Page 35 of One Last Thing Before You Go

I watch the metaphorical shoe dangle, holding my breath as I wait for it to drop. Part of me thinks it’s best for Knox to just get it out of the way as soon as possible, but the other part of me knows what it’s like to grieve a life and a person. In my case, I was grieving myself, who I thought I would be. But the same principle applies, and rushing grief is never an option.

“Okay,” I breathe, wanting so very badly to comfort him. I reach out and put a hand on his, right on the steering wheel.

His exhale is deep, and it clears the tension in the entire cab of the truck—not just his. He loosens his grip on the wheel and takes my hand in his, squeezing it once before placing our joined hands on the center console.

“What about you? What’s your story? Jenn mentioned something about you rebuilding your life?”

I shrug and look out the window. “She just means my divorce, probably.”

“Mmm,” he nods thoughtfully. “It’s more than that, though, isn’t it?”

I sigh and, for some idiotic reason, say “Yeah.” Fighting the urge to bang my head against the window, I make sure to keep my eyes on the road.

“You gonna elaborate on that?”

I swallow the hard knot in my throat and think. Am I going to elaborate on it? Because my marriage—more specifically why and how it ended—is my biggest failure and I never talk about it. But something about the way he was able to share his difficult experience with his father makes me feel like I could trust mine with him.

“I—I used to be married.”

“Yes, that’s generally what being divorced means.”

I snort. “Yeah, well… It was to this investment banker guy in New York and…” I don’t even know where to start.

And I guess I say it out loud because he says, “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

I nod, feeling my chest stretch due to the calm, patient look in his eyes. At least in this moment, I’m safe with him.

“For context, I should tell you that, at the time, I worked for this amazing luxury fashion brand straight out of college where I somehow worked myself up pretty quickly to VP of Retail Operations before I even hit thirty. It wasn’t a common thing. I was definitely very lucky.”

“I doubt it had anything to do with luck. I know how smart you are, how hardworking. I can totally see you skyrocketing like that.”

My heart warms in my chest at his words, wanting to believe every single one of them.

But things have changed since then. Sure, I still have a plan to rebuild myself, to go back to having that life—at least the professional one. But even I can admit to myself that I had started to slow down before inheriting the store, almost giving up hope on ever getting back on track.

Just then, a chilling thought pops into my head: if Walter hadn’t left me part of the store, given me new purpose and financial gain to get back to my old life, would I ever have found the opportunity to leave Ceres Cove?

I suppress a shiver.

“Well,” I continue, pushing past his compliment and other intrusive thoughts. “The brand put me in charge of every single one of our retail stores in the US and abroad. Everything from how the stores were set-up, our merchandise, the way operations were run, sales… all of it, was run by me. And I was good at it. But more importantly, I loved it,” I say proudly, devastated at having lost it all—willingly.

“What happened, then? Why aren’t you doing that anymore? And what does it have to do with your divorce?”

“I’m getting to that.” This is the hard part. This is where it gets real, and the nausea and shame start to creep in at the colossal mistake I made. If not the worst, then certainly one of the biggest. “I, uh, quit my job.”

“Why? Did you decide to start your own thing or something?”

I squeeze my eyes shut and press my lips together, not wanting to get too explicit with the details. Because, yes, at the time, I did want to start my own thing: my own family. “I, ah… Yeah, sort of.”

But I don’t elaborate. I’m not about to embarrass myself and tell him how my manipulative husband begged me to quit my job when it seemed to be interfering with my IVF treatments. Turns out, hormone injections and my endometriosis and PCOS didn’t mix well. Forget about the regular side effects of IVF—add to that an increase in already debilitating pain, nausea, and so many other fun ones that made existing downright impossible. To say the whole thing was a nightmare is an understatement.

So, Finn convinced me to leave everything I’d worked for behind, despite the fact that I was clearly not doing well, that my health had deteriorated to an unmanageable level. He wanted me to prioritize having a kid over my health and my career.

“Who cares whether you still have a career to come back to? You know I’m going to take care of you—of us,” he’d promised. “Of course I’ll support you financially. The stress from work is why you’re not getting pregnant. Just quit your job, focus all your energy on this. We’re going to be a family.”

And with those final six words he’d seduced me into prioritizing his wants over my need to be healthy.

We’re going to be a family.