Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Rosie

E piphany by way of water bottle and subsequent black eye is not the way I recommend going.

Nevertheless, I suppose one doesn’t get to choose such defining moments in their lives, do they? At least I didn’t. But suffice it to say, when I came to, surrounded by store employees and a few shoppers who’d cared enough to stop to check on me—or in one notable case to film me—I finally understood that I really did need to change my life.

And just in case I wasn’t fully getting the message from the universe? Well, the video of me taking a water bottle to the eye had gone viral. Much to John’s and Jessica’s delight.

For differing reasons .

“Babe, the store is getting so much attention for this,” John said, gleefully scrolling the comments on the video while I nursed an ice pack on my eye. No concussion, thankfully, but I’d still gone and gotten checked out at the hospital. Davidson’s Discount didn’t have stellar health insurance, but they also weren’t the least bit interested in a worker’s compensation lawsuit, so John’s dad had popped me in the car and taken me himself. Only when the day was over did I hear from John, when he’d shown up at my apartment an hour after Jessica had arrived.

Empty-handed, unlike my best friend. Zero text messages, unlike my best friend.

Jessica, being who she was, had arrived with ice cream, popcorn, and the promise of a Lord of the Rings marathon as needed. John had barely looked up from his phone since he’d walked in the door, dropping an absentminded kiss on my forehead as he passed me and pulled a beer from the fridge.

I caught Jessica’s glare from my one good eye.

“ Break up with him .” She mouthed this to me, while his back was turned.

It was a familiar refrain, one I’d largely ignored because breaking up with him would also mean breaking up with my job, and despite hating working at the store, I enjoyed having money to pay my bills. Just a small catch-22 there.

I pressed my lips together. Every other time Jessica had insisted I break up with John, I had pushed her off, not ready to make that call. But today? Well, let’s just say, as phones pinged with more incoming notifications about the viral video of me going down, I didn’t want to play nice anymore.

I hated working at that store.

And John was a distraction at best.

I’d been treading water in my life for too long.

“John?”

John looked up from his phone. He was an average-looking man, nearing his thirtieth birthday, with the beginnings of a slight paunch. A beige boyfriend for bland Rose Withers. Suddenly I wished desperately for the courage that my romance heroines had in their fantasy books.

“Yup, what’s up?”

“Don’t you want to know if I’m okay?”

“I already know. Dad said you were fine.”

“She’s got a black eye the size of my hand forming,” Jessica said, lifting her chin at him. “That is not okay.”

“I mean, I know it’s not great. But it’s just a bruise, isn’t it?” His eyes drifted back down to his phone, and he grinned.

Jessica turned back to me, widening her eyes.

“You didn’t bring me anything.” I enunciated clearly and raised my volume, just to make sure he heard me.

John looked back up, squinting for a second as he thought about my words.

“Um, you didn’t ask me to, did you? Maybe I missed a text. My phone’s been blowing up.”

“No, just like, something thoughtful. Because I was hurt today. It was traumatic, John. I was knocked unconscious, John .” I emphasized his name to keep him focused on me and not returning to his phone.

“Yeah, but you’re fine. Stop making this a bigger deal than it is.” John rolled his eyes as though I was as hysterical as the mob that had fought in his store earlier that day. I pressed my lips together and took a deep breath through my nose for courage. This was now unavoidable.

“Please leave.”

“Okay.” John shrugged one shoulder, still scrolling his phone. “If that’s what you want.”

“And don’t ever come back,” I clarified, finally catching his attention.

“You’re breaking up with me?” This time when he looked up, confusion crossed his face. It was the same look he’d given me when we’d run into each other at Trader Joe’s reaching for tiny bags of dark chocolate peanut butter cups. I’d thought it was a fun meet-cute. Turns out that was the most fun we’d ever really had in our relationship. John was obsessed with watching and betting on sports—all sports—and I didn’t know a rugby ball from a golf stick. Or club. Whatever they were called.

We’d fallen together more so out of casual interest and then the pattern of hanging out had just stuck. At least we hadn’t progressed to moving in together. I’d kept my little apartment that I’d had since I’d graduated university six years ago, with a degree in literature and creative fiction and no clue how to use it. The timing had been crap, per usual in my life, as we’d hit a recession and there wasn’t much work for a nerdy Lit grad whose people skills extended to asking new acquaintances if they dog-eared the pages of their books or used bookmarks. What? That said a lot about a person, in my opinion.

“I am.”

“What? Why?”

“Because you’re an insensitive prick who has never been the type of partner that a beautiful and smart woman like Rosie deserves. From day one you’ve ignored every one of her needs, putting yourself first over and over, and finally, she’s seeing the light. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.”

“Oh sure, you’ll listen to her, over me?” John finally showed an ounce of annoyance, pointing at Jessica. The two had never gotten on well, with Jessica hating how little attention he paid me, and John bothered with how much of my time I gave to Jessica. But when it was a toss-up between blindly watching sports or hanging with my best friend, Jessica usually won out. I suppose that should have told me what I needed to know, but I’d just reassured myself it was okay to have different hobbies than my boyfriend. It was fine until it wasn’t, which had happened long ago. Again, I’d just sort of molded myself into this pattern to the point I didn’t really recognize who I was anymore.

Getting smacked in the face with a forty-ounce aluminum water bottle had a way of waking one up to the faults in their life, I guess.

“Please leave. ”

“You know you’ll be out of a job, right? My parents will never keep you on if we’re broken up.”

“Even better.” Jessica, my knight in shining armor. “She’s too smart for that job anyway. Now get out before I make you get out.”

John stormed from the apartment, the door slamming on its hinges, and I blew out a breath, my eyes still closed. He hadn’t even put up a fight. What did that even say about our relationship? Taking a deep breath, I took inventory of my emotions to see if this was really going to shake my world or not.

“Rosie? You okay?”

“Yeah, I am. I really am. I should have done that a long time ago.”

“As I’ve been telling you.” Jessica was positively cheerful at this point. Clapping her hands, she stood. “Out of all your bland boyfriends, he has to have been the worst. I think you’re regressing.”

“Bland is safe.”

“Bland is boring.” Jessica put her hands on her hips and glowered down at me. “When are you going to give love a chance? Real, honest, earth-shaking love? Because you just broke up with a boyfriend and barely batted an eye as he left the building. I don’t even see a sheen of tears there.”

I squinched up my face and tried to pretend I was sad.

“Don’t even try.” Jessica pointed a finger at me. “You need to get over your hang-ups about love. The right man is going to make you revise your opinion. ”

“Love is for my romance novels, Jess. Not for me.”

“You can’t keep letting your mother’s choices determine your path.”

“Hardly,” I scoffed, grabbing a throw pillow to hug at my chest. My mother was flighty, irresponsible, and fell in love with someone new every week. I’d had a revolving door of stepfathers before I could even crawl. “Maybe I’m just waiting for my knight in shining armor.”

“Well, you’re sure as hell not finding him at Davidson’s Discount Store. Now, do you think you can have a drink? This calls for a celebration, and I brought G&Ts.”

“I don’t have a concussion and I don’t have to work tomorrow, so I don’t see why not.”

“Even better. I’ll get glasses. I brought supplies with me just in case you needed it, unlike your dumbass ex-boyfriend. God, I love saying that. Ex-boyfriend. Finally! Oh, by the way, I brought your mail because there was an envelope too big to fit in your mailbox. What did you order from Scotland?”

“Scotland?” I sat up from where I’d reclined on the couch and gingerly took the ice pack off my eye. “Nothing that I know of.”

“There’s an important looking mailer from Scotland with your name on it.”

“No kidding?” I pursed my lips, thinking. “My mother’s side has some family in Scotland, if I remember correctly. But otherwise, not much that I can think of.”

“One way to find out.” Jessica plopped on the couch next to me, wincing as she looked at my face. “I’m going to suggest you don’t go out in public for a while. ”

“That bad?” I sighed.

“I mean, it’s not great. We can try some makeup on it tomorrow.” She handed me an icy gin and tonic and then bent over to pick up the envelope off the coffee table. Depositing it on my lap, she clinked her glass against mine.

“What are we celebrating? Me losing my job or me getting a gigantic black eye?” I touched it gently, wincing at the pain that ran down my face.

“To new beginnings.”

“I’ll take it. To new beginnings.” I took a sip of the cocktail before handing it back to her and lifting the envelope. “Hmm. Hefty. I wonder what this is.”

“One way to find out.”

I ripped the top off the envelope and slid a thick stack of papers out that looked a lot like a contract. Squinting, I tried to make sense of the words.

“Here, you read it. It’s hard to focus with just one eye. I think this is from a solicitor.”

“Ohhh, the plot thickens.” Jessica grabbed the papers and began to read out loud.

“‘Dear Ms. Withers?—’”

“Oh jeez, that sounds so formal.”

“‘We are writing today to inform you of an inheritance.’”

Jessica and I both squealed.

“A what?” I gasped.

“Your great-aunt Moira MacDouglas has left you her bookshop in Kingsbarns, along with a yearly stipend to operate it. To claim your inheritance in full, and to have the property transferred to your name, you’ll need to run the bookshop for one full year of operations. Please contact me after you have reviewed the enclosed contracts and advise on your decision regarding this inheritance. Should you choose to not accept it, we’ll move on to next of kin.”

“Holy shit,” I breathed, dropping my head back on the couch, my heart pounding in my chest.

A year in Scotland.

A year running a bookshop in Scotland.

It was like, all of my dreams come true. At once.

“Say you’ll do it.” Jessica was bouncing on the couch, clutching the papers in her hands.

“But what about my apartment … you … all this?”

“You’re month-to-month on the lease here. And let’s be honest, it’s not a great apartment.”

I looked around at my shoebox apartment. No matter how many paintings I hung on the walls or rugs I threw on the floors, it was threadbare at best. I’d only stayed because the rent was cheap, and I wasn’t the best at change.

“It’s not, I know. But it’s all mine.” After sharing an off-campus house with chaotic co-eds at university, this apartment had become my sanctuary in the first year after I’d graduated. Never once did I come home to random men in the kitchen or the remnants of an all-night rager all over the house or in the bathroom. Maybe, at some point in the last few years, it had also become my hidey-hole from social activities .

“And I’ll come visit. You know I’m killer at finding travel deals.”

It was true, too. Jessica was one of those that lived A Big Life on social media, constantly jetting off to exotic locales. I’d joined her once, on a trip to Mexico, and I had to admit—we’d had a blast. But then my student loan payments had kicked in and the discount store didn’t exactly pay top dollar to their employees, let alone a healthy vacation package. I’d been stuck here for the last two years with no fancy umbrellas in my cocktails.

Now, it seemed it was finally my turn.

“I want to do it.” I rushed the words out before I could change my mind or make a list of a thousand reasons why this might be a bad idea.

“Yes!” Jessica pumped her fist in the air. “Finally. Go live your life, Rosie. Seriously. This is so absolutely perfect. It’s like you made room in your life for a new opportunity by kicking John out and, boom, here it is. I love how the universe works sometimes.”

I didn’t roll my eyes, because I was used to Jessica’s woo-woo stuff, but I was far too pragmatic to think that this had all happened on the same day for a reason. If life worked that way, I would have signed with a literary agent the moment I graduated university and published a bestselling book by now.

“Scotland.” I picked up my glass and drank deeply, excitement fizzing inside me like the sparkles in gin and tonic.

“It’s going to be amazing. Life-changing. I can see it now. You might even meet a man in a kilt.”

I craned my head to look at Jessica.

“Why would I meet a man in a kilt?”

“Because statistically speaking you’re more likely to meet a man in a kilt in Scotland than anywhere else.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like they run around in them every day. Do they?” I wrinkled my nose as I thought about it. I truly had no clue the kilt-to-man ratio in Scotland, let alone the day-to-day occurrence of wearing said traditional garments.

“We can only hope. You can pick yourself up a Scottish McHottie and run your own bookstore.”

“I’m not picking up any hottie.” I pointed my finger at her. “My judgment can’t be trusted.”

Jessica pursed her lips as she thought about it.

“Granted your past doesn’t speak highly of your decision-making abilities when it comes to romantic partners.”

“John wasn’t as horrible as you made him out to be.”

“John was tepid on a good day. He’d never even read Tolkien or watched Game of Thrones . I wonder what you two even had to talk about?”

“I did get him to watch Schitt’s Creek with me.”

“Hmm, I’ll give him half a point for that.”

“But then he said he didn’t like how Moira spoke.” Remembering that comment now, I realized I should have broken up with him on the spot. Jessica gasped, holding a hand to her chest, offended.

“How dare he. Moira Rose, nae, Catherine O’Hara is a national treasure.”

“I know. I think that was the beginning of the end.” And that was week eight of a two-year relationship. Good God. I took another sip of my cocktail and held the cold glass against my throbbing eye.

“Also, your aunt’s name was Moira too. I mean…could this be even more perfect? Ugh, just think of all the hotties. I want you to be bathing in men.”

“That sounds awkward at best. I can barely fit in a bathtub, let alone adding copious amounts of men to the equation.” It was true too. Blessed with a body that fashion magazines liked to call “curvy” when they really meant fat, bathtubs and I were not usually on speaking terms. I preferred it when the hot water actually covered my knees and breasts.

“We’ll just make you a list. Like a dos and don’ts list for picking men. Or a wish list of sorts.”

“Damn it, Jess. You know I love a good list.” They were so neat and orderly, and I always got a little dopamine hit when I crossed an item off.

“That I do.” Jessica squealed and jumped up from the couch. “I’ll get paper and pens.”

I closed my one good eye and sighed, letting her have her fun. It was how she would handle me leaving the country, if she felt like she had some sense of control over my future. And knowing me, this would be the first of about seventy lists I’d likely make before my departure arrived. A soft thrill of anticipation worked through me.

My departure.

I was going to do this.

It was time for me to live My Big Life.