Bridal Boot Camp by Meg Cabot

Author:Meg Cabot
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-05-27T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Four

“What are you doing all the way out here?” he asked.

“Uh.” Long experience had taught me that when in doubt, it was best to go on the defensive. “What are you doing all the way out here? Don’t you have a class to teach?”

“The guys said they saw you leave.” He didn’t stop walking until there was only a foot or so of space between us. Chrissie trotted all the way to the end of the pier and stood looking out to sea, sniffing the salty air, her brown-eyed gaze on the tarpons, her fur blowing gently in the breeze, her pink tongue lolling. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “I just got—I got a little—”

And then, to my utter mortification, and before I could stop them, the tears came, accompanied by big, ridiculous baby sobs. I was standing at the end of the pier, crying, like an idiot. Or a rom-com character.

I’d never been more mortified in my life.

Sheriff’s Deputy Ryan Martinez put both hands on my shoulders and pulled me toward him.

“Hey,” he said, shushing me. “Hey, hey, hey. It’s okay. It’s all good. What’s wrong? What’s the matter? Did someone hurt you?”

“No,” I cried, halfway between a laugh and a sob. “No one hurt me. It’s just . . . it’s just that I hate that stupid song!”

“What song?”

“That stupid rainbow song.”

“Oh, jeez.” He pulled me away from him so he could look down into my weepy face. “I’m sorry. Were we that bad?”

“No,” I said, laughing again, and reaching up to brush away my tears, along with the strands of hair that were now sticking to my face, thanks to the wind and my snot. “I loved your version of it. It’s just that that song—you know it’s not true, right? There’s nowhere over the rainbow. It’s not scientifically possible.”

He hugged me to him, chuckling gently. “Oh, Roberta. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that that’s not what that song is really about? It’s not about a place. It’s about hope . . . having hope that things will get better. That’s what rainbows symbolize. Hope.”

“Oh, please,” I said, fiercely, and pushed him away—fortunately not over the side of the dock, though we both knew I was strong enough to have done so. “Do you even know why I became a trainer, Ryan? Because both my parents—both of them—died of alcoholism before I was twenty. Alcoholism complicated by cancer and diabetes. Neither of them would take care of themselves, no matter what my brothers and I or the doctors said. It was like they didn’t care enough about their own kids to stop their self-destructive behavior before it killed them.”

“That’s really terrible,” Ryan said, his dark eyebrows lowered with distress. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“I had hope,” I insisted. “I had plenty of hope, and it still wasn’t enough.”

“But look at you now,” he said, spreading his hands wide. “You’re taking all that pain you felt and helping so many other people to lead better lives because of it.

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