Always, Never Almost (Fragments of Love #3)

Prologue

Not the One

Andi

Ten years ago

Amazing how quickly life can kick you in the ass. It was an ordinary Tuesday when I found out I wasn't enough.

It was too dramatic to be a Tuesday, honestly.

Tuesdays are for discovering your socks don't match and forgetting your coffee on the counter.

Tuesdays are not for watching your boyfriend of more than two years kiss his ex-girlfriend through a coffee shop window—was it really an "ex" if you're kissing, though?

Regardless, there I was, standing outside Thinking Cup on Tremont at twenty-three years old, shopping bags cutting into my hands, watching Ryan's hand slip into her hair the way it had slipped into mine just that morning.

The ex-girlfriend. The one who'd been "just a friend." The one he'd sworn was "basically like a sister."

Turns out I wasn't crazy. Just stupid.

The kiss wasn't quick or apologetic. It was the kind that said I've missed you and I'm home from war, baby.

He saw me eventually. His eyes went wide, then guilty, then—and this was the part that really killed me—relieved.

Relief. Like I'd just solved a problem for him.

I didn't wait for him to come outside. Just walked home to the apartment we shared, packed my shit as quickly as I could, and went home to my parents.

My brother Tommy had come to get me, intent on busting all Ryan's stuff up, but that's just not how I roll. So, I convinced him to let it go and piled all my stuff into his truck. On the drive to my parents', my phone buzzed. Bridget.

Bridget: Your mom called my mom. Tell Tommy to drop you off here. I have wine.

Twenty minutes later, Tommy was dropping me off at her door, where she already had two glasses of wine poured and a family-size bag of Takis opened.

"He's an asshole," she announced.

"Did you see—"

"The Facebook post? Yeah." She showed me her phone. There it was—Ryan and his ex, posted fifteen minutes ago: Sometimes you have to follow your heart back home, with two little heart emojis.

Our relationship wasn't even cold yet.

"Fuck him," she said.

So, we sat on my floor and drank wine until our fingers were stained red from Takis. Bridget listed every annoying thing about Ryan I'd been too in love to notice. How he'd made a few quiet digs about my hips being a little wide.

By the time we were scraping the bottom of the Ben & Jerry's container (my hips were just fine, thank you very much), Bridget was on a roll.

"Remember how he'd pat your hand whenever you talked about opening your own place?

Like, 'Oh, isn't that adorable—she thinks she can run a business?

'" She mimicked his condescending tone perfectly.

I nodded, remembering the plastic tea set I'd insisted on using to serve my parents "coffee" every Sunday morning from age six until well past when most kids would have outgrown such things.

"You know what?" I said, somewhere around bottle two... or so. "I'm gonna do it, anyway."

"Do what?"

"Open a café. Prove him wrong."

"Okay, but maybe we make this decision sober?"

"I'm making it now. Tomorrow I might believe him when he said I couldn't."

Bridget studied me. "You're serious."

"Yeah. I am."

Bridget studied me for a long moment, then raised her glass. "Then we're doing it."

I clinked mine against hers and meant every word of it.

But somewhere underneath the wine and the Takis and the righteous anger, something quieter had taken root. A slow, certain knowledge that had been settling in all day, ever since I'd watched Ryan's face go relieved at the sight of me through that window.

Maybe I just wasn't the kind of woman men chose. Not first. Not really. Not for keeps.

But that night, drunk and determined, I made myself a promise: the next person I let in would have to prove they wanted me. Not because I was convenient, or available, or there.

Because I was the one they chose.

Every time.