Chapter 54
FIFTY-FOUR
DAISY
“I love it here.” Willa sighs happily thirty minutes later.
We’re squished into a booth at the back of Mash they’ll get over it.”
I know she’s right, except I can’t help the thought of, what if they don’t. I’ve never not done the thing that was expected of me, until I moved here. But even that was just supposed to be a temporary speed bump along the way, before I slip back into my parents’ shadow.
Willa sighs exasperatedly across the table from me. “Seriously, stop crucifying yourself in the name of someone else. It’s fucking exhausting watching you trying to be a saint always.”
“You sure have a lot to say for someone who just got off a plane.”
“I had a lot of time to think about it.” She grins sheepishly. “Years to be exact.”
I gape at her. “Why haven’t you said anything before now?”
“I figured it was one of those things you had to realize on your own.” She shrugs before adding, “I just didn’t count on you being so slow to put two and two together.”
I’m still staring at her, trying to figure out what to say, when the waitress arrives with two plates of pancakes for us. Willa digs into her food, the conversation seemingly forgotten on her end but it stays with me as I stare down at my own plate.
It’s exhausting being everything for everyone else and neglecting myself. It’s exhausting pretending I don’t want the one thing that’s ever been strictly just mine, when it’s right in front of me and all I have to do is reach out to grab it.
“I don’t want to be the bolter anymore,” I blurt out halfway though a bite of pancake.
Willa blinks at me, before setting her fork down. She leans back in her chair and regards me with a soft smile. “Okay. So stop bolting.”
“I don’t know how. It’s all I’ve ever done.” The words tumble out of me without pause. “My brain jumps from zero to six thousand whenever someone gets too close and it feels like I’m being cornered and losing myself all at once and I can’t breathe.”
“Do you feel all of this when you’re with him?” She asks.
I think back to how his hand had felt on my thigh and the soft look in his eyes when he looks at me. He was looking at me that way when he told me he loved me—and then the walls had started to close in on me. “Once. When he told me he loved me.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m exhausted, Willa. And adding another person in my life means adding another set of expectations I won’t be able to meet.”
She blinks at me, then her expression softens. “Dais that’s not love, that’s a transaction. If someone truly loves you they will never expect you to be anything other than yourself.”
The lump at the back of my throat tightens. I swallow, trying not to cry. “I—”
She leans across the table to touch my hand.
It’s like an anchor holding me steady. “I’ve known you for a long time and I’ve seen the way you break yourself to be the glue that holds everyone together.
You don’t have to be the glue anymore.” I feel the first tear slide down my cheek.
“You deserve someone who sees you—who takes things off your plate instead of constantly adding to it. The last few months you’ve seemed more alive than I’ve seen you before.
I’ve never met the man so I could be completely wrong here, but I have a feeling it’s got very little to do with the coastal air. ”
She’s right. “I fucked up, Willa.”
“No shit,” she snorts. “Now go fix it.”
And it’s with those words that I finally get up the courage to dig out my phone and do something about it, because she’s right. I need to fix this.
Me
I need a favor
Do you still have Connor’s old jersey?
Lauren
I thought you would never ask