“You’ve walked around for the past week acting like nothing is out of the ordinary when you’re—” he motioned to the boxes behind them. “You’re reserving a moving truck, Penny. You’re packing up and driving across the damn mountains in six days. Don’t you dare say I don’t need anything from you because that’s—” His voice caught and he clamped his mouth shut.
Penny crossed her arms over her chest. “I didn’t want to talk about it.” Brett exhaled but didn’t trust himself to speak. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, okay? I just know that I need to go back to my family for a bit. I’m not saying it’s forever, but—”
“Not forever? Well that’s comforting.”
Penny’s eyes grew glassy. “How can you say that? You know what I’ve been through, and I told you—”
“I’m not them, Penny! I know you’re scared that this is going to end up like that, but I’m not your brother, and I’m not Danny—”
“Well you’re sure as hell acting like him!” Penny sucked in a breath, and Brett’s stomach dropped to his knees. Penny was shaking as she took a step back to the open door. “I just need time, Brett.” Tears broke free and dropped onto her cheeks as she whirled on her heel and jogged down the driveway.
ChapterTwenty-Four
Penny threwher clothes and toiletries in a backpack and ran to her car when she heard Brett's bedroom door close. She knew she should be a bigger person and talk to him about what happened in the garage. It was something about what he'd said, how he'd looked at her. The idea of starting up a conversation made her feel like she'd swallowed a handful of rocks.
Heading your way
She texted Kelty. Emma had offered for her to crash on her couch, but Penny didn't need just a place to sleep. She needed someone to talk to, and Kelty had known her longer than anyone here.
Penny wasn't ready to text Andrea or anyone in her family for that matter. After the way Andrea connected with Brett, she had no doubt what kind of advice her sister would give. The worst part was that she knew the advice was probably good. Brett wasn't like Danny, and he wasn't like Lucas. But when she'd told Danny she was leaving, all the kind words and tender moments had disappeared in a snap.
Deep down, she knew that's not what Brett was trying to accomplish. Hadn't she wanted Danny to care? To be upset about her leaving? Now Brett was showing her exactly that, and she accused him of being the same.
He wasn't the same.
He wasn't anything close to the same.
And yet the response inside of her was eerily familiar. Penny wanted to give everything up to make him happy. She wanted to cancel the truck reservation and unpack her boxes and tell him she didn't need to go to the anniversary party. She didn't need to go with her family to Greece.
But that narrative, to use Brett's vernacular, was bullshit. She absolutely needed to be at that party, and she'd been looking forward to this trip for over a year. The fact that a few sentences from someone she loved would make her erase the board? That reality—both that she loved him and that she was so easily swayed—dragged claws down her spine to the point that she wanted to throw up.
She couldn't trust herself. That was the issue, and she'd known that from the second she drove away from her apartment with Danny. Until she grew a damned spine, she shouldn't be allowed to be with anyone.
Tears streamed down her cheeks, blurring her vision as she made her way to Kelty and Sean's.
She did love him.
She loved Brett so hard it felt like someone was reaching into her chest and crushing her heart with their bare hands. She loved him, but she’d thought she loved Danny, too.And oh, how she'd loved Lucas.
Love didn’t solve the problem. For her, lovewasthe problem. A sob ripped from her throat as she clamped her hands tighter over the wheel.
By the time she pulled up to Kelty's, she'd mostly dried her tears, but she wasn't going to fool anyone even though her cheeks were dry. Kelty was there standing on the driveway, and she wrapped Penny in a hug as soon as she stepped out of the car.
“What happened?” Kelty whispered. Penny shook her head as fresh tears sprang up in her eyes. “Well, we all knew this was going to suck balls.”
“You’ve been spending too much time with hockey players.”
“One could say the same about you.” Kelty squeezed her shoulders and opened the back door to grab Penny's backpack. “Come on, let's go inside.”
She and Kelty talked for an hour while Kelty cleaned up dinner. Sean was home, but either he was working on something or was wisely hiding out somewhere in the house far from any potential drama.
Kelty's niece was out for the night, so Penny was at least able to use her bathroom to take a shower. By the time Penny had braided her hair and put on pajamas, Kelty had wrapped sheets over the couch cushions and brought out a pillow and quilt.
Penny thought about texting Brett every second until she finally turned out the light and closed her eyes. What would she say? Even talking things through with Kelty hadn't made her emotions any less convoluted.
She loved him,and. . .
This was still something she needed to do. Brett, as much as he tried, didn't understand that. But the ache in her chest didn't come from her feeling unfairly judged. It came because she knew that he was hurtingjust like this. Her choosing to leave had punched a hole in his heart too, that's what he was trying to tell her on the treatment table.
