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Where would she have gone?

“And it really took you this long to call me and ask about her?” Nora continues. “What the hell have you been doing?”

“Trying to get my life together,” I answer gruffly. “For her. I wanted to be… better for her.”

A few seconds of weighted silence pass before Nora answers. “Blair, I’m really sorry to say this, but you’re an idiot. Have you met Kenna? She’s like the patron saint of accepting people, flaws and all. Why do you think she practically adopted me when I first moved to Seattle and was such a mess?”

Despite myself, I laugh. The sound is rusty and broken, and Nora echoes it on the other end of the line.

“You don’t think she’s done with me for good?” I ask the question not sure if I really want to know the answer.

And Nora, honest as always, doesn’t sugarcoat her reply. “I don’t know. The two of you are going to have to figure that out.”

With nothing much more to be said, we say our goodbyes and hang up.

I stare at the blank screen of my phone for a few seconds, half out of my mind with the idea that maybe Kenna will call or text me, give me some small sign she’s not done with me completely.

She won’t. I know she won’t. She has no reason to. Perhaps my flaws are too much for even her accepting nature to look past.

But… no. I can’t think like that. Not yet. Not when I haven’t gotten the chance to try at least one more time.

Standing in the middle of Kenna’s street, my mind races.

Somewhere safe. Where would that be?

The answer comes a moment later, accompanied by an inexorable tug in the center of my chest, one that has me looking toward the eastern sky.

40

Kenna

Idaho isn’t as terrible as I remember it being.

Granted, I’m not eighteen anymore, and I don’t have to deal with all the bullshit judgment I did back in high school, but being back in Glensbrook for the last week has been… strangely peaceful.

My parents own a small hobby farm out of town, a little place with an incredible view of the mountains. They were both tax attorneys in their working lives, but now that they’re semi-retired from their tax business they’ve taken up raising chickens and goats and alpacas. It’s kind of cute, actually, a couple of sixty-something tax nerds chasing after a herd of small, adorable livestock.

And, fortunately, they don’t mind having their wayward adult daughter back to stay with them for a little while.

I quit the Bureau a few days ago. Probably a pretty fucking stupid thing to do given that beyond the advance I got from Kerri, and a couple of other commissions that have come in over the past few weeks, I don’t have any other steady income on the horizon. But I’m making that a problem for future Kenna.

Being in that office building was just… too much. I know it probably makes me a damn coward to have turned tail and run, but staying another day felt intolerable.

So I’ll figure it out, like I always do. Maybe I’ll get a new job when I get back to the city. Or maybe I’ll just move home for good and spend my life ranching alpacas.

Alright, so maybe that second option isn’t the greatest, but when I’m out here under the clear blue Idaho sky and all my problems back in Seattle feel a million miles away, it doesn’t seem half-bad.

I’ve taken dad’s four-wheeler out today, up one of the back roads leading away from their farm to a stretch of wide-open grassland. I’m honestly not sure who owns it or if I’m allowed to be here, but no one’s come out yelling at me for trespassing yet. It’s become my favorite spot to walk out into the tall grasses and wildflowers with a blanket and just lay down to stare up at the sky like I’m some kind of destitute prairie woman whose husband died on the Oregon Trail.

Dramatic, I know, but I’m nursing an epic broken heart, so I get to be dramatic right now.

Not that I’m supposed to be thinking about Blair. As a matter of fact, I am absolutely, positively not supposed to be thinking about him. That was the whole point of quitting the Bureau and coming out here—forgetting about him.

Even though that’s pretty damned impossible to do today considering he called me out of the blue a few hours ago. It’s been weeks.Weeks. And he thinks he can just call and I’ll answer? Sure, maybe it wasn’t the most mature move on my part to block his number the second time he tried, but I’ve been making progress these last few weeks getting over him.

Well… kind of. Progress is all relative, right? And I’m not going to let what little progress I have made be destroyed just like that.

I’m here to find peace. I’m here to forget about Ewan Blair.