Page 54 of The 7 Rules of Moving On
She frowned. “What party?”
Air sailed out of his nose. “Don’t lie to me. We might not have much, but we’ve at least been honest with each other.”
“You mean the McDuck’s party?” she said, lifting her fingers off the keys. “I was there for, like, a minute. Lane had something—”
“So you admit you were with him. How, Kissie? I asked you. I’dbeggedyou. Anyone but him.” He could hear the desperation cracking his voice, and he hated it. “Why? Why wasn’t I enough?”
Rising slowly from the piano bench, she said, “I didn’t do anything with Lane.”
“I saw you. I saw you laughing with him. Forrest saw you two together at the diner. And I guess it makes sense. You wanted a person to move on with, not some idiot who fell in love with you. Some rule-breaking, cry-into-his-beard, small town Montana nobody.”
“That’s not what you are at all. And I wasn’t at the party all night. I was working. Please, let me explain.”
Let me explain.
He’d heard these words before. From Tina, right before she’d packed up her shit and left town. Right before she’d broken his heart. But that was nothing compared to this, because he knew one thing for certain, if he knew nothing else. He’d never loved Tina.
He couldn’t go through this again, not with someone he actually did love.
“No. I think I understand everything.” He backed up a step. “You’re leaving in a few hours. You should probably get some sleep. It’s a long drive and the roads will be—”
Reaching out for him, her eyes glistening, she said, “Stop it. Stop pushing me away.”
“Ha!” he barked, the whiskey he’d poured down his throat all night revealing itself in a bright, angry surge. “Who’s pushing who away here, Kiss? Who’s the one who ran away into another man’s arms—”
“I did not run into his arms!” Her face turned red, her anger meeting his and not backing down. “See, this. This bullshit is why I can’t stand small towns!”
“So now it’s Twin Hearts you’re running from?”
Pushing past him, she stormed down the hall.
He followed her. “Kissie—”
“Yes. It’s Twin Hearts, and you, and gossip, and everyone thinking they know everything about everyone else all the time when they know nothing.” Spinning around, she pointed a finger into his chest and shoved. “Because if you think I would run from your bed straight into Lane’s, you know absolutelynothingabout me. And you just lost any chance you ever had to learn. Goodbye, Trig. Have a nice life.”
Before she left him there, standing stunned and slack-jawed in the hallway, she shook her head, wiped her eyes, and said, “And by the way, you’re welcome.”
When he woke up the next morning, hungover and miserable, he didn’t have to leave his room to find out she was already gone. He knew it in his bones.
TWO WEEKS LATER
RULE NUMBER SEVEN: THE WINGWOMAN/MAN/BEAR IS ALWAYS RIGHT
KISSIE
Shutting the trunk of her wagon, Kissie squinted up at her apartment. Something dull and heavy tugged inside her chest at the sight of the familiar mountains rising behind her apartment complex.
She hadn’t heard from Trig since their fight, since she pulled Dawn out of bed, stuffed their clothes into their bags, and they both snuck out of Mystic at the ass-crack of dawn.
She’d cried on the way to the post office to send him the advertising campaign she’d developed for Mystic, including a link to the private YouTube video of the jingle she’d written. The song she’d been working on after leaving the Montgomery party. The song she’d been playing at his grandmother’s piano when he’d found her the night everything fell apart.
The worst part of it was, before Trig had found her, she’d made a decision at that piano. After learning what Lane had done, after spending all night working on the campaign and the song and examining every last inch of her life from her very first memory to the last time Trig’s lips touched hers, she’d decided she was going to stay. She was going to move to Twin Hearts. She was going to try to make things work, to give Trig a chance, to give herself a chance to be happy.
He would have received her package by now, and still she hadn’t heard a word. She’d probably never hear from him again. How, she wondered, toying with her keys in her hand, could knowing someone for three days change a person’s life forever?
“You’re absolutely sure about this?” Dawn asked, shivering in the frigid morning air.
Kissie was absolutely sure about nothing. But she was doing what she always did, putting one foot in front of the other, moving forward, not looking back, following the rules.
