Four hours later I say good-bye to my entire family and we go our separate ways just past security, to head to our respective gates at Boston Logan International Airport. As my family walks one way, Ty and I head the other, to go through Customs and make it to our gate for our flight to Toronto. The line is huge, which is typical. I pull my passport out of my purse as we wait. Ty reaches up and wraps an arm around my shoulder. I try not to wiggle free as he rubs my arm and gives me a squeeze.

“Things are going to feel better when you’re back home and working again and life is back to normal,” Ty tries to assure me. “Did you return the school’s call?”

“No,” I reply. “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

“Oh. Okay,” he says in a tone that says it’s not okay, but he’s not about to start a fight. I wish he would for some reason. “Well, the principal there loves you, so I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to get you back.”

“It’s just a spot on their substitute teaching list.” I step forward as the line moves up. Luckily, this makes Ty let go of me. “No one willingly wants to be a sub. I’m sure the spot won’t be snatched up in the next twenty-four hours.”

He nods and then his phone beeps, and I watch him pull it from his pocket. He turns away from me just the slightest bit, but I notice it. “Who is that?”

“No one,” he mutters. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up as my stomach knots.

I hate myself for what I’m about to say, but more importantly I hate him for making me feel like I have to say it. “Then show me who is texting you.”

He sighs. Loudly. I cross my arms and he turns to face me, frustration twisting his features. “It’s my boss, Courtney.”

He turns the phone toward me and I see her name. I haven’t met this woman because he switched accounting firms while I was living in San Francisco. She could be his boss, or she could be someone else. “Courtney what?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Winnie. When are we going to stop doing this?” His tone is hard and dripping in irritation. “I thought maybe once you got home, after everything with your dad was done, you’d be back to your normal self, but clearly, that’s not happening.”

After everything with my dad was done?

“Sorry I’m not perky and carefree five days after I watched my dad die,” I bark back at him, and out of my peripheral vision I see a woman in line snap her head up. “Maybe if you hadn’t made the last two years of watching him die a slow, painful death even worse by fucking someone else I’d bounce back faster.”

Three more people in line turn to stare. Ty’s pale complexion turns crimson and I don’t know if it’s with rage or humiliation, but the worst part is I don’t care. I reach for the handle on my suitcase and as the line moves forward, I move back.

“Excuse me,” I say to the woman behind us and then repeat it to the next twelve people in line as I make my way out of the line. I can hear Ty following me, apologizing to the people as he passes too.

I make it halfway through the terminal before he gets me to stop. “Winnie! Where the hell are you going?”

“Back to the cottage,” I tell him. I don’t even realize that’s where I’m going until the words jump out of my mouth. “I’m staying.”

“You’re joking right?” I turn to find Ty even more red-faced as he angrily runs a hand through his blond hair. “Winnie, we can’t keep making this work long distance.”

“I don’t want to make it work,” I blurt out, and it feels so good to say it out loud. Finally. Liberating and freeing, which then makes my heart fill with so much guilt that it feels like it’s sinking into my shoes. “You cheated on me.”

“Fucking hell, Winnie.” He’s a shade of red now I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. “I have spent the last two years of my goddamn life trying to make it up to you, and now you’re done? Now you won’t forgive me? You just wasted the last two years of my life.”

“I’m sorry,” I say as my eyes fill with tears. I wipe them away before they fall and glance around for a car rental kiosk. I need to get the hell out of here now. “Go back to Toronto. Fuck Courtney, or go back to that girl you cheated on me with. I’m sorry I held you back from doing that sooner. Just go. You’re free.”

I see a sign for Concord buses. I know they go to Maine so I start walking that way. He is still following. Suddenly his hand is on my biceps and he’s turning me around. Our eyes meet. His face has gone from red to white now. Ashen actually. “Winnie, please. Don’t. I was sorry then and I’m sorry now. Just come home. You can’t throw us away.”

“I can’t be who you want me to be,” I reply in a flat monotone.

“You can’t be you?” he challenges, and the anger and frustration in his voice is replaced with confusion and sadness. “Winnie, you will get through this. We can get through this. Your dad, my mistake, all of it.”

I shake my head. “I don’t want to.”

And without another word I turn and walk away. He calls my name once, but I ignore him and when I dare look back, just before I turn the corner to the bus kiosk, he’s gone. I feel relief. A little guilt but mostly relief. This is the right thing. He may not know it right now, but I know it. It’s the only thing I feel like I do know at this point.

I buy my bus ticket back to Maine with shaking hands, but the attendant either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. That is exactly what I want right now—what I need—to be around people who don’t give a shit. Or be around no one at all. I just need time to wallow. I don’t care how pathetic or lame that sounds; it’s how I feel.

The bus is leaving in fifteen minutes, so I hurry outside and shove my suitcase in the hold under the bus and hand the driver my ticket. As I make my way toward an empty seat, I keep my head down, which is why I almost bump into the guy standing in the middle of the aisle. At the last second I see his feet and come to an abrupt stop. I glance up and find a wall of broad shoulders and wide chest wrapped in a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the edges of some kind of tattoo peeking out of the left sleeve just below the elbow. My eyes climb higher where I find a thick beard, light brown kissed by copper, piercing silver-blue eyes and a slightly crooked nose I would recognize anywhere. Because I’m the one who broke it.

Why the fuck is Holden Hendricks on this bus?

He stares back at me and his tongue wets his plump lips as his brow furrows ever so slightly. It still angers me that someone with such a dark heart is so physically attractive. Completely unfair.

“Sorry,” he says and moves into a row so I can pass. I start to walk by when he follows me with his eyes and says, “Hey! You look familiar. Have we met?”

Seriously? I mean we haven’t seen each other in fourteen years, but still. I recognized him immediately even though he’s a few inches taller and has a beard and a whole bunch of things he didn’t have when he was sixteen, like an imposing frame and biceps as big as my head. I keep looking straight ahead, down the aisle in front of me and not at him. “Nope.”

I keep walking, settling in the window seat in the second to last row. I glance up and see he’s tucked himself into a row of seats, but he’s standing and facing backward, looking right at me. I fight the urge to stick my tongue out at him like I did the first time he was mean to me…when I was ten. Our relationship only sunk lower after that, hence the broken nose. I move my eyes deliberately away from him and focus on digging my phone out of my purse.

Ty has left four text messages, each angrier than the next.

I look at the time on my phone. Our plane leaves in ten minutes. He’s probably already on board. I sent a quick text back.

I’ve never meant four words more in my life. He cheated. He is responsible for that, but I was the one too weak or too stupid—or maybe both—to end it when I found out. Instead, I promised to forgive him, and then I never did. I couldn’t. That’s my fault.

I could go back to Toronto. I could move in with him, like I planned, at least for the first few months. I could start teaching again at my old school, first as a substitute and then hopefully back to full-time. I could pick up my old life almost exactly where it left off. But I can’t forgive him. I know that now. Maybe I always knew it. I don’t know. But since my dad died, my tolerance for pretending, for forcing myself to endure situations and feelings that I don’t want to endure is gone. I just can’t lie to myself anymore. Life’s too short.

Ty and I are over.

I’m all alone.

I glance up again. The bus driver is dropping into his seat and yet Holden is still staring at me. I glare at him, then turn to look out the window.

I spend the entire ride with my iTunes cranked in my ears and my eyes glued to the scenery out the window. The closer I get to the cottage, the better I feel. This is irresponsible, irrational and selfish, but it’s right.

When we pull into the depot, the sun is low in the sky and dusk is setting in. I wait until everyone else is off the bus, count to fifty and then grab my purse and make my way off. I want to make sure Holden has had enough time to get his bag, if he has one, and get the hell out of here. The bus driver has unloaded everything and my suitcase is on the curb. An older lady is walking toward the parking lot with her own bag and everyone else seems to have left. Good. I pull up the handle on my bag and begin to walk away.

There are a couple cabs idling by the curb, but it’s just a fifteen-minute walk down Main Street and I need to stretch my legs. The summer season is officially over, so the usually crowded sidewalks are empty…except for Holden freaking Hendricks. He’s about half a block in front of me, walking in the same direction. Why is he walking? What is he even doing in Maine? I thought he moved away or ran away or was in jail or something. There were a lot of rumors when he disappeared at sixteen, but I didn’t know which one to believe. If I had to bet, it would be on the jail rumor because he was always in trouble.

I make sure my pace is slower than his, so I stay half a block back and watch him carefully. He looks relaxed and not quite as…aggressive as he used to be. I know it’s weird to think that someone looks aggressive, but when he was a kid everything about him oozed bad energy. From the way he walked to the tone in his voice—sharp, tight, ominous—he was just not a good guy. I mean, I never felt like he would hurt me physically, but he used to tease me mercilessly. Of course he teased just about everyone, but I am…was sensitive and took it to heart.

I’m almost at my street. In a few seconds I can turn left and leave him to wherever the hell he’s going and never seen him again. There’s a truck heading west toward us and it slows and finally pulls over, into oncoming traffic, to stop in front of Holden. He jerks up abruptly at the sight of the vehicle blocking his way, shoulders back, chin out, fists clenched. Yeah, there’s the aggressive guy I knew and hated.

A head pops out the window. I’d know that greasy face anywhere. It’s Stephen Kidd. He’s a local guy and was one of Holden’s best buddies back in the day. I guess he still is. Unlike Holden though, Kidd as they call him, is someone I was scared of back in the day.

Kidd waves at Holden. “Hey, buddy! What the fuck happened to your truck? I thought it was new?”

“It is,” I hear Holden respond. “Long story.”

Kidd makes a face, like he wants to hear this long story, but he doesn’t ask Holden anything more. He just says. “Get in. I’ll drive ya home.”

Holden doesn’t move right away. His hesitation piques my interest and causes me to slow almost to a stop. Kidd and Holden were like brothers when we were teenagers. Holden’s reaction now makes me think something might have happened to change that. But then Holden shrugs and starts around the side of the truck.

That’s when Kidd notices me. His dark beady eyes lock with mine and I look away and start walking again, quickly. I want to get out of his line of sight because the look on his face was one of recognition, and I don’t want him telling Holden who I am and then the two of them attempting a conversation with me. But I’m not that lucky.

Out of the corner of my eye I see Kidd crane his skinny neck farther out the open window. “Hey! You’re a Braddock chick aren’t you?”

I think about ignoring him and just walking faster but the idiot will probably follow me with the truck. So I stop momentarily and look up again. Now Holden, who has climbed into the passenger seat, is leaning forward to look at me too. I stare back at him for a second and I can practically see his brain working, trying to grasp the reality that he does in fact know me. I turn my gaze back to Kidd. “Yep.”

I start to walk again. But Kidd yells out. “Which one are you again? You all always looked like triplets to me.”

I glance up again, my feet still moving, my suitcase wheels squeaking as they frantically turn. I zoom right in on Holden’s silvery gaze. “Larry.”

I turn on the first cross street. Not my street, but I don’t give a shit. I just want away from the two town goons. I can hear Kidd let out a hoot of laughter and Holden tell him to shut the fuck up, but I don’t turn around and a second later I hear his tires screech as Kidd drives off. I’m so fucking glad they aren’t going to pretend we’re long-lost friends.

Holden decided, when I was thirteen and awkwardly tall for my age, battling bad acne and very frizzy hair I hadn’t learned to tame yet, that my sisters and I were the Three Stooges. Dixie was Curly, Sadie was Moe and I was Larry. He referred to us by those names anytime we ran into him in town. I didn’t even really know who the Three Stooges were, but I asked my dad and from the way he explained them, I knew it wasn’t a compliment.

God, I think as I finally reach our family cottage, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea if those two are going to be hanging around town. Ocean Pines is small and like Cat already mentioned there aren’t a lot of people here in the off-season. Moving back to Toronto and forcing myself to make it work with Ty might be easier than running into those two jackasses every time I leave the cottage. Then again, I’m probably not leaving the cottage much anyway. I unlock the door and flip on the lights on the porch. I look right out at the dunes at the end of the block that border the seven-mile beach. The sun is almost completely gone, but it’s painted the clouds a lovely pink color. I open the door into the main part of the house, and leaving my suitcase and purse on the porch, I head into the house and straight for the wine rack. I grab a bottle of merlot, turn around and head outside again.

I walk to the beach, drop down in the dunes and open the wine. Drinking straight from the bottle, I watch the waves crash against the shore, take a deep breath of cool salty air, and wonder what the hell I am going to do now.