Chapter 11
TROY
"You must think I'm so pathetic."
"Pathetic? Why?"
"Because..." Laura gestures vaguely. "My family. Me. A thirty-year-old failure. Everything."
I nearly miss a turn because I'm so distracted by the absurdity of what she's just said.
"Laura."
She stares out the passenger window.
"Look at me."
She doesn't.
"Laura."
Finally, she turns her head.
"What?"
"Do you honestly think that's what I was thinking in there?"
A humorless laugh escapes her. Her brown eyes look sad and dejected and it makes the jealous monster inside of me want to escape and go burn that engagement party to the ground.
"I don't know what you were thinking. Probably the same thing everyone else was thinking."
"And what's that?"
"That Allison was right."
I grip the steering wheel harder.
"Your sister stood in a room full of people and spent five straight minutes listing things she thinks are wrong with you."
Laura shrugs.
"She wasn't exactly wrong."
"She was completely fucking wrong," I snap. “You dropped out of college because you hated the career your parents chose for you. Not because you weren’t smart enough or hard-working enough. You know what I see when I look at you?"
She immediately grimaces.
“Are you about to say something nice?” she grimaces.
“I am.”
“Please don't,” she says. “I prefer when you’re grumpy. Nice Troy is weird.”
I ignore her.
"I see someone who kept trying. Who kept going. Who is still going. Which is why you’re relentlessly pursuing your next goal: becoming a teacher.”
Her eyes widen and I smirk.
“How did you know?”
“IT flags anyone using company wifi to search for a job.”
“That’s fucked up!” she exclaims indignantly. “That’s spying!”
“It is,” I agree ruefully. “And you know what I’d call searching for a job while on the job? Stupid. I’d call it stupid.”
“Yeah, well,” Laura murmurs. “Maybe part of me wanted to get caught. Maybe I wanted you to fire me so that I could finally be free. I mean, that’s what you wanted, right? You hated me?”
I soften.
“I never hated you, Laura. Never have, never will.”
She looks like she’s going to cry. I reach across the car and put a hand on her knee again.
“Let me tell you something I learned from an old mentor,” I say. “About the difference between achievement and success.”
Her brows knit together.
“There’s a difference?”
I nod.
“Achievement is what you’ve done. Success is whether you’re actually building the life that you want to be living,” I say.
“I’m sorry your family doesn’t know the difference.
I’m sorry they never taught you. I’m sorry that you’ve been told that pursuing the life you really want somehow makes you a failure. ”
She goes quiet.
For a long moment neither of us speaks.
Then she laughs softly.
"What?"
"You know, if you'd talked to me like this a year ago, I probably would've fallen in love with you immediately."
A dangerous warmth settles low in my chest.
"Good thing I waited."
Her eyes widen.
"Why is that a good thing?"
"Because now," I say, lifting her hand to my lips, "I'm pretty sure you're already halfway there."
Her breath catches.
And for the first time all night, she smiles like it's her birthday.