Page 8 of The Clover Chapel (Jamison Valley 2)
“I finished getting my teaching degree at NYU last spring and decided I needed a change of pace. After I started looking for jobs, I stumbled across Prescott’s ad for a kindergarten teacher and I just went for it. I mean, what’s a bigger change of pace than moving from Manhattan to small-town Montana?”
“I thought my move from Spokane was a big one,” she said. “Well, I guess, welcome! If you need anything, feel free to call us. The local sheriff is great at moving boxes.” She winked and patted Jess’s arm.
“Thanks.” I added a mental tick to the tally in my head. In one day, seventeen different people had welcomed me to Prescott and offered their help with whatever I needed.
And with every offer, my doubts about the decision to leave my former life behind were disappearing. At thirty-one years old, I had started over. It was a huge risk but one I was glad to have taken.
I didn’t know if I’d stay in Prescott for more than this year, but for right now, it was the perfect place for me.
“Hi, darling,” I said into my phone as I drove home in my cherry-red Jeep.
“Hi,” Logan said. “How was your first day?”
“So good. I can’t stop smiling. The kids were all great. My lesson plan worked perfectly and they all stayed engaged for that math exercise I was worried about. It couldn’t have gone better.”
“I
’m glad, sweetheart,” he said, “though I was secretly hoping it would be horrible and you’d come home to me.”
I took a long, deep breath. “You know why I had to do this, Logan. It isn’t forever.”
“I know,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean I like the fact that my girlfriend lives across the country.”
“We talked about this,” I reminded him. “You said you understood why I needed to make this change.”
Logan had promised that he supported my decision to take a year away from New York. He knew that the city I’d once loved had started to suffocate me, that I’d felt exposed and constantly under a microscope of public scrutiny. Escaping the city had seemed like my only option.
“I just miss you,” Logan said. “I hate that you’re out there on your own and I’m here. Just promise me after this school year you’ll consider coming home?”
“I promise.”
“What are you doing tonight?” he asked.
“Reviewing my lesson plan for tomorrow. I want to be prepared in case things don’t go as well as they did today. Then I’m going to keep unpacking. What about you?”
“I’m still at the office. I need to put in a few more hours on the civil suit we’re filing next week against that pharmaceutical company.”
Logan had just gotten a promotion at his law firm, and this lawsuit would be his first as a managing partner. His career was at a pivotal point and I understood why he couldn’t step away to head out West to try a simpler lifestyle.
And even though Logan had been supportive of his live-in girlfriend leaving for Montana, I suspected he thought my relocation was just a whim and I’d change my mind soon and come back. But he didn’t realize how miserable I had been. How lonely and sad. He worked so much between his job at the law firm and his family’s foundation. We rarely had time to spend with one another outside of social functions, sex and sleep.
I was hoping our long-distance relationship would actually bring us closer. That even if it was over the phone, we’d find the time to connect that we hadn’t in the city. I wanted to get back to the place we had been at the beginning, desperate to soak up as much time together as we could squeeze in. To spend long nights talking about anything and everything.
“Do you want to call me when you get home?” I asked hopefully.
“It’ll be late,” he said.
“I’m two hours earlier than you are. I’ll be awake. You could tell me good night. We could talk for a while. Catch up.”
“Uh, maybe, but don’t wait up.” Papers shuffled in the background. “I might put in a long night and crash here on the couch.”
“I’m worried about you.” He sounded stressed and exhausted. “Don’t use my leaving as a reason to work yourself into the ground.”
“What the fuck else am I supposed to do, Emmeline? You left.”
“Logan, don’t,” I whispered.
“Sorry. I’m going to let you go.”
