Chapter 25 Larissa
“I blame you,” I say, looking at Bellamy.
She’s stretched out on my sofa with a Nerds Rope in her hand. She twirls it around while she watches me accuse her of ruining my life.
“You should’ve had my back. You should’ve told me not to get involved with Hollis,” I tell her. “You let me down, Bells. Bad best friend.”
She snorts. “Yeah. That’s a different tune than the night he had you on the rooftop, and you were … I was basically the greatest best friend in the universe that night.”
“What? How? Please. Explain your logic.”
“Because you would’ve written off all men if it weren’t for me.” She chomps off the end of her candy. “I made you see the light.”
“You pushed me into the light.”
“And into how many orgasms? Please. I’ll wait for you to thank me later.”
I take a pillow off the chair beside me and throw it at her. It has a little more pizazz than I intended, but maybe getting walloped will do her some good.
She giggles and presses the pillow to her chest as she continues to eat her candy.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she says. “But you actually look like a raccoon today.”
“Bells, you’re pushing it.”
She just shrugs.
I settle back in my chair and tug my blanket around me.
My entire body feels achy yet numb. It’s the weirdest sensation. It’s like I’m numb to anything but the complete sadness that starts in my chest and radiates outward until every piece of me succumbs to the pain.
I miss him. Dammit, I miss him. I miss being able to hear his voice if I call and seeing a text here and there. To think I’ll never hear from him again feels like I’ve fallen into a hole that I can never escape.
It would have to be an escape because Hollis completely captured me.
And I let him.
“Cut yourself some slack,” Bellamy says. “You took a chance, and it didn’t work out.”
“But why couldn’t it? Why couldn’t our relationship have been real and worked out?”
“How would I know? Men have the dumbest excuses for things.”
“I wasn’t asking you. It was rhetorical.”
She makes a face. “Fine. But do you think it even matters? Will it change anything?”
“I have nothing to share with you. And eventually, you’d realize that.”
His words echo in my brain. I know he believes that to be true. It’s sad that a man like him would believe the least about himself because of how people have treated him in the past. But that’s his truth.
But it’s not the truth. And even if it was and I wanted him anyway, isn’t that my choice to make?
“Get your phone,” Bellamy says, snapping me back to reality.
I look down and see it glowing on the coffee table.
My heart skips in my chest as I lunge for the device, hoping against hope that it’s Hollis.
I don’t even care what he wants or if he just wants to come by and get his T-shirt that I put on as soon as I got home. He can even call to tell me I’m mean. I don’t care. I just want to hear his voice.
But it’s not him. Not even close.
I groan, getting comfy again. “Hi, Mom.”
“Hey, sweetie. I wanted to see if you had fun last night at Siggy’s.”
I lean my head back and fake cry.
“What’s the matter?” she asks.
“Just … bad timing, Mom.”
“Okay.”
“Is Hollis there? Should I let you go?” she asks. “I don’t want to interrupt.”
I sigh. “You’re not interrupting, and he’s not here. Just Bellamy.”
“Just Bellamy,” Bellamy mocks me. “Like I’m chopped liver.”
I ignore her. “What’s up with you?”
“I’m actually doing laundry. Can you believe that? Laundry on New Year’s Day.”
“Life goes on.”
I frown, realizing how true my words are and how much I hate them. I don’t want them to go on.
They’ll never go on the same way they’ve gone on over the past week.
It was a taste of something that I’ll probably never experience again—something fun and playful and feel-good. There were no expectations between Hollis and me. Just a pact to pretend to have a relationship that I ended up believing could be real.
The tears come again from nowhere. They’re silent and wet and hot as they slide down my cheeks. Bellamy watches me from the couch.
“Are you crying, honey?” Mom asks. “Oh, Riss. What’s the matter?”
“Well,” I say, my voice shaking, “apparently, Hollis and I are done.”
“Oh. Why?”
“Do you want the bullshit answer he gave me or the real one?”
“Bullshit first.”
“Well, he thinks he has nothing to offer me.”
“I saw him. I talked to him. I danced with him, for crying out loud. That’s not true.”
“I know.”
“So what’s the truth, then?”
I think of his sweet smile—the shy one I only got to see a few times. I remember the moment of true happiness at the piano and the soulfulness of his voice singing Adele.
“The truth is … he doesn’t know that it’s okay to be happy. He doesn’t know how to trust people.”
“Oh, honey.”
“There’s nothing I can do,” I say, feeling helpless. “I confronted him. I went to him. And he just pushed me away.”
The phone clicks, and I know I’m on speakerphone again. I roll my eyes at Bellamy.
“What’s your next step?” Mom asks.
“I don’t know. Tacos?”
“Larissa!”
“What? What the hell am I supposed to do, Mom? I can’t force him to want me.”
A faucet turns on, and I can hear a glass or a kettle being filled up. And then, finally, she takes me off speakerphone.
“You’re not giving up that easy, are you?” she asks me.
“Don’t start.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’m not going to chase him down and beg him to be with me. And for heaven’s sake, don’t you even think about trying to set me up with someone else!”
She gasps. “Why would I do something like that?”
“Are you serious?” I deadpan. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not kidding. I only set you up with men who I think you might like so that you can find your soul mate. I don’t want you to wait too long to find him. It turns out, you didn’t need me for that at all.”
I move around in my chair to try to get comfortable.
“You have to go after that boy, Riss. He’s The One.”
My eyes well up with tears. “And do what? Cry? Beg? I’ve already done both.”
Her voice drops. “Have you learned anything from me?”
I don’t know what she means by that question, so I don’t answer her. There are so many directions it could take.
“Larissa, darling, listen to me. You have to fight for love. If your heart is hurting, and I know it is, that means something is worth your time to fix it.”
“But I can’t make him listen to me!”
She sighs. “I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told you. Okay? And I don’t want to talk about it. It’s private, and it causes me a lot of pain.”
“Mom …”
I sit up in my chair, my heart racing. I have no idea where this is going or if I even want it to go there.
“When your father left me, he had his reasons. They weren’t great, but he did what he thought he had to do in order for all of us to be happy,” she says, her voice unnaturally even. “But the reason we got a divorce? That’s my fault.”
This is news to me. I’ve never known what caused their breakup, but now? I don’t know if I want to know. I have too much to process the way it is.
“I don’t know if I can deal with this right now,” I tell her.
“Larissa, I didn’t fight for us.”
It’s a simple sentence, all of six words. But something about it, about the way she says it takes my breath away.
“Mom …”
“I didn’t. There was some pride involved, I guess.
A lot of it was me being hardheaded and refusing to compromise with him on a few important things.
I just let him go because it was easier than working through it and being patient.
I cut the ties and moved on … and I’ve regretted that every day since. ”
I still, processing this unusually raw and honest statement from my mother.
“I love Jack. He’s wonderful, and I wouldn’t trade him for the world. But there’s something sweet about the idea of having lived with your father and raising you that makes me sad that I didn’t try.”
“I don’t know how to feel about this.”
“It’s not for you to feel anything. It’s for you to learn.
” She sighs. “I met your father when I was young. I was in my early twenties, and I feel like that was such a magical time. That’s why I’m always trying to get you to meet people because I want you to experience that spark, that connection with someone you could grow and change and build something with. ”
My lip quivers.
I know what she wants for me. I want it too. And I know I had it, if only for a few days.
“I met that person, Mom.”
“I know you did. That’s why you have to go get him.”
“What if he doesn’t want me?”
“Oh, he wants you,” Bellamy chimes in from the couch.
I ignore her again.
“He might fight it. If he really doesn’t know how to trust people, you might have to teach him. And if he thinks it’s not okay to be happy, then you show him how to smile. Because I saw him look at you, and he was smiling, Larissa. It’s hard not to smile when you’re around.”
I sniffle, not sure what to do now.
Is she right? Should I show him I won’t give up on him? On us? Would it make a difference?
Bellamy gets up and walks by me. She whispers something that I can’t make out. I don’t ask her to repeat it, and I don’t follow her because it’s probably something about snacks.
“He’s leaving tonight, I think,” I tell my mother. “I think it’s too late.”
“It’s never too late. But you need a plan.”
I rest my head on the back of the chair. “But do I? Mom, I’m not sure it matters. His mind is made up.”
“Is it? Or are you just scared to try?”
My head throbs, pain pulsing through my temples, and I just can’t do it anymore.
“I’m going to shut my phone off for a while.” I tell her. “I just … I need to think and not look at it every three minutes to see if he’s called. Because he won’t. I know it.”
“I understand. Just have some faith, okay?”
“I’ll try. I love you, Mom.”
“And I love you, baby girl.”
I hang up the phone.