Made for You (The Best Mistake 2)

Oh my God, oh my God.

“Are you all right?” he asked, looking alarmed as she put a hand over her suddenly tight chest.

Maybe. Probably not. Could be a heart attack.

Or perhaps, more appropriately…an attack of the heart.

Oh my God, oh my God.

“Would you…excuse me, just for a sec—”

She was moving away from the table before she’d even finished the sentence, weaving around the white tablecloths on her way to the ladies’ room.

She burst into the first empty stall and braced her hands on the wall, not once stopping to consider that her palms were resting on germ central. Her face was hot and it was getting increasingly hard to breathe.

Brynn slowly turned and lowered herself to the toilet seat before pressing her hands to her flushed cheeks.

Very slowly, very carefully, Brynn let herself go into her Future Filter again. Let her picture herself in five years as the new Brynn.

No goals. No bullshit. No rules. Well…fewer rules.

There were still wedding bands and children. But the husband wasn’t a brunet, and the kids weren’t the tidy, well-behaved, matchy-matchy-clothes type of children.

They were blond, and wild and mischievous.

Just like their dad.

And they would still do Disneyland, but they would do other crazy stuff too. Unexpected stuff like running through the mud on a random Tuesday morning, and having food fights. With nonstaining ingredients, of course.

But there would be no white couches, and probably too many age-inappropriate horror movies, and the kids would only have to have goal lists if they wanted to. If any of them took after her, they probably would.

And they would be happy.

She would be happy.

With the wrong man, who was so damn right it made her literally ache inside.

The man she’d thrown away because she was still trying so hard not to be Dumpy Dalton that she’d become a complete shell of a person instead.

A rough choking noise escaped her throat, and she heard two friends at the mirror falter in their conversation, but she didn’t care.

She’d pushed him away. Thrown Will aside like he wasn’t fit to take out her trash, when really he’d done nothing but love her the way she needed to be loved.

She gave a watery snuffle as she realized that her little epiphany was starting very much the way this crazy journey had begun—with her crying in a bathroom stall feeling sorry for herself.

Which was pathetic, because the only one who had made a victim out of Brynn was herself.

Starting with that stupid list and a lifetime of pointless, self-inflicted expectations.

Brynn glanced down at her feet. She was wearing the same boring nude pumps as before, and this time she knew they were all wrong.

The black leather clothes had been all wrong too, but that was okay.

It was time to discover the real Brynn Dalton.

The version of herself that Will deserved.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE