“This is new for me,” I said. I picked at a loose string on my pants.
“Very new for you. It’s . . . surprising. I’ve never seen a woman unseat you from your vow of perpetual bachelorhood.”
“Me neither.”
“She’s a good one for it.”
“Love you, Meg. Good night.”
After we hung up, I squinted at the sky. Talking to Megan didn’t solve anything, but I felt a little better. Less cooped up in my own head, at least. I put the Zombie Mobile into gear and steered it toward the canyon before the storm blew in. My thoughts whirled like the incoming storm, and they all centered on Lizbeth.
33 Lizbeth
Restless, I drove away from the hospital as I headed down the canyon toward Pineville. Leslie said she didn’t need her truck back until tomorrow, thankfully. It gave me time.
“You’re trying to be safe,” Grace had said. “You’re trying to avoid the hard stuff. The lows are the things that make the highs so worth it, Lizbeth. You’re afraid of something else, and you’re blaming it on your mama.”
What if she was right?
What was I really afraid of?
My thoughts rolled on to Shane. To Bethany’s exhaustion, her annoyance with the person she loved the most. The broken expression on JJ’s face when I told him to leave me. Pinnable rejecting my job application. My homesickness for the Frolicking Moose and Adventura. Mama’s voice wound it all together like gossamer twine. She swam through my head in loops and forced me to ponder it all.
Love is everything, Lizzy, she’d said once. Don’t ever forget that. If you find actual love like you read about in the books, you hold onto it.
Leslie’s truck carried me to downtown Pineville just as snowflakes started to fall. The little town was deserted in advance of the storm. Minutes later, I found myself parked behind the Frolicking Moose. Wind gusted against the truck, rocking it gently. Although the dark night swirled outside, I stared only at the harsh shadows of the burned shop.
For the longest time, I sat there. My thoughts scattered into strands that refused to gather into any semblance of order. Finally, I pushed open the car door, and a swirl of cool air revived me.
The back door of the Frolicking Moose was unlocked when I slipped inside. My footsteps echoed as I ventured into the main part of the shop. My chest felt tight as I studied the utterly changed interior. The inside had been gutted. The old cappuccino machine remained, scorched. Black marks marred the pantry. Soot and darkness climbed the walls, reaching upward.
I left all that behind and ascended the spiral stairs. Now that I’d come back, I felt lonely and overthrown. Like everything was shaking around me again.
The fire had run along the back wall, leaving the closet-sized office and stairs untouched. Ash and char filled my nose as I stepped onto the landing that led to the attic bedroom. I hadn’t come before now because I’d thought I couldn’t handle it. Couldn’t bear to make all this loss real. My new reality.
Well, the new reality was here. Time to woman up.
Stepping into the attic stopped me cold. The mattress was a pile of ashes on the floor. The gauzy drapes around my four-poster bed were destroyed. Flames had swept across the back wall and claimed my entire bookshelf. A few titles were scattered on the floor—probably from firemen blasting them. Most were half-burned and sooty. I reached out and caressed the edge of one that had somehow survived on a shelf.
The book toppled to the ground, unseated, with a reverberating crack.
I stared at it and thought about the words in the book. The romantic experiences I’d held onto so hard. Then my thoughts flittered to the night JJ had saved me from the cliff and to the date with Tyler. Two strongly romantic experiences that hadn’t been anything like these books.
Had the books betrayed me, or saved me?
Maybe both, or neither.
“I’m not afraid of you,” I whispered with a sudden realization. The books weren’t the bad guys here. They weren’t the reason I feared a life without the hope of romance or love. Without the dream of protection and security. A life without the possibility of being utterly and completely swept off my feet, breathless under the spell of someone else’s affection for me.
No, it was something else.
The heroines always had this moment in the books. The moment where they struggled within themselves. When outside forces pressed on them and threatened to take away everything they’d always wanted. The love interest might break into the scene at this point and save the day.
That wouldn’t happen here. I knew that. And I startled myself by not wanting it to, either.
The room felt cold as I carefully advanced further inside. The floor creaked but held firm. Only the floorboards on the far side were burned. For several minutes, I could only stare at the room, my breath puffing in front of me. Until now, it hadn’t felt real. The loss was so poignant tears rose to my eyes.
I really had lost everything.
Another book sat on the ground, half-open. I reached for it with a trembling hand. My favorite. The one I’d tucked into my back pocket and carried with me when we’d trekked from Dad’s home to the Frolicking Moose all those years ago.
Numb, I thumbed through it. Passages so familiar I could recite them verbatim swam in front of my teary eyes. Endless nights when I’d stayed up, picturing myself as the heroine. Imagining the love interest coming to find me.
Was all that wasted?
“Mama,” I whispered, voice thick with emotion. “Mama, how dare you? How dare you give me false hope? How dare you make me like you?”
A tear rolled down my cheek. I shook my head, my hand falling to the side.
“You destroyed everything you touched. You’re still destroying. I don’t even know who I am now.” My fingers
