Page 30 of To Fall or Not to Fall

“I don’t need your help, Theo. I don’t need anything from you. I don’t want anything from you.” She shakes her head.

“It was me,” I say softly.

“What was you now?”

“It was me who put the letters in the books.”

“What?”

“It was me who wrote the anonymous love letter. I heard you say that day that Little Women was your favorite book. And I saw how excited you were about the love letters, and I thought it might be kind of cool if you got something.”

“But why would you do that?”

“I guess I just wanted to see you smile. That’s why I didn’t put a name. I obviously couldn’t tell you it was me, and I didn’t want to be disingenuous, but I wanted you, for just one moment, to feel like you were seen and heard and chosen.

“And I know you must probably hate me for that, as well, but I thought you deserved something. You were doing so much to make other people happy. And it’s not like you were doing it for the money—we both know you didn’t really make much money with the matchmaking—but you put so much of your heart and soul into it.

And I just wanted that moment to pay off for you, as well. ”

“You didn’t have to do that,” she says, lips pressed together. “I didn’t even know that you knew Little Women was my favorite book. I don’t remember telling you.”

“You just spoke about it one time in the bookstore. And when you talk, I listen.”

“Really?”

“Really. When you talk, there’s nothing else I want to hear.”

She stares at me for a couple of seconds and just shakes her head.

“You lied to me, Theo. You deceived me. You used me.”

“I lied to you, yes, but?—”

“But what? You didn’t even tell me your real name.”

“I couldn’t tell you my real name. I didn’t want you to throw me out of the bookstore as soon as you met me.”

“So you admit that you deliberately made me think you were someone else so I wouldn’t know.”

“I admit that I initially wanted to get to know you so that I could figure out what made you tick, so I could figure out maybe if you had any other interests or what might persuade you to sell.”

“So this was all a game for you. An evil way to get me to sell. To make me fall for you.”

“I did not intend for you to fall for me. And I did not have Rupert here to fool?—”

Her jaw drops. “You know Rupert?”

“I mean, he’s not a friend of mine, but he works for my company.”

“What?” She rubs her forehead. “Sorry, I don’t understand.”

“He was initially hired to do the job that I came and did. He was hired to figure out what would make you tick. But for some reason, I decided to come myself. I don’t even know why.

I never go to cities and get to know business owners.

I don’t need to. But I was drawn to Coconut Beach.

And now, I think it was because of you. Because we a soulmates, because?—”

“Oh, no. You’re not going to do this, Theo. You’re not going to try and be all romantic and sweet and make it seem like it was some sort of kismet.”

“You don’t believe me? You think that I would make this up?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t think you were going to turn out to be the man who was trying to steal the bookstore from me.”

“I get it. You don’t trust me. You don’t believe me. But—but I do love you. And even though I didn’t come to this town with the best intentions, I got to know you, and I very quickly felt conflicted, especially when I began to fall in love with you.

“Even my assistant noticed that you were all I could think about, that you were all I cared about, that there was something brewing between us—and it wasn’t an espresso or a pumpkin spice latte.”

“Ha. Very funny,” she says, but I see a twitch of a smile on her face.

“I stayed in town because I wanted to get to know you better. And come on, you say you’re Sherlock Holmes. You didn’t think it was suspicious that I came to a beach town on vacation while wearing a suit? And you never saw me actually going to the beach?”

She presses her lips together and shrugs. “I mean, yeah. But I thought you were just an oddball.”

“You thought I was an oddball, yet you still fell in love with me.”

“I like oddballs, I guess.”

I give her a warm smile, and she just shakes her head.

“I don’t like liars, though.”

“I get it. I don’t like lies either. But is there anything I can?—”

“Theo, this is a lot. I was in your bed last night. You were inside of me. You were fucking—” She blushes. “Anyway, I don’t need to repeat what we did.

“I gave myself to you in ways I’ve never given myself to a man. I was forward. I was wanton. And because I wanted it to be fun, I thought this was such a cool, wonderful experience. I thought life was finally smiling upon me in the love department. But I was wrong. Life was laughing at me.

“I’m going to lose my bookstore, and I’m going to lose the man I thought I loved.”

“You don’t have to lose me.”

“Maybe I need to, though. Because maybe you’re not what I need. Or what I want.”

“Can I still take you to the fall festival?”

She stares at me, her eyes wide. “Are you crazy?”

“Your grandma wants you to be with someone, right? And don’t you want to show Eloise Laribel that you’ve got someone? A businessman, someone handsome, rich?—”

“You’re so full of yourself, Theo Winston .” She stresses my last name.

“I may be full of myself, but wasn’t the whole purpose of you doing the matchmaking to find someone to take to the fall festival?

I don’t know that you have time to find anyone else.

And we don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to kiss me.

We don’t have to sleep with each other. But don’t you want to show your grandma and Eloise and Maribel, just this once, that you’re on top? ”

She stares at me for a couple of seconds. “You’ve listened to far too many conversations that I’ve had with my friends in the bookstore.”

I grin, knowing she’s softening. “And I know that one thing you want to do is win this battle with your high school nemesis.”

“I mean… fine. You can take me to the fall festival. But that’s it. When it’s done. We’re over.”

“Okay. I guess I’ll have to accept that.”

“Yeah. I guess you will.”

“Can I still?—”

“I know you’re not going to ask me if you can buy the bookstore. You’re not crazy, are you, Theo? As well as being a huge liar?”

“I wasn’t going to ask you if I could buy the bookstore. I was going to ask you if I could give you money to stay afloat.”

She stares at me, incredulous. “No. I don’t want anything from you. If I lose the bookstore, I lose the bookstore. But I would rather lose it than sell it to you and feel like some sort of hoe.”

I press my lips together because I know there’s nothing I can say to that.

“I hope I didn’t take your light, Ava. I hope I didn’t take that special quality that makes you who you are.”

“I hope not, too,” she says softly. “But now I’m going to ask you to leave because I kind of need to process this.” I can see her eyes welling up with tears. “I need to process that the entire last month of my life has been a sham and a lie. And well, I need to figure out what to do next.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I know,” she says. “I’m sure you are, but it’s not enough.” Her voice cracks.

I’m surprised because I expected her to shout at me more, or scream, or be as angry as a mama bear in the woods, protecting her cubs.

“I really just want you to know that I?—”

“Theo, you’re a liar and a jackass. And I don’t really understand what happened or what was real and what wasn’t.

But I did see a side of you that I know a lot of people haven’t seen—a side of you that is trying to break out.

A side of you that is warm and kind and loving and wants to feel with your whole heart.

And I felt that. And hopefully, you can be that man.

And if the situation were different, maybe I would be able to forgive you.

Maybe we’d be able to move on, and the real, warm, loving Theo could come out.

But you betrayed me. You lied to me about the one thing that means the most to me in the world.

You listened to me talk about my bookstore umpteen times.

You saw me cry. You heard the pain in my voice.

You saw everything I tried to do to save it, knowing that you were the one who wanted to buy it from underneath me.

How do I forgive that sort of betrayal, Theo? ”

“It’s better than me having a girlfriend, though, right?” I attempt to lighten the mood because my heart is breaking, but she doesn’t even crack a smile at my offhanded joke.

She just stares at me and shakes her head. “Can you leave now?”

I nod and stand up. “I’m sorry, Ava.”

“I know. But it’s not enough,” she says.

I watch as one solitary tear falls from her eye. She blinks rapidly, and then another one falls. And as I see those tears, my heart breaks. Not for me, but for her. For how I’ve broken her. For how I’ve betrayed her. For how my lies have destroyed her.

I would do anything to take it all back.

I would give away every single penny I had.

Because now I know what it means to truly love.

Now I know that when you really love someone, seeing them hurt—seeing them in pain—is a far worse feeling than experiencing it for yourself.

Because there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

There’s nothing I can do to take the pain away.

And knowing that I’m the one who put it there kills me even more.

“But you’ll let me take you to the fall festival,” I say, my one iota of hope still lingering in the back of my head and heart.

“I’ll meet you there. Just to show Eloise she hasn’t won.

And then you can leave town,” she says. “Just go away. Go back to New York City and your penthouse and your money and your business deals and your acumen and getting everything fucking right. And I’ll stay here, sipping my pumpkin spice lattes and carving pumpkins and reading Little Women and crying into my pillow and losing my bookstore.

Because at this point, I don’t think that there’s anything else I can do. ”