Page 70 of Reality With You (Arden Beach #1)

B oats silently sailed the harbor, passing under the bridge to the city. Lennon watched through the car window as bittersweet memories floated between the clouds.

When they became too much to bear, she started cleaning out her email inbox on her phone to have something to do.

Anything to keep her from having a breakdown in a stranger’s blue sedan where a faded palm tree-shaped air freshener hung from the rearview mirror and a little plastic hula dancer’s hips bobbed on the dashboard with every jostle of the vehicle.

Lennon tapped on an email from her apartment complex.

A reminder that her lease was up in three weeks.

She had a week to renew it before it went to someone on the waitlist. Without the studio’s help and only part-time hours at her new job, she wouldn’t be able to swing it.

She’d have to find someplace else to live.

And she had to decide if that someplace would be in Arden Beach.

Lennon’s heart felt like it was being torn in two—ripped into jagged, mangled halves.

On one side, her pride and fear. On the other, a deeply rooted love tightly threaded through her DNA.

She couldn’t remember when she wasn’t in love with Dylan Strickland.

It was as much a part of her as her love for music.

The two halves of her heart were like sound waves out of phase—one pushing, one pulling—creating destructive interference. They canceled each other out, leaving her stuck in a silent void. To hear music again, she’d have to choose one wavelength and release the other.

Right now, the choice felt impossible.

Or maybe there wasn’t a choice—not if she loved him. Being together put Dylan at too steep a disadvantage. And Lennon wasn’t sure she had the strength to be in the same city where she would be reminded of him around every corner.

She opened her text message thread with Erin, her most recently received message a response to Lennon and Dylan’s photo at the wedding with the tier of cheese:

Erin: My two favorite cheeseballs.

Lennon stared at the photo, her heart breaking and mending in a loop.

She couldn’t bear it if Dylan ever looked at her the way her mother had. Katherine’s disappointment echoed in her mind, cutting a fresh wound. “I sacrificed so much for you.”

Lennon never wanted Dylan to resent her like that. It would tear her apart.

But so would walking away from him. Again.

The driver dropped her off in front of her building.

Lennon dragged her aching body upstairs to her temporary home.

The late afternoon sun slanted through the windows over the space that wasn’t hers.

It felt more temporary now than the entire time she’d lived there, as if she were letting herself into someone else’s apartment.

So much had transpired since the day she moved in.

She’d been full of hope, optimism, ambition.

She believed she’d turned a corner, launched herself into a new chapter.

Now, it was a reminder of all she’d lost in the process. She was back at square one, if not further behind than where she started.

Lennon deposited her bag on the sofa, kicked off her heels, and slipped off the tight skirt, leaving on only the long, silk shirt.

Her stomach gurgled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She drifted into the kitchen to hunt through the fridge and pantry, but they were practically empty because she hadn’t gone grocery shopping in a week.

She yanked open the drawer beside the sink, and several packets of soy sauce and folded takeout menus slid forward.

With them came Dylan’s laugh as they played “Name That Tune” on her living room floor.

The mischief in his eyes as they flicked their noses at each other on the beach to secretly communicate.

His out-of-tune singing during karaoke. A brush of his finger against hers after he’d bared his heart to her late at night on the dock.

Another brush of his fingers in the grass under a blanket of stars.

An electrifying kiss—on the ground, in the pool, on the table, in his bed.

“It’s not worth losing everything over a lie. This is the only team I care about.”

Lennon slammed the drawer shut. Sliding to the floor, she sagged against the cabinet and tucked her knees to her chest, like she had in New York a few short months ago when she felt just as lost and confused.

Everything was the same, yet it wasn’t.

Lennon couldn’t pretend she hadn’t fallen back in love with Dylan.

She couldn’t pretend he hadn’t asked her to spend her life with him again.

She couldn’t pretend that she didn’t want to.

Gone were the days she could put her feelings for him in a drawer, run away to another city, and pretend a piece of her heart wasn’t left behind in Arden Beach.

In a drawer.

The impulse hit her hard and swift.

Lennon pushed herself up and strode to the bedroom, dropping to her knees before the dresser.

Under her sweaters in one of the bottom drawers, she removed a shoe box filled with miscellaneous keepsakes—ticket stubs, guitar picks, lyrics scribbled on napkins.

She dug through it until a white envelope with her name written in familiar handwriting stared back at her.

She sat on the carpet, tucking her legs to the side, and took in a deep, shaky breath.

Lennon turned the envelope over, running her thumb under the seal to finally break it.

As she carefully unfolded the paper, his handwriting, messy and imperfect, made her smile.

The same as all the notes he’d written her when they were kids and teenagers.

He would slip them into her backpack at the ballpark, so she’d find them when she got home.

Something his mother used to do for him.

But this one wasn’t a sweet love letter detailing his dreams of a future with her—this one was about the pain of their past, something she hadn’t been ready to revisit through his perspective. Until now.

Bracing herself, Lennon began to read:

Lennon, I’ve started and trashed this letter at least 20 times.

Nothing I wrote felt right. I realized it was because I was still holding back on the things I’ve been struggling to admit to myself.

It’s hard enough to say them out loud, let alone put them on paper.

But you deserve the truth, not just an apology, so here it is.

I let you go.

Lennon squeezed her eyes shut at his admission, the truth tearing through her. She paused a beat before continuing.

I pushed you away because I couldn’t face the truth that I was afraid of the life I felt obligated to.

A life living up to my family’s legacy. You were right about my heart not being in it.

You always saw through my bullshit. You saw what I couldn’t admit to myself.

And if I had admitted it, I would’ve disappointed you because I wasn’t strong enough to walk away from the game.

The irony is that I ended up losing something even more important to me.

You.

At first, I lied to myself and figured you were better off without me.

And maybe it wasn’t a lie—you were better off without me as I was.

I was a coward. I was scared to let down my dad and the Carmichaels and the fans, but I was also too afraid to quit.

I didn’t know who I’d be without baseball, and I was terrified of that unknown. Honestly, I still am.

It was easier to stuff it all down, pretend it wasn’t there.

Stick to the game plan while self-sabotaging.

You always had a way of stripping me bare.

In a way, I became scared of you, too. I could never lie to you, but I wasn’t being honest with myself, so my only option was to avoid you. To shut you out.

When I got signed, shit got real. I realized how scared I was of disappointing everyone—of being the Strickland who fails and ruins the legacy.

I felt trapped. I was in too deep, I couldn’t turn back, I couldn’t admit that I wanted to turn back, so I numbed myself instead.

I wanted to clear the noise in my head. Nothing mattered in those pockets of time.

I wasn’t me. Baseball didn’t exist. I was free.

But obviously, that was a lie, too.

I’ve done so much lying to myself, Lennon.

You fought like hell to be there for me, but you were fighting a losing battle because I couldn’t—or wouldn’t—let you in.

And the worst thing is, I abandoned you in the process.

We were supposed to be a team. We made vows to go through life together, and I broke them immediately.

You needed me and I wasn’t there for you.

Our last conversation before you left haunts me, especially when you said you wish you could be enough for me. Lennon, you were everything . You are more than I deserve. I was the one who wasn’t enough—brave enough, strong enough, honest enough.

I hope you’ll let me be part of your life again someday, but I’ll respect it if you don’t.

Thank you for trying to love me. I wish I’d been strong enough to let you.

I hope you have a beautiful life, Lynx.

Lennon aggressively swiped the tears from her face, then clutched the letter to her chest as if it were the man who wrote it. She tilted her head back, staring up at the ceiling.

“Fuck.”