Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Peter
As a data scientist, I have a graduate degree that taught me how to analyze information, look for trends, interpret patterns in data, and make projections about what’s likely to happen next.
Which is why, when all evidence indicates my emotions will not be returned, it makes no logical sense for me to be in love with my best friend.
And yet, here I am. Soaking up every minute of her company. Saying yes every time she wants to see me because I am incapable of telling her no. Throwing logs onto the embers of my affection, hoping that maybe, just maybe, she’ll feel an ounce of the heat and something will spark for her, too.
“Hey,” Sophie says, holding up her iPad. “What do you think of this one?” She’s nestled on the opposite end of my couch, working on sketches while we binge episodes of Ted Lasso .
Sophie has landscape design software she uses for everything she gives to her clients, but when she’s brainstorming, she sketches on her iPad. This particular sketch is of a series of tiered planters moving down a hillside.
If I asked, Sophie could tell me the name of every plant she’s included in the design.
“Looks great,” I say. “I like the taller bushes over on the left side.”
“Yeah? They’re blueberry bushes.” She tucks a springy brown curl behind her ear. “They didn’t explicitly ask for them, but I’m hoping they’ll like the suggestion.”
Her eyes drop back to her iPad, and I take advantage of the opportunity to study her profile. The line of her neck, the mass of curly hair piled on top of her head.
A wave of yearning pushes through me, but I tamp it down just like I always do. I’ve had a lot of practice—though to be fair, it hasn’t always been this bad.
In the almost decade we’ve been friends, I’ve gone long stretches of time when friendship has been enough. I even had a fairly serious girlfriend through most of grad school, though I’m sure that was only possible because I was in Boston, at MIT, and Sophie was across the state at UMass.
Still, she was always in the back of my mind, the standard by which I measured every woman I met. When my girlfriend, Penelope, hinted she was ready for a proposal, I realized with startling clarity that I couldn’t marry her when Sophie still occupied so many of my thoughts.
I’m beginning to think I’ll never meet anyone who measures up, which is admittedly concerning. I’m not an idiot. I know I can’t live like this forever. That at some point, I’m going to have to tell her the truth. Lately, I’ve been feeling the pressure to do it sooner than later.
I just can’t figure out how.
“Oh! I forgot to tell you,” Sophie says. “The author you love—what’s her name? The woman who writes the books bigger than my head?”
“Silvie Wainwright?” I ask.
“Yes! That’s her,” Sophie says. “So I guess she’s coming to Serendipity Springs for a book signing next month. I happened to be walking by the bookstore when they were putting a poster in the front window about ticket sales, and I recognized the book cover…” She pauses and points at the most recent Silvie Wainwright book sitting on my coffee table. “That one! I’m not sure I would have remembered her name otherwise, but that cover is gorgeous, so I knew she was the one you love.”
“They sell the tickets online,” I say. “I tried to get one, but they sold out in seconds.”
“That’s exactly what the bookstore lady told me,” she says. “But then I spent ten minutes explaining how she could revive her fiddle-leaf fig from the brink of death, and she was so grateful for the advice, she gave me her comp tickets to the signing.”
“You’re kidding,” I say.
“Why would I kid about that? They’re VIP tickets and everything, so you get to go to this question-and-answer thing, and you won’t have to wait in a holy long line to get your books signed.”
“Sophie, that’s incredible. And she just gave them to you for free? How did you manage it?”
“It’s not a big deal,” she says easily. “Her plant really needed help. And I guess it wasn’t entirely free, because I promised I’d stop by next week and drop off some of my favorite homemade plant food. Fiddle-leaf figs love it, so I really think it will help her.”
While I am genuinely excited about the opportunity to meet Silvie Wainwright, right now, I’m more preoccupied with the ease of Sophie’s interactions in the world. The fact that she just waltzed into the bookstore and became best friends with the employees—it’s so far outside of anything I would ever do.
I don’t mind talking to people. But I’m generally comfortable with my own company, so I don’t often think about putting myself out there.
Sophie is good for me in that way. She pushes me to be more social, to let people in when it’s generally against my nature to do so.
“It is a big deal,” I say. “Thank you. You’ll come with me, right?”
She looks over and smiles. “Of course I will.”
As I take in her smile, it occurs to me that my sudden pressing need to be honest about my feelings might have something to do with my parents’ move.
The two people who have always been my safety net, my safe place, announced they are leaving Massachusetts and driving a thousand miles south for warmer temperatures and year-round tee times.
And they’re taking my sister with them.
My parents are good people. And my sister Allison, even though she’s my polar opposite, is the only person I like to be around as much as Sophie.
I hate to see them go, but I also want them to be happy, and this move is exactly what they all want. Which means I have to figure out how to live my life without my family nearby.
Maybe I’m realizing I can’t lose Sophie, too. And if she falls in love with someone else, which she’s bound to do eventually, I will.
Not unless she falls in love with me first.
“So…do you want to play another episode?” Sophie asks. “Or are we just going to sit here in the quiet?”
My eyes dart up to meet hers, heat flushing my face. I’ve been staring. Did she realize I was staring? Can she see, just by looking at me, what thoughts were coursing through my mind?
“Let’s do another,” I say, reaching for the remote. “Definitely another. You want popcorn? I want popcorn.” I quickly stand and move into the kitchen.
While I wait for the popcorn, I try to regroup and come up with some sort of plan.
Do I just…tell her? Make a move somehow?
Or do I need to be more methodical about it? Drop hints, make suggestions.
None of this comes naturally to me. The only reason Sophie and I are friends is because she made it happen, not giving me much choice in the matter.
I don’t have moves.
I don’t even know what it means to have moves.
Allison reads a lot of romance novels, and so does Sophie. Maybe I could borrow a few and read them as a means of collecting data—see if I can come up with some clear methodology. If I’m going to risk our friendship by asking for more, I have to do it right.
Sophie jokes about her unlucky dating life, but she doesn’t have a whole lot of reason to trust men. Her parents split when she was six, and her dad has been pretty much absent her entire life. They talk on the phone a few times a year, but he lives a few counties over with a new wife and four kids Sophie has only met a handful of times.
Sophie’s stepdad wasn’t much better. He was only around for a couple of years while we were in high school, and while he was nice on the surface, he was a master manipulator, practically a con artist. I’ll never forget the afternoon Sophie told me all the money her mom had set aside for college was gone.
That’s twice she’s been betrayed, and there’s no way it hasn’t had an impact.
I sometimes wonder if Sophie’s lack of serious relationships has to do with her pushing men away before they get close enough to hurt her. If it does, she doesn’t realize it. But I could see the same fear keeping her from wanting a relationship with me. I’m safe when we’re just friends. I don’t think relationships feel safe to her. Which means I have to tread carefully.
When the popcorn is finally ready, I carry it back to the living room, pausing before sitting down on the couch. Should I try to sit closer to her—create an opportunity for a little more physical contact? Not side by side. That might seem too suspicious. But I could sit just close enough that if I stretch my arm across the back of the couch, I could possibly touch her shoulder.
Not that I would. I don’t want to be creepy. Just more intentional than I have been in the past.
I’m waffling, deciding how or even if I should make a move, when Sophie takes the popcorn bowl out of my hands.
“Here. Sit closer,” she says, tapping the cushion beside her. “It’ll be easier to share.”
I almost laugh as I sit down directly beside her. As per the usual, she makes everything easier for me.
I sit, and Sophie closes the cover on her iPad and puts it on the side table next to the couch. She leans into me, her shoulder pressing into my arm as she tucks her legs up under her and spreads a blanket across her lap. “Want to share?” she asks as she holds up the blanket.
“Yeah. Great.” I take the blanket and pull it across my lap. I look over at her iPad. “What were you working on? Was that the same design as before?”
“Nah,” Sophie says. “I was just messing around.”
“It looked really good.”
Sophie doesn’t like to call herself an artist, claiming her drawings are more utilitarian than true art, but I don’t think she gives herself enough credit. Her sketches are beautiful.
“You think?” she asks.
“I always do.”
She seems to consider her words for a moment before finally saying, “I was drawing this new flower I found in the garden. I can’t figure out what it is, and it’s bugging me.”
“Have you googled it?”
She shoots me a dry look. “Only about a million times,” she says. “I can’t find anything like it. I’ve seen it bloom twice now, and it really doesn’t seem like a Massachusetts flower. It looks rare and exotic and tropical. The Hathaways called it a love flower, but I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“A love flower? And that doesn’t show up in any searches either?”
“That only happened tonight, so I haven’t really tried yet. But I don’t remember learning about it in school, and I basically memorized the common and scientific names of every plant species that grows in the state. There is no love flower on that list.”
“So what do you know?” I say. “Tell me about it.”
She shifts and turns her body to more fully face me, tucking her knees up to her chest and slipping her toes under the side of my thigh.
It’s not lost on me that she does this easily, initiating contact like it’s no big deal, while I deliberated for a ridiculous number of seconds about where to even sit on the couch.
“The first time it bloomed,” she says, “it was at night, and I haven’t seen it bloom again until today. Also at night, but the Hathaways say it’s always in bloom when they’re on the roof at lunchtime. Which means it can bloom during the day. But I’ve yet to see any discarded petals or blooms. There are several smaller buds that aren’t close to blooming, but it looks like the same flower just keeps opening up, then closing again, which doesn’t make any sense. It’s not behaving like a regular flower—at least, not one that grows here.”
“I doubt Venus flytraps made sense when they were first discovered,” I say. “Maybe you’ve discovered something new. That could be a big deal, right? Would you get to name it?”
“Probably. But the process is long and really hard to prove. And I’m not convinced—” Her words cut off and she gives her head a little shake. “No, never mind.”
Emboldened by her proximity—and by how easily she seems to be touching me—I reach down and grab Sophie’s foot, wrapping my palm around her foot and giving it a little squeeze. “Just say what you’re thinking.” When she doesn’t pull away, I shift over my other hand and start massaging the sole of her foot.
She leans back and closes her eyes and lets out a moan that makes my blood heat. “Oh man, that feels good.” She’s quiet for several long moments before she says, “Maybe it’s because of everything that happened with Willa, but I just keep wondering if the flower is different because The Serendipity is different.”
It goes against everything in me to accept the differences Sophie is referencing. But she isn’t a liar, and neither is Willa. And last month, Willa really did experience something extraordinary. I can’t explain it, but I also can’t deny that it happened. Or that something happened, at least.
Whether it occurred exactly how Willa described is another question.
Sophie is fully convinced, but it’s hard to wrap my head around something that doesn’t fit within the bounds of science and logic.
When I explained as much to Sophie, she only laughed. “So much of the world doesn’t fit within those bounds,” she argued. “If you look for miracles, for magic, you can always find it.”
I give Sophie’s foot what I hope is an encouraging squeeze. “Maybe it is different. Either way, I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
She raises an eyebrow. “You aren’t going to lecture me on science and practicality and realism?”
It’s tempting. But if I’m going to convince Sophie to give me a chance, I’m not about to scoff at the idea of magic. Because honestly, I could use a little magic of my own. Even if I don’t fully believe it’s real.
“Is there any point when we’re talking about The Serendipity?” I ask.
“Honestly, even that feels like a concession for a data scientist,” she says as she reaches for the popcorn.
“Trust me,” I say. “It’s not an easy one to make.”
Sophie spins back around and drops her feet onto the ottoman next to mine. “Come on. Let’s watch one more episode before I fall asleep.”
She settles against my side, her shoulder pressed against mine, her leg touching my leg. All the contact makes it impossible for me to relax, which is ridiculous. It’s not like we’ve never touched before. But I’m so practiced at suppressing my feelings, at keeping Sophie solidly in the friendzone, that I don’t frequently let myself think about it. Now, I’m hyperaware of every move her body makes, every place the heat of her registers against my skin.
Finally, halfway through the next episode, I lift my arm and extend it in Sophie’s direction across the back of the couch. With my shoulder gone, she shifts, leaning into me even more.
I hold my breath, waiting for her to move away, but she doesn’t even look up. She does the opposite, snuggling in closer, leaning her head against my chest.
“Mmm. You smell good,” she says.
“Do I?” I ask.
“Yeah. Is it a new deodorant?” She turns her face and buries it in my shirt, taking a deep breath. “I really like it.”
With any other woman, I might feel a twinge of victory. But Sophie is acting like this physical contact, like intentionally smelling me, is no big deal.
Which can only mean for her, it isn’t a big deal.
“Yeah, I picked a new scent,” I say, trying not to feel discouraged.
She lets out a yawn. “It’s a shame you’re wasting it on me instead of a date.”
Okay, this definitely feels like a setback. But I don’t know what else to do but persist.
The more I think about my future, the more I’m coming to accept the uncomfortable reality that if I am ever going to fall in love with someone else, Sophie’s going to have to break my heart first.
And that won’t ever happen if I don’t try.