“You don’t mind waiting around here?” Hollis asks.
“My social calendar is packed.” I wink. “Kidding. I’m happy to stay and get your important papers. But I might read them. Just warning you.”
He laughs. “Go right ahead.”
“Call us if you need us,” Larissa says, eyeing Hollis out of the corner of her eye.
“Bye, guys,” I say.
They wave and make their way to the garage. The door closes softly.
“And this is why you don’t date men like Nate,” I tell myself as I stand. “Because it freaking hurts.”
I wander around Hollis’s house, finally feeling comfortable in their space. The decorations are warm and there are pictures everywhere. It’s been helpful to have so many things to look at while I don’t sleep. Or eat. Or answer my phone.
The space I wanted isn’t like I thought it would be. I imagined that I could take some time and think about things and probably talk myself out of falling in love.
I’m good at that. I can make myself believe anything.
Obviously.
But all I’ve done is think about Nate and Ryder and what could’ve been. I’ve been tempted every hour to pick up the phone and call Nate. To tell him I’m sorry for leaving. To tell him I’m scared shitless to marry him but if he wants to marry me, I’d rather do that than live with this hole in my heart for the rest of my life. Because I’m certain there will be no way to fill it with anything or anyone else.
Ugh.
I grab my phone and pointedly don’t look at my texts. There will be messages from Nate and I can’t look at them right now. I need to get my head together first.
It takes a moment to unlock my screen and pull up my favorites list. I press on my mother’s name.
“Hi, baby girl,” she says after the second ring. “How are you? I haven’t heard from you in a couple of days.”
“Oh, I’m fine.”
“What’s the matter?” she asks, her voice losing the cheeriness of a second ago.
I open my mouth to lie to her, to reassure her that I’m fine and change the subject to one of my siblings or her upcoming visit. But I can’t. I need her.
“I think I screwed up, Mom.”
“What happened?”
I groan. “I think Nate was going to ask me to marry him.”
“Already?”
“Exactly.”
“And how do you feel about that?”
I make a face. “That’s it? How do I feel about it? Where is the bear mom that I’m used to?”
“I think the term is mama bear, honey.”
“Whatever. You get the point.”
It sounds like she turns a television off in the background.
“Sweetheart, I am ready and willing to go to bat for you. But only when it’s necessary. You’re able to handle your own business.”
I snort.
“So, am I to assume you don’t want to marry him?”
My heart squeezes so hard I have to move to ease the pain. “Not today.” I stand up again, unable to sit still. “I’d be a horrible wife, Mom. I’d be an awful stepmom. I mean, I love them both but I’m not particularly domestic and, I hate doing laundry and—”
“Paige?”
“What?”
“What’s the real reason?”
I stand next to Hollis’s favorite chair and look at the ceiling.
“You are in the most difficult position you could be in.” She pauses. “Loving someone when you’re scared is terrifying.”
You’re telling me.
“To love someone, you have to open your heart and let light shine on the darkest places,” she says.
“The gun went off. The sound was so loud. Mom screamed again.”
“You have to trust that they have your best interests in mind.”
“I want to know if you like it, if you hate it, or if it hurts. You have to communicate with me.”
“You have to know that they will love you even when they see the worst in you.”
“What else can I do? Just tell me. Don’t do this, Paige.”
The bridge of my nose burns with the rise of my emotions. This hurts so much.
“It takes a lot for someone to be that vulnerable, Paige. No one wants to show someone else their wounds. But that’s what love is and, really, it’s the only way to heal the things that hurt you.”
I clutch my chest, willing the tightness to subside.
“Let me guess—you ran,” she says.
“Yeah,” I say around the lump in my throat.
“Oh, Paige. Honey …”
“I thought that if I left now it would be easier,” I say, my voice muffled by the tears threatening to spill. “Like dropping a class before you just fail it. Why wait it out and have the fail on your transcript forever?”
She chuckles. “You’re going to walk away from someone you obviously care so much about just so you don’t get hurt? But you’re hurt now. So, what you’re really doing is denying yourself the chance to be loved by what I assume is a good man, or else you wouldn’t love him.”