“I know you didn’t think anyone could hear you, but that isn’t the point. The point is, you think everyone is pretending to be something they aren’t after all that crap Chris pulled on you. You’re making everyone suffer for it.”

Chris was the ex-boyfriend I was so sure I was going to spend forever with. He was the ex-boyfriend I had blissfully planned a future with and dreamily envisioned having children with. He was the ex-boyfriend I let in when I kept everyone else out because I thought he was perfect, and, more importantly, I thought we were absolutely perfect together. It was so easy to be together, effortless, uncomplicated. He was the ex-boyfriend who was everything I ever wanted, and he was the ex-boyfriend who had lied about everything.

He lied about what he did for a living. He lied about his past and his future. He lied to me about who he was and who I was to him. He lied, and he lied, and he lied some more, and when I called him out on his endless untruths, he made me feel like I asked for the dishonesty. He told me I made it easy for him to lie because I never asked him for the truth. He told me that I ignored all the obvious signs that I was being duped. This galled because I had turned a blind eye when things didn’t exactly add up because it was easier for me than digging in and risking more than I already had.

I’d broken up with Chris over three months ago. I was still licking my wounds because I couldn’t believe that I had been so stupid to fall for someone so fake, so phony. The end of the relationship was responsible for my current level of self-loathing and for my general misanthropy. His lies and my gullibility left me spinning and feeling like I could no longer trust my judgment or my decision-making skills. I was always so careful, so cautious, but Chris had broken through my defenses and now I felt foolish and scorned. As a result, I built my walls back up and made them so high and impenetrable, not even my best friend could climb over them.

The only person in my life who wasn’t my family, who I trusted without question, was the woman standing across from me. I hated that I had let her down repeatedly over the last few months. During my relationship, I had ignored her time and time again when she warned me that things with Chris didn’t add up. She told me over and over I should have seen where he lived, met his friends, been introduced to his family, considering we had dated for over six months. I let her down after the breakup, when I retreated into myself while I licked my wounds. I pretended that the last half of a year hadn’t completely destroyed my self-esteem. I wasn’t the girl who ever went out on a limb, and the one time I did, the branch snapped underneath me. Emrys deserved a better friend, because even when I’d been caught up in my own bullshit issues, she had never wavered.

I reached out my hands and put them on her shoulders. I had to look up at her to meet her eyes, but I did so sincerely. “We are going to have a great week together. I promise, no distractions. I will put a sock in it when it comes to the guys being not quite cowboys. I’ll lighten up and enjoy all this disgustingly clean, unpolluted air and unspoiled serenity. I’ll even try and smooth things over with Mr. Personality if it will make you happy, okay?”

She shook her head but a reluctant grin pulled at her mouth, a mouth that didn’t need lipstick or liner to make it look like a perfectly painted on Cupid’s bow. If she wasn’t my very best friend in the entire world, and I didn’t know how big her heart was and how endlessly giving and kind she was, it would be easy to dislike her for how seemingly easy she made being flawless seem. Luckily, we met long before Chris had turned me into a suspicious asshole who questioned everyone and everything. It would have been the greatest loss in my entire life to have missed out on the friendship Emrys and I had just because she was so intimidatingly faultless.

“I want you to reset and recharge, Leo. I want you to remember that you are the smartest, most capable woman I know. What happened with Chris isn’t what defines you. You got taken for a ride by a charming guy with a pretty face. There are consequences to that, but it isn’t the end of the world. You aren’t the first woman that has happened to. You won’t be the last. I want you to move on, get back to being the woman who has always been my best friend.” She sounded so sad, so frustrated, that it made my belly twist into a tight knot. She shook her head a little bit and gave me a look that made my heart twist painfully in my chest. “Because this woman,” she motioned to me, and I looked down and winced when I saw that she noticed the shirt I was wearing. I should have burned it when I told him I never wanted to see him again. “I’m not a huge fan of her.”

I wasn’t a huge fan either, but wasn’t entirely sure how to make her go away. In fact, I was starting to wonder if she was who I was destined to be from now on. That thought was so depressing, I insisted, “I am moving on.” I let my hands fall from her shoulders as I bent to pick up my bag and move it to one of the tiny twin beds that was set in a charming rustic frame. They had gone all out making the accommodations very ranch-like and I hated to admit that it was really cute and very charming. They did a good job researching what would appeal to their clients, and since that was how I made my living, learning and analyzing what people would spend their money on, I always appreciated it when a business had taken the extra steps to understand their client and their market.

I heard Emrys sigh from behind me. “You would never have discounted those guys as real cowboys before Chris. You would have been too distracted by how amazing their asses look in those jeans to worry about if they were cowboy enough or not.” Sadly, she had a point.