Page 41 of The Wrong Exit Strategy

“Drink it,” he says, flipping the paper over so my face is no longer staring back at me. “You’ll need it. You’re a local celebrity now.”

I groan, drop my forehead to the table, and whisper into the wood. “I wonder if Opal Creek prison has Wi-Fi.”

Griffin hums. “Maybe they’ll let you enter the tart contest next year.”

“Take this seriously.”

“I am. I’m the mystery man. It’s a good look for me.”

I sip my coffee. “I hate this town.”

“You love this town,” he says.

I look out the window at the fruit stand and the whale mural. “Yeah,” I admit. “I kind of do.”

After a long minute of silence, he blows out a breath. “I’m about to ask you something stupid.”

“I ran out of my own wedding yesterday. Nothing you say competes.”

“How are you feeling?”

I pick at my napkin. “Confused. Numb. Like the tank is dry.” I glance at him. “Every time I think I know what I feel, three other things show up, and I lose the thread.”

He nods. “Did he treat you well, Pipes?”

The question cuts through the noise. I’m out of the gate before I can think. “He’s not a bad person. Ezra is driven, and he has standards, and I’m not saying—” I take a deep breath to steady myself.

Griffin is looking at me with that patient, still expression that says he doesn’t believe a word of my defense.

“In the beginning, yes. He was exactly what I thought I wanted. He had a shape to his life, and I wanted to fit inside it. I wanted something that felt like ground under my feet after… everything.”

“And then you realized the ground was actually a cage?” Griffin asks.

I stare into my coffee like that might have the answers. “I assumed it was my fault. I couldn’t figure out what I’d stopped doing right. I kept trying to adjust the combination of myself tomake him happy. The harder I tried, the less I recognized the woman in the mirror.”

Griffin’s jaw flexes. I see the muscle pulse under his skin.

“I don’t know what I did,” I whisper. “But something changed.”

His voice is tight when he finally speaks. “You didn’t do a goddamn thing.”

My eyes snap to his, but I can’t hold it, so I look away quickly, blinking fast.

Fingers wrap around my chin in a firm grip. He tilts my face back toward his, and I startle a little at the contact.

I stare at him, caught in the intensity of his gaze.

“You didn’t do a goddamn thing,” he repeats. “I knew you before. I watched what was left of you at that rehearsal dinner, and I’m telling you—a person doesn’t lose pieces of themselves on their own.”

My heart slams against my ribs.

I want to tell him he’s wrong.

I want to tell him I haven’t changed. That I’m still the same.

But the truth is… I don’t know if I am.

My eyes sting. He lets go and sits back, picking up his coffee like the whole thing was perfectly ordinary. My chin is warm where his fingers were.