Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 97079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
“Come on.” He claps me on the shoulder. “Let’s go home.”
We say good night to the staff and head out into the balmy August night.
“All right, buddy,” Flip says once we’re on the road. “You have to spit it out. You’ve got all the feelings, and you’re holding everything inside. It’s eating you alive and making you miserable.”
I cross my arms. “You waited until we’re in the car and I can’t escape to start pushing, huh?”
“I know how much your mom leaving fucked Tristan up, and I’m pretty sure it fucked up you and Brody just as much, so let’s get your cards on the table so you can start figuring your shit out.”
“How am I supposed to have faith in love when one of the people who was supposed to love me unconditionally fucking bailed? All we got was a fucking Christmas card addressed to the three of us, sent to my fucking dad’s house since I was a kid. And then she tries to come back into our lives after more than a decade and a half? What am I supposed to do with that?”
“Well, right now you’re angry. How do you want to feel about it?” Flip asks.
“I don’t want to care. I don’t want it to hurt, but it fucking does. It hurts all the damn time. And then I think I have relationships figured out with Lisa, and she cheats on me with some guy who’s more emotionally available! Nothing lasts!”
“Some things last,” he argues. “Look at my parents. Look at Essie’s parents.”
“Nothing lasts for me. I told Essie I was falling for her, and she told me I wasn’t, that I couldn’t be.” I don’t tell Flip the rest of that story. About how I was already reeling because of my mother. Or that I kept defaulting to sex with Essie so I wouldn’t have to deal with the fucking feelings.
“Is she right?” Flip asks.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. This hurts way more than it did when Lisa and I ended. My heart feels like it’s been put in a meat grinder. My chest physically aches.”
“Is this how you want to live for the rest of your life?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“Look, man, I know this stuff is hard, but if you don’t want to keep running into the same wall, you have to deal with it. It won’t get better if you don’t.”
“You mean therapy.”
“Yeah, I mean therapy.”
“It’s gonna suck.”
“At first, yeah. But don’t you think you deserve a better life, where the wounds your mom left behind aren’t constantly bleeding?”
I rub my bottom lip. “I didn’t really think about it that way.”
“Essie’s a great person. She deserves someone who can give her the fairy tale she’s always dreamed about. You can be that guy, Nate, but you have to do the work. Show her she’s worth it.”
“What if I do the work and she still doesn’t want me?”
“Wouldn’t you rather try and know for sure than spend the rest of your life wondering what could have been?”
CHAPTER 37
ESSIE
“Oh my gosh, your hair!” Dred exclaims.
“Is it too drastic? It’s too drastic, isn’t it?” I run my fingers through it self-consciously.
“No. I love the pink streaks. It’s very you.” She glances at the box sitting close to the door. “What’s going on here? And what the heck are you eating?”
Dred and I are going to the Watering Hole to grab a bite to eat. We’ve been home from Aruba for two weeks, and I’ve completed my Breakup Checklist. I watched all my favorite princess movies, took out my aggression and sadness on my dartboard, got a magic wand tattoo on my hip, and scrapbooked the heck out of the wedding photos I took. It’s time to move forward.
“It’s homemade chocolate icing.” Another item from my Breakup Checklist.
“And you’re eating it straight up?”
“Yup, while I watched all my favorite princess movies.” I use the spoon to point to the box. “And I cleaned out my lingerie drawer. Everything that I wore for Nate had to go.”
She nods slowly. “You guys had a lot of sex, huh?”
“We did.” I wish I’d been able to keep my heart out of it, but I’ve never been very good at that. I set the icing on the counter and grab my purse.
“You talk to him at all?” Dred asks as we step out into the hall.
I shake my head and make sure my apartment door is locked before we walk to the elevators. “He needs to figure himself out, and I need to give him the space to do that, even though it hurts.” The elevator arrives, and we climb aboard. It’s empty apart from us.
“Flip took him to retirement-village bingo the other night,” Dred notes.
I laugh at the prospect of grumpy, gorgeous Nate surrounded by grandmas. And then I almost burst into tears.