Chapter 26 #2
more. Fix things. Which probably isn’t going to happen, but the idea of leaving without him feels wrong somehow.”
Lise didn’t mince words. “Because you love him and want to stay with him.”
There was no point pretending, was there? Not when Lise already knew her far too well and wouldn’t hurt her with the truth
anyway.
“Yes. I love him.” Unfortunately for her. “Too bad he doesn’t love me. At least, not enough to tell me so in words.”
“So you and Karl are spending the evening within easy distance of each other but functionally apart, even though you’re leaving
on Monday,” Lise summarized. “The two of you haven’t officially broken up, but you’re not officially together either, and
you never were. Thus, both of you are miserable at reunion-prom, neither of you appears to have any clue how to rectify said
misery, and now I’m the fat, funny bestie swooping in to give you the sage advice that’ll fix everything.”
Lise’s headshake was rueful. “You’re right. This is the most late-nineties-teen-movie crap ever. So much”—she did a creditable set of jazz hands—“drama.”
“Thank for you for saying I’m right. You know I live for that.
” Molly’s nose was still running, and she dabbed at it with a fresh paper towel.
“I’m fat too, though. I mean, legitimately fat.
Not what the media back then tried to make us believe was fat, like Kate Winslet or whoever.
Anyway, my own genuine fatness isn’t very nineties-teen-movie-main-character of me,
and I apologize for the discrepancy.”
Lise waved a dismissive hand. “Kate and I hereby accept your apology.”
“Very gracious of you both.” Sighing, Molly laid her cheek on her forearm. “Here’s the thing, Lise. I’m sure your counsel
will be wise beyond your teenage years, but I doubt even the sagest advice could fix everything that’s wrong at this point.”
“Maybe not.” Lise smiled sympathetically at her. “How about I give it my best shot anyway?”
“Go . . .” Molly’s nose was stuffed up from crying, and she twisted away to blow it on a paper towel before turning back to
Lise. “Go right ahead.”
Lise raised a finger. “My turn to issue a warning: I’m about to go Socratic on your stubborn ass.”
“Not the worst thing that’s ever been done to it.” Molly shrugged tiredly. “My first—and last—foray into kink with Rob featured
the least sexy spanking of a consenting adult woman in human history.”
“I don’t want to know.” Lise paused. “Actually, that’s a lie. I do want to know, but we have other matters to address beforehand.
Namely, my first question: What’s more valuable to you, what Karl says or what he actually does?”
Molly knew where that line of argument was going, but whatever.
She’d follow the path regardless, because she couldn’t currently see any other way forward.
“I’ve loved two men who said all the right things and left me anyway, so actions are definitely more important to me than words.
And Karl does in fact behave like a man who loves me, no matter what he does or doesn’t say.
I’ve never had anyone work so hard to meet my needs and make me happy. ”
“I know there’s a but coming.” Lise’s lips suddenly quivered, and she bit back a smile. “Much like when I’m writing the final sex scene in one
of my books.”
Molly had to laugh. “There is, in fact, a but coming. No lube required.” Sobering, she told her friend, “Actions are more important to me, like I said, but they aren’t
enough to make me fundamentally alter my life for someone again, much less trust them with my heart. Not by themselves.”
“Why not?”
“I’m a woman of words, Lise.” She had no better explanation to offer than that. “I need them.”
“Huh.” Lise mulled that over for a moment. “So you, Molly Dearborn, are a woman of words. Interesting. How often would you
say you speak about your own emotions, then?”
Stupid Socrates. Squirming uncomfortably in her seat, Molly directed a heartfelt scowl her best friend’s way and struggled
in vain to find a non-damning answer.
When Molly didn’t respond, Lise offered prompts. “Do you speak about your emotions all the time? Frequently? Some of the time?
Never, except on this very singular occasion, when I actually caught you crying in a high school bathroom, and even then,
I could tell you were tempted to say you’d been yanking out nose hairs in the mirror instead of wallowing in Febreze-scented
heartbreak?”
Molly’s middle finger rose without her conscious permission. “You know the answer.”
“I sure do.” Lise shook her head. “You and Karl are two of a kind, babe.”
Socratic method be damned, that couldn’t be true. “I issue far fewer threats of violence.”
“Sure,” Lise acknowledged. “But between the two of you, who’s more likely to actually murder someone?”
“Fair point.” Molly sat up straighter. “In my defense, whomever I offed would deserve it.”
“Naturally.” Idly, Lise drummed her fingers on the chair back. “Here’s what I’m wondering, Mol. You’re a self-proclaimed woman
of words. How sure are you that Karl isn’t a man of words?”
Molly started laughing so hard she almost cried again.
“Karl?” she finally managed to choke out. “You think Karl ‘Pronouns and Complete Sentences Are Like Unto Death for Me’ Dean
is a man of words?”
“From what I gather, he listens to your audiobooks every morning in the bakery, for hours at a time. Just to hear your voice.
Endless words and sentences and pages, one after another.” There was no levity in Lise’s gaze anymore. No indication she didn’t
mean every word she was saying. “Maybe he’s not an all-occasion man of words. But he might be a man of your words, Molly.”
At that, all of Molly’s amusement vanished too. Because her best friend’s endgame was now becoming clear, and—
Lise rolled on, relentless. “Maybe he needs three words from you before he can bring himself to ask for a commitment or declare his own love.”
And there it was. The suggestion that Molly reveal her feelings first. Lay her heart on the line once again, despite the battering
it’d taken only two short years ago, without any verbal assurance of her devotion being returned.
“I don’t know . . .” Her throat hurt. From swallowed tears. From fear. “I don’t know if I can give him those three words.”
“I think you can give—and do give—far more than you realize, Molly.” Lise graced her with a down duvet of a smile, the expression so warm Molly couldn’t
help relaxing under its comforting weight. “And one thing I know for sure? That man is freaking oblivious when it comes to spotting women’s feelings for him.”
Lise’s chair screeched on the smooth tile floor as she scooted it slightly closer. And even though the two women were utterly
alone in a dark classroom, she lowered her voice to a whisper, as if sharing a deep, dark secret. “I mean, did you watch Becky
make her move? Short of borrowing the DJ’s microphone and declaring to our entire graduating class that she wanted the local
baker to thrust his spotted dick inside her cream horn—”
Molly wrinkled her nose. “Ugh.”
“—while she got her ladyfingers on those hot, round buns of his, she couldn’t have made her interest much more obvious. But
I don’t think he even realized she was taking her shot at him.”
That was the sense Molly had gotten too, although she hadn’t been certain—and she hadn’t wanted to presume a lack of interest
on his part. Because how could she know what he might want, when he wouldn’t freaking tell her?
Of course, he could say the same thing about her. Which she wished Lise hadn’t pointed out with such persuasive conviction.
“Like I said: That. Man. Is. Oblivious.” Lise’s voice returned to its normal volume.
“So if you don’t express your love—preferably in words of a single syllable—he’ll never know, babe.
This isn’t a situation where he suspects how you feel and can’t match those feelings, so he’s avoiding the topic.
This is a situation where a man terrified of his emotions is fumbling to show them the only way he knows how, without a single solitary clue as to what emotions you might be experiencing in return or what you want from him. ”
That sounded . . . plausible. Much to Molly’s consternation. Because if Lise’s explanation was correct, that meant Molly could
not, in fact, wait for him to meet her more than halfway.
She’d have to step across the center line herself, with zero guarantee of what might happen next.
“I suspect the only reason he got up the courage to ask you to stay again is some intensive coaching from Athena and Matthew.
Maybe Charlotte too. And then, when you didn’t agree right away, he simply lost his nerve.” Lise’s hands spread wide. “I could
be wrong, however.”
Molly’s tired eyes stung, so she rubbed them with her knuckles and hoped her waterproof mascara held strong. Unlike—for example—her
resolve not to make herself completely vulnerable to another man, ever.
Before she surrendered to the inevitable, though, she needed to make one last attempt at avoidance. “If he truly loves me,
shouldn’t that make him brave enough to take a chance and declare his love?”
“You tell me.” Lise raised a single, damning brow. “Has your love for him made you brave enough, Molly?”
In response, Molly’s middle finger made a return appearance, because Karl had clearly been a bad influence on her.
“No? Then let me help you.” Lise’s words were quiet, sympathetic, and entirely relentless. “I want you to imagine cutting
things off with Karl now, without ever telling him you love him. Going back to LA and never returning. And then—five, ten,
fifteen years down the line—getting another message from me.”
Molly cringed, already knowing what came next.
“A text telling you he’s married to someone else.” Lise waited for that prospect to bloom in Molly’s imagination, like a growing
blot of midnight-black ink. “Or, heaven forbid, an email sharing the nonfictional, entirely correct obituary for him in the
Harlot’s Herald. How would that feel?”
Like someone grabbing her by the throat and squeezing. Like reading her own obituary.
Her face crumbled, and her fist against her mouth couldn’t quite stifle a sob.
Immediately, Lise’s chair gave another ear-splitting shriek as she scooched closer again. She took Molly’s hand, her round
brown eyes solemn and sincere and tear-glazed too.
“I only have one more thing I need to say, and then I’m done. I promise.” She held Molly’s blurry stare, her own expression
pained. “For the last two years, you’ve clearly been beating yourself up for trusting Rob. Enough to marry him and give him
seventeen precious years of your life.”
Her hand squeezed Molly’s, demanding her friend’s full attention. “But babe, I’m not sure you ever did trust him. You told me once that your insomnia only got bad after your wedding, and that’s what people in the book biz call
a telling detail. Part of you knew, Molly. Always. Your instincts were good. You simply didn’t follow them, for completely human reasons. The sunk-cost fallacy
is some powerful shit, am I right?”
“Karl . . .” Molly had to clear her throat and blow her nose with the paper towel in her free hand before she kept speaking.
“Karl said pretty much the exact same thing. Minus the sunk-cost fallacy bit, because he’s not nearly as nerdy as either of
us.”
“Then Karl and I are both right.” Another fierce squeeze. “Forgive yourself, Molly. Trust yourself and your own instincts, if you can’t bring yourself to trust him. Even though I think you should trust him, because that man’s freaking gone for you.”
Her instincts were screaming at her right now. Shouting that Karl wasn’t the sort of man who’d casually fuck anyone and toss her aside, much less an old friend whose voice he’d recognized after almost two decades apart and listened to every . . .
single . . . morning.
He’d worked incredibly hard to convince her to stay for the entire month. Given up sleep to ensure they’d have plenty of time
together. Tried to earn her trust through bizarre corporate activities. Shared his secrets and listened attentively to hers.
Made love to her like she was a miracle in human form, dispatched directly from the heavens in the exact shape of his desires.
Why would he have done any of that if he didn’t love her?
Why would he have asked her to stay if he didn’t intend to pursue a future with her?
Molly’s loud sniff echoed in the dark classroom. “Thank you for the sage advice, Lise. As mandated by the Motion Picture Association,
circa 1998, it was very helpful.”
“As your fat, funny bestie, it was my pleasure. Also my contractual obligation.” Lise’s small smile faded. “But like you said,
even my wisest counsel can’t fix everything. Only you can do that.” Her eyebrows rose in inquiry. “So what are your instincts
telling you?”
With a heavy sigh, Molly let go of Lise’s hand and stood. “Unfortunately, I need to talk to Karl.”
“Good plan.” Lise pushed up from her own chair. “Let’s go find him.”
Molly lingered, hesitant, then swallowed her pride. “But first, I need a hug. A long one.”
“Yeah, you do,” Lise agreed, then wrapped her best friend tight in her arms and gave Molly exactly what she wanted. Exactly
what she’d finally admitted to needing.
Exactly—exactly—what she’d had the courage to ask for.