Chapter Nineteen

Now…

Trent pulled on the handle of the door to Delicious Delicacies early the next morning. The door wouldn’t budge. He pulled harder. Nothing. He placed his hands on the glass and peered in. He could see Jess behind the counter. He knocked and held up his hands as if to say, What gives?

She sent him an odd look and yelled, “Push!”

Ah, right.

He pushed and stumbled slightly as he entered, tripping over the small step that he couldn’t remember ever being there before. “What’s up with your door?”

“It’s always been that way,” Jess said, eyeing him.

“You should get that fixed,” he mumbled, his words slightly slurred.

“Are you drunk?” His cousin sounded shocked. Obviously, his beautiful ex-fiancée had yet to inform her best friends that she’d crushed his heart into a million little pieces.

“You betcha.”

Jess glanced pointedly at the clock. He knew what time it was. It didn’t matter. “What’s going on?” she asked, concern in her voice.

The bakery floor felt wobbly beneath his feet, so Trent pulled out a stool at the counter and sat. “Did you know?” he asked.

“Know what?” Jess asked, but he heard the faintest hint of guilt in her tone.

“About Whitney not wanting babies anymore. Not wanting us anymore.”

“No. That, I did not know, and I’m sure it’s not true,” she said, looking concerned. She held up a finger and went to pour a mug of her darkest, strongest roast. She placed the mug in front of him. “Drink this—it’ll help sober you up.”

“I’d rather be drunk, thanks. It hurts less,” he said, pushing the mug away. “Did you know she was starting to feel this way, Jess?”

She sighed. “I knew something was going on with her, but she hasn’t exactly been forthcoming with a lot of things lately.” Jess paused as though weighing something. “I know she’s not feeling well. She blames it on stress and pressure from work, but I really think it’s more than that. The weight loss and dark circles under her eyes…”

He shot his cousin a look, but the gesture hurt his throbbing head. “You said you’d tell me if you knew something was going on with her.”

“I know, and I would have told you if I had actual proof, but it’s just a gut instinct.”

“We’re family. Cousins. We’re like this,” he said, intertwining his two fingers. “We stick together.”

She nodded slowly. “Yes. But I’m also like this with Whitney,” she said, wrapping her hand around his intertwined fingers.

He stood up and wavered slightly off-balance as he paced the bakery. “The hardest part is I feel like I didn’t know her. If it’s true that she doesn’t want children or to get married or be with me, then I was totally blindsided.” He reached out to pick up a muffin from a basket on the delivery shelf and knocked several items onto the floor.

“Of course you were,” Jess said, taking the coffee cup and forcing it into his hand. “You need to sober up before I’m here all day redoing the deliveries for tomorrow morning.”

He barely heard her. “She said she doesn’t want kids.” No matter how many times he repeated it to himself, out loud, he didn’t fully believe it. She’d been all in before…before her major car accident the year before. That’s when so much had changed. He thought she’d still been recovering. He was giving her time and space. Then work took over her life… He shook his head. “You think she’d have mentioned it before, right?” He gave a humorless laugh, finally sipping the coffee.

“This is going to ruin the pleasant numbness I’m feeling,” he said, handing it back to her.

Jess took it, but she looked even more worried now. “You aren’t driving, are you?” She looked outside for the Jeep.

“Nah. ’Course not. I walked from the tavern.” Stumbled his way over in a haze of heartache, more accurately.

“Who’s watching the bar?”

“Closed today.”

“It’s Friday, Trent. Everyone expects the bar to be open…”

“I expected to get married and have a shitload of kids with the woman I love more than life itself. No one gets everything they want,” he said, sitting back on the stool.

“Fair enough,” his cousin said, reaching across and touching his hand. “Fair enough.”

…

Throwing herself back into the pile of emails in her inbox was the only way Whitney was going to survive the day. She’d emailed Mayor Rodale and said she’d be working from home that day to avoid distractions as she finalized the New Year’s calendar. Truth was, there was no way she could hide the deep sorrow she was feeling, and she knew if anyone asked if she was okay, she’d probably collapse into a sobbing mess.

Avoiding people right now was her only option. She could break down in the privacy of her own home when the tidal waves of despair hit—like when she saw his clothes hanging in the closet and realized he’d have to come get them, that soon the closet would be half empty. Or when she saw his favorite coffee mug in the sink, one she couldn’t yet bring herself to wash. Or when she smelled the scent of him lingering on his pillow. She’d be sleeping on the couch until she was sure that smell had faded.

For months, she’d been struggling with the knowledge that she either needed to find a way to fix herself or she had to end the relationship with Trent. She couldn’t follow through with a future with him when the plans they’d had for the future had changed for her and he was unaware. The day before, the decision had been forced to be made, and it was done. She’d broken it off. It was the only thing she could do. She should have had the strength to do it months ago when she discovered her illness would likely prevent her from having children and could affect her ability to raise them if she was sick or her vision couldn’t be trusted... She knew her illness was getting worse all the time, and she was terrified of what that meant for her future. Her self-preservation had her moving away from wanting kids because she felt that wasn’t an option. It wasn’t fair to Trent to keep him waiting on forever any longer.

Her mother always said decisions were the hardest in the moments leading up to them, but once made, it felt like a weight was lifted. That wasn’t the case this time.

She’d had to fight every urge to go after Trent as he’d driven away. Reaching out to him would only make everything worse. She needed to give them both space and time to let this seep in. The fact that seven years together had ended.

Even if the love she had for him hadn’t.

He’d paid her mother’s medical bill for the year. The incredibly generous gesture was something she was still trying to reconcile. She knew he loved her and supported her, had always wanted to do more than she’d allow him to, but it wasn’t until he’d actually gone and made such a huge commitment to her—to them—that she realized she couldn’t be with him if she couldn’t hold up her end of the bargain, doing the same for him, giving him the family he wanted.

Though she desperately wanted to.

That fact hadn’t been so apparent until it was truly gone.

Work. Focus on work.

It was all she had left…

She forced a deep breath and opened her email from the Race Across America show executives requesting several release forms to be completed and signed. She clicked on the DocuSign link, but the forms said “completed.” Scrolling through more recent emails, she saw the finalized copies. With Scott’s signature on them. She sighed, annoyance flowing through her.

Good. She’d cling to the feeling. Any other emotion would do.

Since overhearing Scott and his mother talking in her office a few days before, she hadn’t been approached by anyone to fill her in on any new chain of command at the office. She hadn’t been demoted yet… It was almost worse that they weren’t telling her the plan to advance Scott. As though she didn’t have a right to know or be given an opportunity to prove she was still the right person for that position.

All of a sudden, it seemed she was losing everything that was important to her. Air trapped in her chest, and she rubbed the spot, feeling her collarbone protruding even more.

Trent was gone. Her career was at stake. And her health was deteriorating faster every day that she put off the tests and treatment. And she had no one to blame but herself. Her stubborn independence, something she’d once thought of as a strength, had been her downfall, her greatest weakness.

Her phone chimed with a message, and seeing Jess’s name on the display, her stomach twisted. Had Trent told his cousin about them? She didn’t know for sure where he’d gone the night before. When he hadn’t returned all night, she suspected he’d slept at the bar on the old cot he’d set up in there for late nights if he was too tired to drive home.

Where would he go now? Where would he live?

The house was in her name. She’d been adamant about not purchasing a new place together until they were married. She’d been so damn adamant about everything, and now none of it seemed to matter. Why had she been so stupid? Why hadn’t she been able to let go and trust and accept the help and support from someone who loved her more than anyone else ever had?

Picking up the phone, she read the message from Jess:

I love you and I’m here when you want to talk.

Whitney sat back and rubbed her aching forehead.

What did this mean for all of them now? She and Trent had the same friends, same community. They’d been a unit for so long. Could people see them as individuals now? Apart? Could their friends reconcile this? Or would things be awkward and tense?

In most breakups, there was a divide.

Sarah was her friend. Wes was his.

And Jess. Who got Jess?

Tears burned the back of Whitney’s eyes as she thought of everything she was losing. Her best friend may not choose sides, but Trent was family, and Whitney was a recently terrible friend who had pushed her away.

Frankie. Dear, wonderful Frankie. She’d never be welcomed into Frankie’s open arms and heart anymore. Her surrogate mother who’d been there for her when her own mom couldn’t be, who loved her… She no longer had her, either.

The effects of a breakup trickled to so many innocent bystanders, and it broke her heart that she was now the cause of so much hurt and sadness. She was responsible for so many people having to adjust to a new reality, a new situation. They’d all be fine without her, sooner or later. But could she ever be fine without all of them?

Whitney slammed her laptop shut. Pushing it aside, she reached for a blanket on the edge of the sofa, curled into a ball, and let fresh tears fall.