It wasn’t hard to track Renee down. The wealthy can afford more security, but privacy can’t be bought. The next day I was on a plane to Los Angeles with an address and a whole lot of anxiety. There was a chance the address could be wrong, or she might have gone to Vegas, opted for the complete Elvis wedding package, and was already living with her new husband. But Renee didn’t seem the type to do anything that normal.

I pulled the rental car up to the security gate and told the guard who I was here to see. If Renee refused to see me, I’d move on to Plan B. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that, because my Plan B sucked and involved acting skills I didn’t have. After the guard made a call, presumably to Renee, he opened the gate and waved me through.

Renee’s house was bigger than the entire neighborhood I grew up in—manicured lawn, no chips in the sidewalk. Even the house number painted on the curb out front was flawless.

My confidence turned into nausea until I reminded myself that I had absolutely nothing to lose. I’d already lost him. And, even if everything went perfectly, I didn’t expect that to change. I just hoped he would.

Carson would never open himself back up to me—that was something I’d have to live with—but maybe he could to the woman who gave birth to him, who’d been there while the damage was being done.

The door opened before I even knocked.

“Is Carson alright?” Renee asked, looking as if she’d hike up to San Francisco in heels if she had to. That gave me hope—the woman wanted what was best for her son, she probably just didn’t know what that was.

“Yeah, he’s fine,” I said quickly. “I mean, I think so. Mostly. Have you spoken to Hayden lately?”

“Neither of my boys tell me much of anything. The little I know about Carson’s predicament is due to the tirade of phone calls from lawyers asking if I know where he is.”

“I don’t know much more than you, then. The last time I saw him he was healthy…physically”—I dropped the volume of my voice—“but otherwise he was kind of a mess.”

“Come in.”

I kept things simple but honest—about my relationship with Carson, how it had started and how it had ended. Renee was silent throughout the entire explanation, sipping her tea whenever it seemed like she wanted to stop herself from saying something.

Finally, I gave up. “You need to fix things with him because he won’t listen to me.”

When Renee put her teacup and saucer on the table, I understood why she hadn’t let go of it since we’d started speaking. Her hands were shaking. “I don’t know if it would be any different for me. You saw how he feels about me, how angry he was when I announced my engagement.”

“He wouldn’t have gotten that angry if he didn’t care about you.”

“I was the cause of a lot of hardship when Carson was younger. I don’t know what I could ever do to make up for that time in his life.”

“You don’t have to make up any time. Regardless of whatever happened between you and your late husband or any other man, you’re the only chance Carson has to start over. He needs to start over, Renee.”

“I’ve spent the last seven years trying to find a way to help him do that. I’m still looking.”

Obviously she hadn’t looked in a mirror. She couldn’t change him, just like she couldn’t change any of her exes. Just like I didn’t change any of mine into frogs. Just like they hadn’t changed me. I changed myself, once I finally understood who I was.

Renee smoothed her skirt, and I saw her bare finger—the huge engagement rock was gone. When she caught me gawking, she looked at her hand.

“You noticed,” she said.

“It’s hard not to—your finger was really shiny last time we met.” I felt myself tense. I didn’t come here to talk about jewelry.

“Yes, it was.” Renee’s smile was tight as she moved to pick up her teacup. Then she stopped and put her hands in her lap, her right covering her left. “I actually forget it’s not there from time to time.”

My impatience disappeared, replaced with blatant curiosity. Carson said Renee hated being alone. So what had happened?

“Why aren’t you getting married?” I asked.

“That’s none of your business.”

“Normally I’d completely agree with you.” Deep breath. “But normally I’m not in love with someone who will never be able to love me back. Because he’s afraid that if he does, he’ll turn into the kind of man his father was. The kind of man his stepfathers were. Men you chose to bring into your son’s life.”

My curiosity turned into angry frustration. “I’m not here to blame you or make you feel guilty, or even to bring you and Carson closer together. I’m here to tell you that you’re the only one who can help your son understand that he’s not like any of the men you chose. Honestly, I don’t give a shit about your personal life. All I care about is how it affects Carson. Because whether he wants it or not, Carson is my business, and therefore, why you’re not getting married to another reminder of his father is also my business.”

I expected Renee to respond with an equal amount of anger or intensity, but she seemed to have sunk into herself, become smaller, less of a presence. Maybe this was the real Renee—the one not hiding behind image and position, the one who’d taken the abuse as if she’d earned it.

“Men can be charismatic.” She started removing her rings one by one, placing them onto the coffee table. “They can tell you it will never happen again, and how sorry they are, in a way that makes it impossible to doubt.”

My mind flashed to a moment with Carson, when he told me he didn’t believe in apologies. This was why—because he’d seen how little they often meant.

“Every argument has two sides.” She reached into the drawer next to her and took out a small bottle of expensive hand lotion. “So it’s easy to believe you’re as much at fault as he is. Maybe entirely at fault, because you pushed him too hard or because he feels so much passion towards you that it makes him unable to think. You want to believe it’s true. You want to believe that he loves you so much, he has to fight to control himself. Because those things make you feel desired and loved. They make you feel powerful, even when you know it will only last a moment.”

I grabbed a box of tissues from a side table and dropped them onto the coffee table between us, but I didn’t think Renee would need one. The calm and tragic way she talked about something horrible was something I’d never seen before. Grief and vulnerability held in check by acceptance.

“Do you know how many people I’ve spoken to openly about this, Laney? None. Ever. Not even Carson. But I love him, and I believe you love him, as well. So you asked why I’m not getting married.” She took a deep breath. “Because until that day in the restaurant, Carson and I had never spoken about his father or the other men. So I’d been able to convince myself that the only person I’d hurt was myself and that my son had no right to be angry at me. Not after I’d gone through so much to make sure he’d have the future he deserved.

“After you both left, I went back to the table and picked up my champagne for another toast. For the first time in my life, it was too difficult for me to pretend. I couldn’t stop seeing the fear in his eyes, the disappointment in his voice. To know I disappointed my child, hurt him, was worse than anything his father could have ever done to me.”

She covered her mouth with her hand for a minute. “I took the first flight back here. When I told my fiancé what Carson had said and how hurt I was, he agreed that I had every right to be upset. Then I told him I couldn’t marry him if things continued as they were. Instead of agreeing, he slapped me. And then he struck me again and I realized it didn’t matter what I said or did—he wanted to hurt me, and so he did. And until that moment, I had let him. Just like I had let my first husband hurt my children.”

She looked down to her finger again and then opened and closed her hand. “The ring my fiancé had given me was too heavy for me to carry anymore, so I gave it back to him.”

I nodded. “With a little time and rest, I’m sure your hand will be stronger than ever.”

“I hope so.” I knew Renee had used up all her energy telling her story. To help me understand. I’m not sure how well it worked, though. I wasn’t her, I wasn’t there, and I was seriously biased when it came to her son. But I wasn’t the one she needed to convince.

“If you never tell him, he’ll never know,” I said. “He’ll never understand.”

“Carson has every right to hate me. I put him through so much, some of the worst things a man can ever do.” She lowered her eyes and took another breath. “If I knew how to take it all back, I would. But it’s too late. He doesn’t trust me, and rightfully so, because I’ve given him so many reasons not to. He would never listen to me.”

“You stood in front of the man who beat you and told him the truth, so you can stand in front of your son and tell him the truth, too. Because Carson would never hurt you, and he still wants to love you because he’s amazing and kind and special and in an incredible amount of pain.”

It took her a while to nod. “I’m glad he has you in his life, Laney.”

“I’m not—” I wasn’t in his life anymore. “You can’t tell him it was my idea. Honestly, none of this has ever really been any of my business.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not what either of us wanted. Things just got a little confused for a while.” Actually I’d gotten confused and had dragged him into something he never wanted.

“Then you should unconfuse them as soon as possible, don’t you think?”

“Some things are the way they are for a reason.” I shrugged. “It’s better for both of us to move on.”

Renee looked at me silently for another moment before she stood. “I suppose I should pack a bag, then. You’re welcome to stay until you need to go to the airport.”

“Thanks, but I don’t get down here very often. I’m probably going to visit some old friends.” It was a lie, but a harmless one. I didn’t want to hang out with her, and she probably didn’t want to hang out with me.

She walked me to the door. “When are you going back to San Francisco?”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I wished her good luck.

“Any advice?” she asked.

“Um… Don’t give up even if he’s being stupid. He’ll try to change the subject when something hits too close, but don’t let him. And tell him—” I held up my hand. “Bye.”

I left the housing community as fast as I could and pulled into the first parking lot I came to. Breathe. Just breathe. What I’d done was a good thing. I should be happy. It didn’t matter that Carson would be mad at me for butting into his life because he could be sure it would never happen again.

After a while I’d be back to my old self, kind of. Maybe I’d be better. Probably not, but I couldn’t possibly keep crying this much, so that was something.

I’d never be the person I used to be—pre or post frogs. Because real love isn’t as easy to get over as the pretend kind. Especially when you can’t be angry or blame the other person. Somehow, knowing it didn’t work out because some things never would was worse than being cheated on or lied to.

I couldn’t blame Carson—he’d never promised me anything more than a good time. And he’d given me a ton of them. It was my own fault that I’d made it into something he hadn’t wanted and wasn’t capable of. He’d warned me. Repeatedly.

He helped me figure out what I wanted. It wasn’t his fault that what I wanted was him.

I spent the rest of the day driving around the city, trying to get a feel for where I’d want to live. That was a perk of my business and my art that I’d never thought about—I could do it from anywhere. It would do me good to shake things up. Hillary was probably going to move in with Eric soon, I could still show at the gallery even if I wasn’t in the city, and if I lived closer to San Diego, my parents would be thrilled. Career-wise, Los Angeles might actually be better for me. I could start over, make some new memories—less painful ones.

My plane ticket back to S.F. was for Monday, so I had all weekend to explore and figure out what was next for me. No men, that was for damn sure. The last thing I needed was a reminder that my useless little brain couldn’t separate sex from love. Huge fail on that one, despite Carson’s heroic efforts.

“Oh my god.” When reality hit me, it came from multiple directions.

I’d always been so sure the physical and the emotional came as a package—sex and the delusion of love. But everything I’d believed was total bullshit. Everything.

I could have sex without love. I’d always had sex without love. Because until now, I’d never actually been in love.

And the man who’d done his best to convince me I could separate one from the other was the only one who’d ever helped me put them together.