Page 57 of Fake-Off with Fate
“Yes,” I lie. “I’ve moved on with Ashlyn.”
“You haven’t been with her for that long, Jamie. She can’t mean much to you.”
“What does time have to do with anything, Allegra? You and I were together for three years, and yet you had no problem dumping me for a man you’d just met.”
“And I’m sorry about that!” She jumps to her feet and starts a righteous pace across my kitchen floor. “Brett isn’t the man I thought he was.”
“I don’t know who you thought he was,” I tell her, “but evenI knew he was a three-time married lothario with quite a track record for breaking hearts.”
She stops pacing and comes back to the table. Dropping to her knees in front of me, she puts her hands on top of mine. “I was confused. I was sad that we didn’t spend a lot of time together. I was vulnerable.”
I gently remove my hands from under hers. “I’m sorry you were unhappy. I truly am. But you made your choice. We had a long run, but our time together is over. I’m with Ashlyn now.” Even though I intellectually know there’s no truth to what I’m saying, my heart still wants to believe it.
“You can’t love her!” Allegra declares heatedly.
“Why is that?”
She seems to finally realize she can’t use time against me. “Because I still love you!”
“I don’t know how many times you have to hear this, Allegra, but I have stopped loving you. You are my past, not my future.”
I have never felt comfortable watching someone cry, so I’m unprepared for the coldness I feel when my ex bursts into tears. “I made a mistake,” she wails. “I want to make things right.”
“What’s done is done,” I tell her. “You and I are no more.”
Allegra stands up slowly with a rigidity in her shoulders that makes it clear she’s finally hearing my words. “You can take me back into town now.”
As she walks to the front door, I wonder why we needed to have this out in person. Standing up, I grab my keys along with a box of granola and join her. Stepping out on the porch before her, I throw the cereal into the woods and say, “That will only buy us a couple of minutes. Let’s go.”
Once we’re back in the car, Allegra asks, “How can you live in a place like this? It’s so rural. So barbaric.”
“Bears are part of nature. They were here before us.” When did I start defending the bear population? Just a couple of weeksago, I thought just like Allegra did, but now I’m taking their side against her. I must be adapting faster than I realized.
We make the trip into town in silence. Once we arrive back at Shirley May’s, I pull into a parking spot and tell Allegra, “Have a safe trip home.”
“That’s it? You don’t have anything else to say to me?” Tears start to pool in her doe-like eyes again.
“I don’t know what else you want me to say. I’m sorry about the way things ended between us, but I wasn’t the one who ended us. I’m sorry you’re having regrets, but there’s nothing I can do for you.”
“You could give me another chance.” She says this so quietly I wonder if I imagined it.
“I have a meeting at the arena,” I lie. “I need to go.”
She finally takes the hint and gets out of my car. Before shutting the door behind her, she says, “I love you, Jamie. I really do.” When I don’t respond in kind, she closes the door.
Two weeks ago, before I met Ashlyn, I might have considered going back to Allegra. But not now. Now I know there’s something better out there for me. I just have to try to convince Ashlyn to give me a chance to prove that I’m the one for her.
CHAPTER 27
ASHLYN
Seven dayslater and I still don’t have an official update on my parents. I’d like to think this is good news because if they were somehow injured or worse, I would think I would have been notified by somebody. It’s still agony waiting to hear, and of course my imagination has been triggered into overdrive. Like what if everyone is dead and no one can make calls?
I don’t really have a ton of time to speculate, however, because Maple Falls is up in arms and oddly divided about how they feel regarding Alexander MacDonald taking over his ancestor’s land. The store owners and people directly affected are panic stricken and want the town to buy the land back. Then there are those who want the land developed so Maple Falls can “join the twenty-first century” and get a warehouse club so they can buy rotisserie chickens.
The topic of preservation vs. progress is a bigger one than I ever thought it would be. I just assumed everyone wanted life to stay the same. Apparently, the lure of new jobs and bulk toilet paper is real.
All I know is that I’m currently sitting in the middle of a heated town council meeting and all I want to do is run out the door and not stop until I get to the airport. But if I left town thenI wouldn’t see Jamie anymore and he’s become a big part of my life. I keep reminding myself that I don’t live here, so Jamie is nothing more than a nice distraction. The problem is that I’m really bad about listening to my own advice.
