Page 51 of Cruel Summer

THIRTY

They didn’t leave things on a good note. But it was done.

She knew that someday they would be okay. She knew because they weren’t passionate enough to despise each other. He would see that. He was mad because he had made a decision, and she had disrupted it. But he clearly hadn’t been pining for her enough to not sleep with other women.

Or maybe she had broken his heart. But the truth was, he had never broken hers.

She spent two days writing about it.

The story didn’t have a happy ending, but it had a lot of truth in it.

In the absence of happiness, she’d take truth.

So, she took her broken heart and walked it over to Elysia’s, where Whitney met up with them as well.

“I’m single,” she said. “And not at all ready to mingle. But here we are.”

A cheese board was thrust her direction, and then a can of soda. She started to cry, because it was all a little bit much. Then she couldn’t stop.

“So you told Will,” Whitney said.

“I told him. I told him I was in love with someone else. And now he knows it’s Logan. But Logan…he doesn’t want to be with me.” She couldn’t bring herself to say he wasn’t in love with her, because she suspected that in fact he was. It was just that he couldn’t cope with it.

“I’m so sorry,” said Elysia, rubbing her arm.

“I’m fine. I mean, I’m not fine. I’m experiencing my first major heartbreak, at forty-one. Yay me. But you know what, the fact that Will isn’t my heartbreak tells me a lot.”

“It does,” said Whitney. “I really hope that you don’t feel too broken.”

“I do,” she said. “But I’m not afraid of it. Because I got to love him really, really well.”

She understood then why they said that. That it was better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.

Because she was changed by loving Logan in this way.

She wouldn’t trade it for comfort. Comfort wasn’t the answer.

Not always. Comfort was sometimes just a way to slide easily through the years without ever feeling them.

At least now she knew she was alive.

She still couldn’t quite bring herself to brag about her sexcapades, but she talked a lot about the trips, and the different things they saw, and she stumbled home and went to sleep, then woke up the next morning and FaceTimed the kids.

She should have brought them into all this sooner. But it had seemed like…why tell them when she’d been so certain things would go back to how they had always been?

She realized that she hadn’t given Will back the wedding ring. Was she supposed to?

It was hers.

But she dug through her things until she found a little jewelry box she got from her mother. Inside were a couple of family heirloom pieces. She took the ring out of her purse and put it carefully in there.

Because it was part of her history. Like this other jewelry. It also wasn’t part of her life. But she had no interest in erasing it or pretending it didn’t exist.

Samantha, the Samantha who had worn that ring, had been pretty darn happy.

But it didn’t fit anymore.

She heard the sound of an engine revving outside, and she went over to the window and looked down at the street.

There was a bright red Chevy Bel Air parked right out front, with aggressively large fins.

There could be only one man behind the wheel.

She frowned, because she was trying to keep herself from smiling. Because she was trying to keep her heart from leaping in her chest, even though it did it anyway.

Because she felt sixteen and forty-one at the same time. Desperately optimistic, but horrifically realistic.

She ran down the stairs to the front door and flung it open.

“Want to go for a drive with me?” he asked.

She was hurt. And she was pretty mad at him. But she was going to get in that car.

She opened up the passenger door and got in.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“This? This one is mine. Because there have to be some perks of this job.”

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

“The car is not really the point, though.” He pulled away from the curb and started to drive up out of town, toward the hills.

“What is the point?”

“That I realized we didn’t have any more of these trips coming up. I’m going to miss them.”

“Whose choice was that?” she asked. “Is this a man thing? Being mad about your own choices?”

“Yeah. I take your point.”

“I asked Will for a divorce yesterday,” she said.

He cleared his throat. “Yeah. I may or may not have had a visit from him.”

“He visited you?”

“Yeah. He took a swing at me. I dodged it, and he punched the side of my house. I feel kind of bad about that. I probably should’ve let him get one in somewhere on my face.”

She pressed her hands down against the seat and leaned forward, turning toward Logan in utter shock. “He tried to punch you?”

She didn’t even think Will knew how to punch.

“Yeah. He was pretty pissed off. Something about stealing you, but then…something about hurting you.”

Wow. That was unexpected.

“Well. You did. Hurt me. But I made that pretty clear at the time.”

“You did. I wanted to give you some space. But then Will came to see me, and… I figured space was maybe a little bit performative.”

“I mean, you pulled up to the front of my house in this car. At this point the whole thing is kind of performative.”

“It’s not. I promise. I’m just trying to do this right.” He pulled up to a scenic outlook that gave them a view of the whole town. It was weird to be above it. This place that held so much sway over her. And all the decisions she had made so far.

It seemed small. It all did.

“I’m sorry. You were right. I have been a fucking coward every step of the way.

I wanted you for so long, and I felt so guilty about parts of it…

But the biggest thing isn’t that. It’s the fact that you were such a fantasy that I was afraid I would never be able to live up to it.

That I would never be able to give you what you wanted.

Do you know how many times I told myself I would be better for you than him?

But it hit me. How can I really believe that?

I wasn’t perfect for the wife I had. But I convinced myself that I would be perfect for you. ”

“I don’t need you to be perfect for me,” she said. “I have changed so much in the last year, and I plan on changing more. How could I ask you to be perfect? I’m not perfect. I just want you to be with me. I just want you to love me.”

“I do,” he said, his voice rough. “I love you. I have loved you. For so long. I didn’t know what to do when I realized I could have you.

That I could fail you. That I could lose you.

” He turned to her, gripping her chin with his thumb and forefinger.

“What if I lose you? Sam… I wanted you for so long. I think what really scared me is you’ve always been the one who could have all of me.

I have never given that to anyone. I was never ready.

I… I remember my mom leaving when I was a kid.

Driving away. Never coming back. I have always been afraid I’d lose what I loved, so I always kept a piece of myself back.

” He took a sharp breath. “Then I lost Becca. It seemed like I was right. I couldn’t have you, but in some ways it seemed like that was better. Safer.”

“Life is hard,” she said. “I can’t guarantee anything. But you know that. But hasn’t it always been better for us to have each other?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

She could see that there was no wall. Not now. He was exposed. Vulnerable. She kissed him. There above the town, in his car.

“I love you,” he said. “It scares me how much. And you are brave. You won’t let me get away with giving you just a piece, and I have to dig deep and give you everything, and I’m not even sure I know how to do that.”

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “I didn’t either. I learned.”

“It makes me feel like I’m twenty, and I want to start over. I want to marry you. I don’t think I can ask you that. You’re still technically married to somebody else.”

“I want that too,” she said. “I’m not afraid of it. Because I realized something really really important. I’m not afraid to be alone. But I would rather have you. I could live by myself. But I would choose you.”

“I choose you. For all the life we have left to live.”

“I just realized something.”

“What?”

She smiled. “The book I’m writing. It has a happy ending now.”

“You’re going to write a book?”

She nodded. “Yes. It took all of this, but I finally know what I have to say.”

They made use of the back seat of that car, and she felt no shame or fear.

And when it was over, he held her against his chest, and whispered against her ear. “I wonder where we’ll be this time next year.”

“I couldn’t begin to guess. Because at this point I know…anything can happen.”