“Stupid?”
“Yeah, stupid,” she said.
“You’re out of your freaking mind, Brooklyn.” He pointed to his head and then clenched his fist. “You’ve known from the second you met me that this is what I’m going to do.”
“And you’ve known since you met me that I wanted to be a nurse. That I didn’t want to stay in Cape Harbor for the rest of my life, and yet, here I am, stuck.”
Austin shook his head. “Know what? Don’t let me stop you.”
“What happened to us, Austin? Remember when you cared about my dreams? Remember when we were going to conquer the world and be this amazing team?”
He looked down and shook his head. “I am living my dream.”
“But I’m not living mine.”
“Then maybe yours needs to change.”
“Or yours,” she threw back at him.
“Not going to happen. If I’m not the guy to make your dreams come true, maybe you should look elsewhere.” He grabbed his jacket and headed toward the door.
“Where are you going?” she demanded to know.
“Leaving.”
“That’s all you do. You just leave.”
“I’ll tell you what, Brooklyn.” He came toward her with his finger pointed at her. “Why don’t you go cry on Bowie’s shoulder about it? Go whine and cry to my best friend because that’s what you’re good at—you’ve been doing it for years. Call him, tell him that Austin broke your heart. I don’t give a flying fuck anymore.”
“At least he listens to me, unlike you,” she fired back, holding her ground.
“Maybe it’s because you say nothing I want to hear.” His words shocked her. He went to the door and put his hand on the knob.
“Austin.” She said his name quietly. “If you leave—”
He glared at her sharply and shook his head. “I don’t love you anymore, Brooklyn. I’m done. I’m so done with all of this. I’m not coming back, so your threat, it’s falling on deaf ears.” With those words, he twisted the knob and walked out. She waited for the tears to come, waited for them to ruin the hours-long makeup job she had done to look perfect for him.
She didn’t know how long she stood there. It was long enough to make her feet hurt and her knees start to wobble. Still, she didn’t change her clothes; instead she went to the kitchen and opened a bottle of wine, forgoing the glass and drinking it straight from the bottle. Against her better judgment, she called Austin, getting his voice mail over and over. That was when the tears came. They came hard, hot, and fierce. She hiccuped and drank more. She dialed his number and drank more, until the knock finally came. She swung the door open. “Austin.”
But it wasn’t Austin. It was Bowie. He stood there, leaning against the door casing, waiting for her. “He called me.”
“Austin?”
Bowie stepped into the apartment. He shut the door behind him. Brooklyn stood there, looking at the guy who had been her best friend since the day she met him. The boy, turned man, who had never let her down. He was there to console her. He led her to the couch and sat down next to her. Brooklyn was pissed. Austin couldn’t come himself, but he sent his friend. It was always Bowie coming to save Austin.
“You don’t need to be here.”
“I want to be.”
“Aren’t you tired of always cleaning up his mess?”
“I don’t consider you a mess, Brooklyn.”
Another wave of tears came, and he held her in his arms, rubbing her back to soothe her. “Austin doesn’t love me anymore,” she cried.
“What if there was someone else who did?”
She pulled away from him. “No one in this damn town would be foolish enough to love me.”
“I’m that foolish,” he said, sitting up straighter so he could look in her eyes.
“What are you talking about it?”
“I’m so in love with you, Brooklyn. I have been since we met. I’ve lived a life of purgatory for my feelings, always second fiddle just so I could be near you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He cupped her cheek. “I’ve tried, but I never had the courage until now. And I’m here now, telling you that I will never treat you like Austin.”
“We could never be together, not here.”
“I know. I know all too well. If you want to move to Seattle, Portland, or Spokane, I’ll go with you. I’ll give it all up, just to be with you.”
She cried louder with each wave. She could scream when one hit because no one could hear her, and if anyone went by, they wouldn’t know she was in pain. Her life, the perfect life she had built away from Cape Harbor, was crumbling around her, and she didn’t know how to stop it. She thought about leaving. She could sell the inn, and she and Brystol could go back to living state to state, working on houses. They could act like nothing had changed and just return to their idea of normal.