the uneasiness I felt told me the opposite.
Still, I was too tired to even try to process it all tonight, so I’d decided to let it go for now and just enjoy myself.
We were all stuffed full, plates empty and beers refilled as we sat around Davie and Yvette’s bonfire. The night was winding down, midnight approaching now, and my exhaustion was slowly creeping into every inch of my body. My limbs were heavy—eyelids, too. Still, I couldn’t leave in the middle of old man Ron’s story.
I learned that apparently when Ron got really, really drunk off whiskey, he liked to talk. A lot. And since I’d only heard him grunt before tonight, there was no way I was moving until he stopped talking.
“After that, An Okie from Muskogee took on a whole new meaning for me,” he slurred, finishing a long string of sentences that I wasn’t even sure made any sense at all. “And I could officially mark pig shopping off my bucket list.” He hiccuped. “‘Course, I had to add it, first.”
A few people chuckled and Momma Von rubbed her hand along his shoulder with a gentle squeeze. “Time for bed, Ron.”
He nodded, hiccuping again with a wide grin as he handed his half-full cup of beer to Yvette. He stood with shaky legs, balancing his weight on Momma Von, and she winked at all of us before tossing his arm over her shoulder and guiding him toward the road. We all called out our goodnights to them both, and I succumbed to my own yawn just as I noticed Anderson wasn’t back from refilling our cups yet.
I looked over my shoulder, spotting him still at the kegs, but he wasn’t alone. Tucker was there, manning the tap with a smug smile.
He was saying something just loud enough for the two of them to hear, and by the way Anderson was crushing both of our cups in his fists, I knew he didn’t like whatever it was that was being said.
I frowned, bracing my hands on the arms of my chair to go see what was going on, but I didn’t make it before I had company of my own.
“Looks like you survived your first pig roast,” Sarah said, taking the seat next to me that had been Anderson’s. Her eyes were low and red, and though she wore a smile, I didn’t feel at all like her friend.
“Barely,” I answered with a soft laugh.
She smiled wider, but her eyes narrowed like I’d taken her bait. She kicked back, facing the fire as she took a sip from her cup.
“Yeah, I love the pig roast. It does remind me just how incredibly single I am though,” she added. There was a lightness in her voice, like she was telling a joke, but I felt like I was being set up. “Seeing everyone all coupled up and all the kids running around.”
I didn’t have a response, and she knew it, because she turned her attention back to me with a raised brow.
“But you wouldn’t really know how that feels, I guess. You were married like, what, two months ago? And now here you are with Anderson.”
There it is.
I swallowed, wishing I had my beer to drink or anything to do to other than stare at her like she’d pinned me for the imposter I felt like in that moment.
“You two are really cute together,” she continued, still smiling sweetly. She ran her long nails through her ponytail and let it swing free behind her. Then she paused, making a pouty face. “Aw, but you’re leaving soon, huh? Such a shame. Bet you’re going to miss him.”
“What are you doing, Sarah?”
Her smile dropped in an instant and she leaned in toward me, practically seething. “I’m giving you a fucking wake-up call, Fashion Barbie.”
I didn’t flinch on the outside, but I had nothing left to swallow, now. My mouth was dry, heart racing, exhaustion completely snapped away by her tone.
“What is it you think you’re doing, exactly?” she probed, her question like a finger poke to the chest. “I know you’re not dumb, so you must be a bitch, because you know just as well as I do, that boy is broken. And here you are, breaking his walls down just to leave him to pick up the rubble at the end of it all.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“Oh, I know plenty.” Sarah was fuming, all traces of her previous act completely gone. “You came out here to find yourself, and you found yourself, alright—right in-between the sheets with another man.”
“Fuck off,” I said, pushing from my seat. I’d had enough, but she wasn’t done yet. She grabbed me by the elbow and ripped me around, standing chest to chest with me now.
“Fine, you don’t want to be real with me about your own flaws, then at least be real about his. He’s never had a relationship, Wren. Ever. What do you want from him? What do you expect? I’m the closest thing he’s ever had to a girlfriend and our relationship didn’t go much past fucking and fighting.”
My heart was in my throat, sticky and thick and beating too hard. Anderson had told me about his past with Sarah, but hearing it from her hit me in a different way. I didn’t like it, not even a little bit.
“Well, we have more than that.”
“Yeah? And what happens when you leave?”
Both of us were breathing hard, noses nearly touching, and I jumped when Anderson touched the small of my back. He pulled me under his arm, eyes jetting to Sarah, to me, and back again.
“What’s going on?”
“Just talking about shoes,” Sarah answered flatly, and then she turned and walked away, ponytail swinging.
Anderson was just as tense as I was, and I noticed then that he hadn’t returned with beers. I peered over my shoulder and found Tucker staring at us, and he didn’t bother looking away when my eyes caught his own. Anderson followed my gaze and his brows furrowed deeper.
“Come on,” he said, still holding me under his arm.
We didn’t say a word as he walked me back to my cabin, but he held me tight, as if he was trying to keep me in the moment with him when my mind was so desperate to run away. Still, I could see his own wheels spinning.
“Did Tucker say something to you?” I finally asked when we reached my drive. I stopped us at the edge of it, pressing my hands into Anderson’s chest and keeping my eyes there, too.
“Nothing that mattered.”
I nodded, letting him lie to me. I would have lied, too, if he’d asked about Sarah.