Three Reckless Words: Chapter 23

I didn’t think it was possible for a human being to cry so much.

Aside from blood, which remains in my veins, I never knew I had this much fluid to lose. Scalding tears leak from my eyes. My nose runs in an ugly stream that no amount of tissues seems to help.

I guess when they say the body is like fifty percent water, they aren’t kidding.

But when I fled my own wedding, I didn’t cry half this much. When I left my entire life behind for the unknown, I just had the occasional weepy fit.

It wasn’t this.

And this is a full-blown Winnie meltdown.

Disgusting and wet and body-shaking. Shuddering breaths, breathy sobs, red cheeks, the works.

It makes it harder to see to pack my stuff, but I’m working on it.

Archer went to another meeting, I assume, probably stomping through the mess I left him in. I need to take advantage of the opportunity to get the hell out of here and save face while I still have a chance.

Before he comes back and one look at his gorgeous face makes me crumble and want to stay.

Before I talk myself into ignoring how much my very presence hurts him.

God, it’s so weird breaking up with a man you were never really with, but who still means the world to you.

Archer can say whatever he likes, but when he told me I should just shut up and trust him, everything snapped into place.

It’s not right.

And I don’t mean he isn’t right for me when he’s perfect, possessive, and kinder than anyone I’ve ever known.

But this situation…

No matter how magical it feels with him, I can’t ignore the risk that I’m costing his company millions and running it straight into the ground. That’s not just him at risk or even his brothers, but everyone they employ, not to mention the customers who enjoy such beautiful places.

All because he stepped in to play hero and Dad’s ego couldn’t handle it.

I hate this.

I toss an empty box of tissues to the side and frantically dab at my eyes. Crying this much shouldn’t be possible.

I should be a shriveled husk right now, drained of all moisture.

But somehow the tears keep coming, the eyeball equivalent of dry heaves.

At least fitting all my stuff into my bags goes faster than I thought. I leave the new clothes he insisted on buying me last week hanging in the closet.

It’s not too late to return them, and I’m not going to make him waste another penny.

I even leave the shirt I’ve been sleeping in, torn between throwing it in the washer or abandoning it. I can’t waste too much time.

Also, it still smells faintly like him. In a moment of weakness, I press it to my face and inhale him.

Yeah, leaving a man I’m totally wrong for shouldn’t hurt this much.

He even made it perfectly clear we weren’t ever together, didn’t he?

Not really.

But then there was that whole conversation in the woods, where he said without really saying it that we might have a chance.

There was also a heap of drama with his ex and stuff with Colt and it was—it was nice while it lasted.

Now, it’s over.

Someday, I hope I can look back on my time with Archer Rory as an innocent mistake, a ‘loved and lost’ that was never meant to be. He was everything I needed in my darkest hour, and everything I had to let go before I plunged him into night.

I throw the shirt in the hamper—no one should touch that again until it’s clean after my snotty face was on it—and then I haul my stuff downstairs.

I march out to my vehicle and stuff the trunk full.

Then it’s back to the kitchen for the finishing touch.

A goodbye note to Archer.

I can’t ghost without saying something.

I scribble fast, hoping he can read my handwriting. I keep it short and simple because I don’t have time and my heart can’t bear a whole essay on why I’m leaving or the thousand and one ways it guts me.

Dear Archer,

This summer with you and Colt has been wonderful, the best weeks of my life. No lie.

But I think we know it’s reaching its expiration. I don’t want to ruin your life more than I already have, so I’m taking myself out of the equation.

I wish you and Colt the happiest days ahead. Please move on, please don’t wait for me, and please remember how to smile. You look so good when you do.

-Winnie

Okay.

Okay, so there might be a few telltale drips that I smear away and smudge the writing slightly, but it’s good enough, right?

I need to get out of here so I can hash out a real escape plan to my future. But before I can make a long drive anywhere, I need to clear my head, and the woods are calling with fresh air and pretty birds and shining stars.

After this last heart-ripping day, I desperately need some time alone with nature.

I leave the note on the counter and turn to leave—only to have my heart fly up my throat when I see who’s there.

Colt, standing in front of me.

He’s holding something out to me. I have to blink several times to see what it is.

Something wooden? A carving?

“You’re crying,” he says in the petrified tone of a boy who doesn’t deal with crying adult women very often.

I sniff, wiping my eyes with my sleeve.

“Um, I—it’s nothing. What’s that?” I croak.

“A bee,” he tells me, setting it gently on the console table in the hall so I can pick it up for a better look. “I’ve been working on it for a few weeks.” His face screws up. “Technically, Dad still has me grounded and limits my time with the TV and phone, so…”

He shrugs so nonchalantly and pushes his glasses up his nose.

I can’t help it, I laugh.

This is pure Colt.

Just like his father, he’s a giant sweetheart pretending he isn’t.

The bee is fantastic, of course. Sanded smooth where it counts and detailed with tiny lines in its wings. Even the eyes are crazy realistic.

“This is fricking amazing,” I say roughly. “Thank you, Colt. Can I give you a hug?”

“Yeah.” He submits to my manic hug, and I squeeze him tight because I’m going to miss him, too.

I’ll mourn the crazy family dynamic in this house and this sweet, shy boy for a long time.

When he pulls back, his eyes flash with worry.

“What happened? Are you leaving?” he asks. “Do you want me to call Dad? I can get him in here ASAP.”

No!

Panicked, I hold up my hand, forcing a smile.

“No, don’t worry. It’s… it’s an adult thing,” I say, shaking my head. “Your dad and I had a disagreement. We just… we need some time to sort things out.”

“Oh. Oh, shit.” The dramatic way he says it sounds almost comical, especially when he folds his arms and rolls his eyes. “Winnie, what dumbass thing did he pull on you?”

My smile breaks, but I do my best to hold it.

“No, Colt. It’s my fault, actually. That’s the problem. He’s been trying to help me out because he’s a great guy, but I’m here causing a lot of issues, and I can’t keep getting in his hair. So, yeah, I’m going to head out for a bit.”

He cocks his head, studying me like he can tell this is goodbye. I suppose he’s old enough to know the truth.

“Where are you going? Not back to the last guy?”

“God, no! I’m not crawling back to my old life, that’s dead and buried. And I have you and Archer to thank for that.”

Instead of saying more, I pull him into another hug.

He’s such a great kid.

My eyes mist over again and I squeeze them shut, counting to ten until I think I’ve got myself about under control.

“Bye now. Take care of your dad,” I manage, turning my back and hurrying out the door before another look from his sad blue eyes changes my mind.

Well, crap.

Despite loving nature a ton, Mother Nature doesn’t always love me back. She’s kinda demanding and one-sided like that.

I’ve been comfy enough camping in the Ozarks and a few other parks, but it turns out that those places you go where people strike windproof tents and where you always have fluffy beds and full canteens and endless instant foods—that isn’t real camping.

At least, not the sort of camping I’ve gone for this time.

I bought all the equipment secondhand off a guy on Facebook Marketplace before I realized not only am I not the best person to be doing this—aka, a total clueless idiot—but this isn’t remotely easy on your own.

I picked the forest near Solitude because it felt appropriate, the other side that must be a few miles from the cabin.

I couldn’t set off from the property itself. That would have hurt too much.

Instead, I picked a parking lot farther up the road and headed for the trail winding into the woods.

I’ll only spend a night or two here, I decide. Just a nice healing breather, surrounded by pretty trees, then it’s back to real life.

At some point, I’ll call Lyssie to help plot my next move, and try to line up a rental car before I blast off from Kansas City.

It’s funny how walking makes time melt away.

I hike along until my sneakers rub and my legs feel like rubber and my shoulders are killing me from the hefty backpack I brought along. I leave my car behind because I’m sure Dad will have it repossessed soon enough.

It’s only as the sun sets and soaring trees start casting shadows on every good camping spot that I stop and realize I have no earthly clue how to set up this tent.

Or make a fire without a portable burner.

Or do… anything.

Brilliant, Winnie.

In the end, after panicking for a hot minute, I just toss my sleeping bag on a bare spot of ground, tent abandoned, and dig into cold chili from a can.

Yes, it’s as gross as it sounds.

To settle my stomach, I flop back to watch the night sky, so obscured by those big crisscrossing branches overhead that I can only make out the occasional star.

In another life, it might be peaceful, but my legs ache like mad from a few hours of hiking over rugged ground.

My heart lurches at every single noise—and there are a lot of them tonight.

This is a forest, after all. I should’ve realized how spooky and busy forests get at night. Every second, another bush rustles or some animal calls out.

I have to bite back a scream.

It’s dark and cold and I’m exposed.

I have to do serious convincing to reassure myself there’s not a murdery axeman with a pyramid for a head threatening to kill me, or even a bunch of dumb teenagers with fireworks. No rabid foxes or werewolves around these parts, no sir.

But there could be a bear…

Black bears still roam around some parts of Missouri, and I think they get really hungry in late summer before they bulk up for winter hibernation. They’re pretty rare around Kansas City, I think, but sometimes a straggler with a growling belly strays this far north.

Jesus, I don’t know.

I never learned much about bears, and now that I’m here on their turf, it feels like an oversight. Wasn’t there something about standing still if one approaches? Or are you supposed to run? I can’t remember.

God, everything here is so loud.

The many eerie noises aren’t helping me think.

Even if I could sleep, I’d still be pissed at the noise. It’s insects mostly, although sometimes I hear a muffled grunt or a twig snapping from something that totally can’t be a bear.

If I hear an earsplitting howl, I’m out.

So I dig into my sleeping bag, feeling every bump and stone under me.

If I’m honest with myself, the worst part of this whole situation is the fact that I walked away from Archer in the blink of an eye.

Yes, he started it.

But I couldn’t stand to hurt him a second longer.

What else is logical when you tell someone you’re not right together—and you know it’s the terrible truth.

It wasn’t about trust.

If he couldn’t see it was unreasonable, wanting me to keep my nose out of my own business, then yeah, it wasn’t right.

Just like it wasn’t right to let my stupid, belligerent father come trampling mud all over his life, his family.

Removing myself like a plague rat made sense. I’m bad luck.

But damn does it hurt.

About as bad as I feel right now with fresh brush scratches, pulverized muscle, and feet turning into swollen bricks.

Leaving Holden didn’t feel half this awful.

I just felt like I had to get away before he could rope me back into a marriage I never wanted. I was scared he would chase me down and force me into the life I didn’t choose.

Now, a tiny part of myself wants Archer to come and force me back into the life I can’t have.

I must be insane.

But even though I can see him and Colt every time I close my eyes, I know it’s not wise. I’ve lost the right to beg for Archer Rory to come charging to my rescue again.

He couldn’t find me if he wanted to.

I don’t think I could find myself on a map.

Just in case, I roll over and find my phone, plugging it into the portable battery that the guy on Facebook Marketplace assured me was working perfectly.

Guess what?

My phone charges less than five percent before the battery sputters out. Then nothing charges at all.

This is fine.

I’ll just head back into civilization tomorrow and pretend this never happened. I’ll get back in my car, try to pawn this stuff for gas money, and go straight to Lyssie.

She’ll gladly take me in.

I’ll sob all over her and we’ll eat ice cream, and then she’ll beat me over the head with a pair of reindeer socks—she wears them year-round—until she forgives me.

A few glorious months from now, it’ll be like none of this ever happened.

I can regroup for a few days in Springfield, laying low, and run away with a better plan.

If only those cicadas or whatever they are weren’t so loud, I might actually be able to get some sleep. I duck under the hood of my sleeping bag, which has the added benefit of making sure said bugs don’t crawl all over my face.

I’m lying on the tent, but still. They can crawl.

And I’m still willing my brain to shut out the creepy crawlies when this weird moaning sound comes from my left.

I bolt up.

Okay, Mother Nature.

Not cool.

We are about to have some serious words, because this is not what I signed up for when I went on this stupid camping disaster without thinking it through.

The next moan comes closer.

I fling myself back in my sleeping bag, finding my shoes and putting them on. That’s it—I’m heading to the RV park I saw a little ways from here. At least over there, I’ll find people around.

Light and familiar noise.

A little community where I won’t just magically disappear alone.

It takes me way too long to stuff the tent and its doohickeys back into this oversized bag. Then I’m on my way in the dark, my phone in my pocket and the light from the moon guiding the way.

Or rather, not guiding the way.

As time ticks by and I clamber over rocks and fallen branches and twigs reach out to scratch my face, I’m coming to the worst conclusion possible. A perfectly rotten close to this disaster of a day.

I am lost.

Totally and utterly.

I wander around for about an hour before giving up and checking my phone to see if I can call emergency services—only to see my phone has ten percent left on its battery. And the service bars look weak, fading in and out as it tries to find a tower.

Holy shit.

I don’t think it’s even going to hold out to call anyone, so I send a quick Snap to Lyssie, taking a picture of the dark and captioning it, Guess where I am! If you find out, please tell me because I have no clue.

There.

Not too panicked.

Nothing embarrassing.

I don’t want to worry her, but also, I am freaking out.

The only thing I can do is press on, though.

Only now I’m facing a different, scarier problem than the one I tried to flee from.

My stomach knots as I push through the dark, hoping I’m going in the right direction, desperately looking and listening for any sign of the RV people.