Page 136 of The Hometown Legend

“But you’re in love with my brother.”

She nodded. And she couldn’t say everything that maybe needed to be said about Gideon. About what he’d been through. Because it was his story to tell.

“He seems so different,” Lydia said softly.

“He is. But I love this version of him even more.”

“But you aren’t staying.”

“I said that I was going to do this. I’ve been a quitter for so long. I just can’t be a quitter anymore.”

Right there, all that shifting inside her crumpled. Fell. It was like an extreme shift in her soul.

Which thing was she actually quitting?

Was it quitting to recognize something new was happening in your life, and maybe you needed to be there for that?

She remembered the most important thing that she got from him talking about his marriage.

He had changed. But Cassidy hadn’t wanted to change for him.

And here she was, finding all this new bravery inside her soul, changing because of her interaction with him, but not recognizing what it all meant.

She had hugged him, folded herself around him when he had told her about the dead men. About how responsible he felt. How much he grieved it.

And that had been the evidence of what needed to happen inside her.

He had changed. And he was changing her. So that they could fit around each other.

Was it quitting to understand that? Was it quitting if she redirected when a new path presented itself? She had been convinced that it would be.

That she had to go to Boston no matter what.

Because she had set herself on the path. But this wasn’t choosing not to climb a rope in gym, or being afraid to go down a narrow path.

She wasn’t reacting to anything. Not fear, not to what anybody might think of her.

That was actually the greatest tragedy. When people kept on paths they weren’t meant for.

Knowing when to quit was a skill.

Being in control of it was even more important.

It wasn’t fear guiding her now.

It was her heart.

It was love. And nothing could be more diametrically opposed to the anxiety she had struggled with for so many years.

She wasn’t making this decision from that place.

“I can’t leave,” she whispered.

Lydia’s eyes went wide. “What?”

“I’ve been sitting with this, with this feeling, for the last week. I felt like he didn’t want me here. He doesn’t want me to not go to Boston, he doesn’t want to have another life. I think he’s shot that part of himself down.

“But I also think that he might need somebody to make that bold decision for him.

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