11. Chapter Nine #2
I nod. “I say what I must and do what I can, Abby. I won’t have grimy hands touching my foundation. If I see any ill intent, then I’ll squash it.”
“Good.” After taking another bite of her muffin and washing it down with a sip of her latte, she gives me a look. “I spoke with Willow this morning,” my sister tells me with unnecessary gentleness. “She sounded happier than I think I’ve ever heard her.”
“Looks it, too,” I respond, masking my features because I know she’s trying to find any sort of crack in it that tells her I’m heartbroken.
Me blurting I love you to a woman simply because I sensed her leaving is embarrassing and not up for discussion.
I’d rather forget about it. It doesn’t matter, anyway.
I’ve never been enough to make anyone want to stay.
“So, you’ve met him?” she pries, digging for more information on the infamous childhood best friend, Oliver Grayson.
“Yes.”
She lifts a single brow, giving me the same look she did when we were teenagers, and she found my stash stuffed into my mattress. “That’s all you’re going to give me?”
“She’s not coming back if that tells you anything.” My words arrive with a solemn note, but there is no bitterness left behind in my heart. I’m already made up of all the pains I can manage. For me, it’s hard to tell where my pain begins and ends. It’s all the same to me.
When I first met Oliver, he wasn’t exactly a big fan of mine; not that I blame him. I was brought into Willow’s life to make her forget but for a while, I just didn’t know what—not until I learned who .
Now that I’ve seen the two of them together, I’m not exactly sure what sort of love I fell into. I don’t think I’ve ever looked at Willow the way he does. There’s something providential between them .
Abigail stares me down, but I give her nothing else. She relents with a huff. “Not nearly enough deets, but I’ll settle for now.” That’s code for she’ll ask Willow herself. “I want to talk to you about something else.”
“I told her that I fell in love with her,” I blurt and then wince at myself. Jesus, why do I have to tell her everything?
She nods slowly, studying me with precaution. “Did you?”
I shrug, because the truth is, I’m confused.
Trusting my gut instinct is like trusting a blind person to give you directions.
I’m wired wrong; programmed indefinitely to be seen as incompatible with the world around me.
It makes me say things before I can think them through.
I’m spontaneous with my heart and my mind can’t keep up.
For me, love and obsession could have nearly the same definition. Sometimes I think that I’m no better than an addict chasing after their next high.
“Love can be confusing for people like us,” Abigail says carefully. “It’s easy to confuse it with pain and the longing to be rid of it. Growing up without it makes us think we deserve the love we can never attain. The love you already know you can’t have is the one you know can’t hurt you.”
Her words are like a splash of cold water in the face—the one that wakes you from a deep sleep. “Or maybe I’m just not. . .”
“You are .”
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“I don’t have to. Whatever terrible thing you were going to say about yourself is wrong.”
“ I’m wrong.”
“Damn it, Julian Havord, you listen to me, and you listen good,” she fumes passionately, sitting straighter on the stool as she faces me fully. “ How long have we known each other?”
I sigh, slumping forward as I rest my elbows on the table. “Since we were fifteen.”
“Mhm, that’s seventeen years. I know who you are nearly inside and out. What happened to you—to us was wrong, but we are right. You do not act on impulse because something is wrong with you, you act on it because you are afraid. Starving people will eat anything, Julian.”
“I wasn’t afraid,” I defend half-heartedly.
Her eyes narrow. “ Seventeen ,” she repeats, emphasizing how well she knows me. “You were. You saw her slipping through your fingers. There are worse things you could have done or said.”
“I ruined our friendship. I can think of nothing worse than that.”
She softly places her hand on my shoulder, squeezing. “I doubt that very much.”
“I’m such an idiot, Abs.” I huff a self-deprecating laugh. “What right does someone like me have to tell someone they’ve fallen in love with them? I wouldn’t know love if it stood in front of me.”
“Trust me, the day will come. You just wait. It’ll sneak up on you.
Sooner or later you’ll learn that the person you’re meant to be with will make you want to say every little thing on your mind.
I mean, you didn’t even tell her about your foundation.
The good, the bad, and the ugly will come pouring out with the right person. ”
“Or it’ll send them running.”
She shakes her head. “Only the wrong ones.”
“You make it sound like the future is already written. You know, sometimes it’s okay to be a little less optimistic.”
She laughs, patting my shoulder before giving me a gentle shove. “The right kind of love will have you believing you can pull the moon from the sky just to bring it closer to them.”
I give her a dubious look. “A fool’s errand.”
Pressing her lips together to hold in another laugh, she takes a long sip of her drink. “I think you and Lily are spending too much time together.”
“She is a terrible influence on me,” I agree.
I never really put any thought to Lily calling Willow, Aunt Lo. I thought it was something everyone went along with as a joke since the two were so close. It hurts to know that Abigail and Michael kept the truth from me, but I understand it wasn’t their part of the story to tell.
Abigail gets a faraway look in her eyes. “She reminded me of you when we first met.”
My brows furrow in confusion. “Who?”
“Sadie Mitchell, Lily’s birth mother,” she responds, a slight smile on her face. “It’s a shame you never met her. I think you would have understood each other.” There’s a sadness coating her voice that tells me she thinks of her often.
“What makes you say that?” I ask, even though I’m terrified of the answer.
She stares at me for a moment. “You both hide your scars with art.”