Page 55 of The 7 Rules of Moving On
“I am. This is an amazing opportunity for me.” She looked up at her apartment one last time. “I can’t stay here forever.”
“Even though you won’t be writing songs anymore? Even though it isn’t video games? Even though you’ll be working in corporate America’s butthole?”
“You’re hysterical,” Kissie deadpanned. “It’s not that bad. My first account is with some water conservation group out of Colorado.”
“Sounds amazing,” Dawn replied flatly.
“Be happy for me, Dawn. This is a good move. It’ll be good. It’ll be great.”
Kissie let Dawn pull her into a hug.
“I know it will, Kiss. It just won’t be good for me. I’ll miss you so much I can barely stand it.”
Blinking back hot tears, Kissie said, “Me too. Seattle is only a day’s drive, though. I’ll come visit. I’ll come back all the time.”
Dawn pulled away. “I know. I’ll come visit too.” She pressed her lips together tightly, her brows pulling together even more tightly above them. “But if it doesn’t work out, if you don’t like it out there, I’ve got a spare bedroom with your name on it, always.”
“I’m sure Jeff would love that.”
“Jeff can learn how to deal,” Dawn snapped.
Kissie couldn’t help but notice the tension radiating off Dawn’s shoulders these days whenever Jeff’s name came up.
“Once he does something like set my song as his ringtone, then he can tell me what I can and can’t do.”
Kissie’s stomach lurched. “Ugh. Did you have to bring that up? I’m tryingnotto think about him.”
“Shit, sorry.” Dawn winced. “I just can’t get over how romantic that—”
“Dawn!”
She raised her hands. “My bad. No more Trig talk.”
It wasn’t that Kissie didn’t want to talk about him. She did, almost all the time. She wanted to talk about his smile, the way his hair curled up under his cap, how his skin looked when the hot spring’s water slid off his shoulders in the pool. She wanted to recite poetry about the way his body had moved over hers, how his heart had felt like home. But these things hurt so badly to think about, it was self-inflicted torture to let herself do it.
“I’d better go. There’s a storm tonight, and I don’t want to get caught.”
“Call me the second you get there, okay? And if the weather gets bad, stop at a hotel.”
“I will.”
“Promise me, Kissie.”
Kissing Dawn’s cheek, Kissie said, “I promise.”
* * *
She drove in silence,every single song on any playlist she had somehow reminding her of Trig. When the text came through from Lane that they’d be telling Trig about Mystic this morning, she had to pull over for a solid ten minutes before she stopped crying about it.
She didn’t know how Trig would respond, if he’d be happy or furious. All she knew was that he’d be able to keep Mystic exactly how it was, the way he loved it.
After texting Lane a lame thumbs up emoji, Kissie pulled back onto the interstate and tried to focus on the road, the dotted lines sliding beneath her, the mountains rising up around her, then shrinking into rolling hills, then flattening into nothing. When she passed into Washington state, she had to pull over again.
“What am I doing?” she said, sobbing over her steering wheel.
Trig wasn’t the only person who loved Mystic or Twin Hearts. She loved them too.
She was grieving, she realized. Grieving a life she’d barely caught a glimpse of, and now would never have. Grieving another life, the one she was driving toward that she didn’t want.
