“So eventually, but not with me?” she asked. Her voice was so small and delicate that it practically tore my fucking heart out.

I knew exactly what she wanted to hear. The worst part was, I wanted to say the words she wanted. I wanted to scream them so the whole town would hear. I want you, Pearl. I’ve never wanted something so badly in my life, and that’s exactly why I can’t have you.

“Maybe,” I said. “Yeah. Some other girl. Eventually, I guess.” I hated saying it, but did it anyway. It was bullshit. I knew it was, but Pearl didn’t. And if she didn’t know, then maybe she’d stop hanging her hopes on me. Maybe she’d move on. She could realize she was ready to date again and that the right guy was still out there. Sure, maybe I’d want to strangle the next guy to put his hands on her, but what I didn’t know wouldn’t kill me. I’d have to cut contact after this. Completely.

“We should head back,” Pearl said. Her voice sounded thick, and it tore up my insides all over again to hear it–to know I’d caused that kind of pain.

But a little pain now was better than a lot later, right?

I wasn’t sure. All I could do was keep following down the path I’d started on. All I could do was keep hoping I wasn’t making the biggest mistake of my life.

31

PEARL

Dean ended up getting pulled into the basketball game about an hour after we’d arrived. He was hilariously bad at shooting the ball, but good at the other parts. I sat in the bleachers beside Molly and Billy Ashford, who were losing their voices already with how much they were cheering for their dad, Greyson. I thought about how half the men in this town looked like they belonged in some kind of shirtless firefighter magazine, especially the two Ashford men.

It was a different kind of community than I was used to in Manhattan. Sure, I knew plenty of people in the city, but I also had to go out of my way to make sure I saw them. As someone with constant anxiety that I barely kept at bay, that was a tall order. I could’ve called or texted half a dozen people back home and met for drinks pretty much any night, but I usually wound up just hanging out with Marley when she invited me.

In a little town like this, you could walk down Main Street and probably run into four people you knew and get caught up on all the latest town gossip in a few minutes.

I didn’t have long to dwell on my thoughts, though. My mom and dad showed up a little while into the tournament and we all wound up officiating a makeshift soccer game with way too many small children. Basically, we were trying to make sure none of the roughly twenty small children in the group simply followed the ball outside the bounds of the game and wound up chasing it down the hill and into the river.