WHEN I RETURNED to the shop that afternoon, Liya was helping another customer in the queer romance section. My dad was nowhere to be found.
Come with me.
The open, vulnerable, trusting look on Wyatt’s face appeared in my mind and my stomach lurched.
I want you by my side.
Behind the desk, I rubbed my chest. Something ached.
Tell me you’re ready for this to be over.
The keys on the laptop tapped as I logged into our social media. Anything to take my mind off this horrible day. I scrolled past posts, pressing ‘like’ on images without seeing them.
He was always going to leave. We both knew this. He taught me that everything was temporary and then he acted like it wasn’t.
He acted like we were forever.
She would want you to live your fucking life, Hannah.
I swallowed past a knot in my throat. I glanced around the store, at the new flooring and fixed bookshelves and eye-catching wallpaper. It had only been a week but the plants were thriving.
I had put so much work in. Everyone had. My dad was furious, and he wouldn’t speak to me for a week, but it was worth it because the store was perfect and special. I had achieved something, changing the store when we had been stuck for so long. Sitting beside Wyatt on the window bench the day we fixed the store up, talking and laughing and eating pizza, it was meant to be.
Like she would want me here.
So why was my chest so hollow right now?
My phone dinged and I unlocked the screen to see notifications on Wyatt’s social media accounts. I had posted clips of him surfing this morning during the festival and forgot to check until now.
My heart twisted as I scrolled through the comments and shares. My stomach sank, watching his lean form in his wetsuit coast along the water, and then again as he strode out of the water, flipping his wet hair back.
Tell me you feel nothing.
I pressed a hand to my mouth, wide-eyed and watching the video on a loop. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t run his social media now.
My laptop dinged with another notification. Thérèse had posted a photo of a bookstore in Lyon. Browsing for another true love to add to my collection and thinking of my dear friend Hannah @PemberleyBooks.
The gold sequinned dress Thérèse had given me popped into my head. How beautiful I had felt wearing it. Its weight, the coarse texture against my thighs and arms, how it sparkled in the light. How great it paired with my plain white sneakers. How I felt like someone wearing it, like a main character. That outfit was all me, totally Hannah, and Thérèse had seen it from afar.
The way Wyatt looked at me in that dress.
The way Wyatt looked at me every day.
Realizing what I had lost hit me in the chest and my eyes stung with tears.
“Liya, I’ll be in the back for a bit,” I called to her, holding my voice normal and steady.
“Okay,” she called back through the bookshelves.
In the stockroom, I leaned against the table and cried into my hands, praying Liya wouldn’t come back here. How could I possibly explain the situation? I wanted Wyatt, but couldn’t have him. He was leaving, but I had to stay, and somehow that last part had slipped past me this whole time. I had never entertained the idea of leaving, but fell for him anyhow.
After all this time, you’re still afraid.
Was I doing it right? Was this how she wanted me to run the store and live my life? If Wyatt wasn’t the right guy for me, why was this so awful?
I buried my face in my hands. All these thoughts rolled around in my head, warring with each other. I dragged in a deep breath but the smell of the bookstore only reminded me of Wyatt.
Another sob choked out of me. I wasn’t afraid. I couldn’t leave. This store was her dream, and she would have wanted me to carry on her legacy. This store was where I belonged.
I would just have to get over Wyatt Rhodes.
