She’d been engaged at one point in time and she’d handed back the ring without a second thought. She hadn’t needed to have a bonfire to burn all her mementos because there hadn’t been any. All of his gifts to her had been practical. No flowers for Lila Daley. She needed a pair of gloves. No jewelry. She would rather have orthopedic shoes and new scrubs.

“I used to schedule gifts for myself,” she said quietly, studying the books on the shelf. It looked like the man had been heavily invested in old Westerns. Her eyes drifted down to the lower shelf and she found a whole row of what looked like romance novels. “When I was with Brock, I mean. I would schedule gifts because I thought I should. He bought me flowers once and I explained that I would prefer him to spend money on something that wouldn’t die on me in a week.”

“Okay, that’s the single least romantic thing I’ve ever heard,” Lisa said. “I never liked Brock. He seemed cold.”

“That was what I liked about him,” she admitted.

“Because you didn’t have to work too hard?”

“Because I did all the work.” She looked to her sister and wished she hadn’t given in to the impulse to talk about her private life. But wasn’t that what her therapist had told her to do? She held everything in, never admitting her own flaws or weaknesses. It kept her apart from even the people she loved. “I liked doing all the work. And I resented it. I wanted control but when I had it, I hated him for giving it all to me. You think I’m intimidating, but I’m a hot mess when it comes to most things.”

A quiet, hot mess. A silent, threatening volcano. A bomb waiting to go off if pressure wasn’t released. She usually released that pressure via long runs.

What if she could release it a different way?

“You went through something awful. It’s okay to be a hot mess.” Lisa sank down on the couch and patted the place beside her.

It was odd to have their roles reversed. For all her life she’d been the big sister, the one Laurel and Lisa came to, the one with all the answers, and if she didn’t have them, she made them up. She was the ultimate fake-it-’til-you-make-it girl. She’d been doing it all her life.

But she had no answers now. Only a million gnawing questions.

“I should be over it.” It was what she told her therapist. She’d treated therapy like something she had to get through in order to get on with her life. Like if she sat in the chair and answered the questions, she would be fine.

It hadn’t worked that way.