I WILL NOT CRY, Lauren told herself, and she didn’t.
She hated how quick she was to dissolve into tears. Sad movies, the opening bars of certain songs, even certain pet-food commercials could set her chin trembling and her eyes watering. It was disgustingly childish and silly, and she was going to get a handle on it.
She’d found an eHow article on how to not cry. Apparently it was all about controlling your breathing. Inhale for a count of three, hold for a beat, exhale for three. Sounded doable.
She practiced, then went to the house and told Dalia she was leaving.
Dalia was in her little home office doing bookkeeping. With a pang, Lauren saw how crowded the room was getting. The desk and file cabinets were humongous antiques; the printer stood on an old console table that was overflowing with stacked papers; the bookcases were all full. There were baby things in the office, too. It functioned well enough for now—Dalia was a minimalist at heart, and efficient and organized enough to make it work—but the space had its limits, and Lauren knew how welcome the prospect of a future bunkhouse office would have been.
Dalia froze for a moment, then closed her bookkeeping file and turned to face Lauren. “Does this have something to do with Alex?”
“Yes. I never should have gotten involved with him. I knew it at the time—I knew it all along—and I did it, anyway.”
“Just how involved are you?”
“Barely at all, really...but too much. I guess I was fooling myself that it didn’t mean anything, that I was just spending time with someone I liked as a friend and no one would get hurt. But now things are at the point where Alex wants more, and I can’t give him that.”
“Does he know about the baby?”
Lauren squirmed. “No. I guess I should have told him right from the start, but it’s not an easy subject to broach. It’s embarrassing. It’s just one more sign of how out of control my life is right now. And the more time passed, the harder it was to bring it up. And now... I just can’t. I like him—I really do—but things can never work between us. I’ve got to walk away while I still can.”
Carefully Dalia asked, “Are you sure you have to walk away?”
Inhale, two, three. Pause. Exhale, two, three.
Dalia waited.
Part of Lauren wanted to plop down on the armchair, tell Dalia every last detail and beg for advice. Dalia was the most levelheaded person Lauren knew. She’d put everything in perspective.
But that wouldn’t be fair to Dalia. It was already weird enough that Lauren had kissed Dalia’s husband’s brother. Talking things over now would only muddy the water. Dalia would feel like she should take sides; her loyalty would be called into question.
All of which was exactly why Alex should have been off-limits to begin with.
Besides, it was Lauren’s life, Lauren’s responsibility. Whether she was equal to the task or not, she was going to have to rely on her own wisdom.
When she was sure she had her voice under control, Lauren said, “I don’t know how many times over the past months I’ve agonized over how much better my life would have been if I had just walked away after meeting Evan for the first time, or not even gone to that stupid concert. I kept visualizing myself going back in time and just steering clear of him completely. Train wreck avoided. Well, this is my chance to do the right thing now. It’s going to be a wrench, but I’m going to grit my teeth and rip off that Band-Aid, and then it’ll all be over, and Future Me will be safe from a whole mess of future turmoil that’ll never happen.”
“Evan was a cheater,” Dalia said.
“Yes, but I couldn’t see that, could I? So how can I trust myself not to see disaster coming again?”
“That’s not—”
“I’ve made up my mind,” Lauren said.
Dalia still didn’t look convinced, but she said, “Okay.”
Lauren tidied the bunkhouse as best she could. Everything looked half-finished and forlorn. Chester watched from a windowsill, making the Contented Cat Face, showing off what a good house cat he was.
She carried him outside and set him on the porch. The key turned in the lock with a hard, dry little click.
Something hurt her throat. She swallowed hard. Inhale, two, three. Pause. Exhale, two, three.
SHE WOULD LEAVE TODAY. It would be a bit rushed, loading Vincent and getting him ready for the road, but she’d had lots of practice. She could handle some frenetic activity. What she could not handle was to spend one more night in this town.
The faster she moved, the less room there was for thought. Within a shorter time than she would have believed possible, she was standing on the driveway, saying goodbye to Tony and Dalia.
Dalia gave her a fierce hug.
“I’m sorry about the bunkhouse,” Lauren said into Dalia’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I got you to bump up your internet coverage for nothing.”
She kept remembering what Alex had said, about what a flake she’d been to her friends. He was right, of course. But what could she do? She was leaving now in order not to be a flake. She couldn’t undo past flaky actions; she could only wait them out and endure the consequences, and that would take a while. But if she had no flaky behavior going forward, things would straighten out eventually.
“Don’t worry about that,” Dalia said. “Now, you call me when you reach your stopping place for the night, okay? Keep me posted on where you’re heading, when you leave and when you get there. And take care of yourself.”
Lauren knew this was code for “get prenatal care.” And if Dalia was saying it in code, that meant she still hadn’t told Tony about the pregnancy, and Lauren was glad. It wasn’t like Tony would have looked down on her for being pregnant, but the pregnancy itself wasn’t the issue. The issue was...well, it was complicated. First, she’d been stupid enough to get knocked up by someone like Evan in the first place, when any clear-thinking person could have seen he wasn’t going to last the duration. Then she’d kept the pregnancy secret, lying to herself that it didn’t matter because she wasn’t staying in Texas long, even though she could see perfectly well that Tony was trying to set her up with his brother. And finally, in spite of her own better judgment, she’d gotten involved with Alex, anyway.
Basically she’d kept the secret long enough for it to take on a life of its own. Tony would know the truth soon enough, but for now Lauren was grateful to have one fewer awkward thing going on. The whole situation was awkward enough as it was.
Tony looked troubled, and his resemblance to Alex seemed a lot stronger than usual. The shape of the eyes was the same, and the jawline. Both men were big and tough, but with something achingly sweet and young about them.
She hadn’t expected Tony to see her off. She wondered how much Alex had told him. Probably not much. Still, Tony had to be a little sore about the whole thing. But here he was, apparently willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, or at least wish her well.
“Oh, hey, I got you a little something for the road,” he said. “It’s in my truck.”
Tony’s idea of a little something for the road was the most Texas gift basket ever: pecans, salsa, chips, buffalo jerky bites, margarita taffy, sparkling grape juice from a Texas vineyard, chili mix, armadillo caramels, an Alamo chocolate bar, Texas-shaped crackers, Texas-shaped pasta, cilantro pesto, Texas flag dish towels and Texas flag coasters, all in an actual Texas-shaped basket.
Inhale, two, three. Pause. Exhale—
It was no use. Lauren cried hard. Tony looked almost frightened. He muttered something about getting the basket stowed for her and hustled it into the van, just behind the driver’s seat. He took his time, which gave Lauren a chance to hug Dalia again and blow her nose.
Lauren rubbed Durango behind the ears. He looked up at her and whined.
She had to leave now. Every second was making it harder.
She climbed into Vincent Van-Go and drove off. She didn’t look back.