Chapter 31
STELLA
The girls arrive with pizza and wine on Monday evening. My stomach is too unsettled to want food, but I have to admit it does smell good and they got my favourite: capicola, soppressata, and jalapeno. Spicy. Also my favourite pinot noir.
“You all rock,” I tell them. “Thank you for coming.”
“We got the bat signal,” Gracie says, getting plates from the cupboard, quite at home in my kitchen. “Are you okay?”
“I’m confused.”
“Okay. Well, That’s better than heartbroken.” Alexis pours wine into four glasses.
I don’t say anything because… maybe I am heartbroken? No. I’m obviously confused.
We sit around my table with our pizza and wine.
“Okay. Tell us everything,” Lauren says.
I inhale a breath and let it out. “Okay. Um. Where to start.”
I tell them about Jayden coming back to my place after the wedding and… okay, I skip over some details to get to where we were talking… “And he said he’s falling for me. And I kind of freaked out.”
They all gaze at me with wide eyes.
“This was a surprise to you?” Lauren asks.
I think about that. “No. Yes. I don’t know.”
They all side-eye me.
“Okay, I sort of thought he was catching feelings.” I pause. “Meanwhile, I’ve been trying not to fall for this man. Because I don’t want serious.”
They all nod and blink. Their identical reactions are creeping me out.
“So I tried to let him down easy—”
They all make a low noise in their throats.
“What?”
“You dumped him?” Gracie says in a shocked tone.
Lauren and Alexis stare at me as if I just told them I murdered him.
“No! I told him that I like him, and I want to keep seeing him, but I’m not looking for anything serious.”
Gracie’s chin drops to her chest. “You said that after he told you he’s falling for you?”
“Yes.” I cover my face with both hands.
“Ouch,” Alexis says, wincing.
“That was bad, wasn’t it? I realized it after. I need to apologize to him.”
“So he took that well,” Lauren says.
I narrow my eyes at her. “Was that sarcastic?”
“Oh yeah.”
I slump. “You’re right, he did not take that well. He left.”
Silence drops over us. Then Betty gives a little whine from under the table, hoping for a piece of capicola to fall into her mouth.
Lauren plucks a piece off her pizza.
“Don’t give it to her!” I hold my hands up.
“Sorry.” She drops the meat back on her plate.
“It’ll just make her whine more,” I explain.
“But she’s hungry.”
“I’ll feed her dinner in a few minutes. Oh fuck. Give her the capicola.”
Lauren smiles and feeds Betty what she wants.
I refill my wine glass. “So he left, I haven’t heard from him, my stomach hurts, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Maybe he dumped you,” Alexis says gently.
My lower lip shoots out as I gaze at her. Is that what happened? “But… I…”
Gracie tips her head. “What?”
“I don’t want to break up.” I slump in my chair. “I just don’t want to get serious.”
“That’s not fair to him,” Alexis says.
“I know. In my brother’s words, I’m dicking him around.”
“All those green flags,” Lauren says sadly.
“Yeah,” I agree. “And there are even more now.” He has his own life and he doesn’t get weird when my schedule stops me from seeing him.
He respects those boundaries. He listens to me and supports me.
He’s mature and kind, comfortable with vulnerability, and I felt safe enough with him to tell him my most private stories and feelings. He gave me an orgasm to help my cramps.
“He can’t be perfect,” Alexis says.
“No. He’s definitely not perfect. He eats peanut butter out of the jar—with a fork.”
“Ohhh.”
“Also, he falls asleep really fast. It’s so annoying when I can’t shut off my brain and fall asleep.”
“Mmmm.”
“And he’s a terrible patient.” I push my plate aside, fold my arms on the table, and lay my head on them.
“Oh, Stell.” Gracie sets her hand on my back and rubs.
I feel weighed down by the heaviness in my chest, my arms, and my legs. Like I can’t move and my insides are filled with ice. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“For a smart woman, you’re being really obtuse.”
I frown without lifting my head. “What does that mean?”
“You’re obviously miserable about this.”
“I guess.”
“Is it possible that means you care about Jayden? Like, a lot?”
“I do care about him. Of course I do.”
“Do you love him?”
I blow out a breath, my head still down. Love. Do I even know what love is? “I thought I loved Cole, but it turned out I just wanted to be loved. Maybe I can’t love anyone.”
“I doubt that,” Alexis says dryly. “You treat that dog like your child.”
“Not to mention your orchids,” Lauren adds.
“I think you have Betty as a substitute for human connection,” Alexis adds.
“That’s ridiculous. I have Betty because I love dogs. And I love her.”
Alexis smiles.
“Okay, I can love dogs. But not people. Eh. I know I’m being ridiculous. I love you guys. But even if I do love Jayden, it’s probably not forever.”
“Nobody knows that,” Lauren says.
“It’s not like he asked you to marry him,” Gracie says. “Jeez, Stell. I could see freaking out over that.”
“Do I even know what love is?” I muse.
Their sighs are so deep, I can feel a breeze.
“Here’s the thing about love,” Lauren says. “There are no guarantees. You know there are risks. There’s a risk his feelings could change. Your feelings could change. One of you could die.”
I lift my head to peer at her. “That’s morbid.”
“I don’t know if that’s helping, Lo,” Gracie says.
“What? It’s a real risk. There are lots of risks to falling in love! We all know it and we all do it anyway, or most of us do, because we know that even though there are risks, the potential for joy and connection and belonging makes it all worthwhile. You have to take a leap of faith.”
I mull that over. “I’m not sure that I do find it all worthwhile.” I pause. “It’s scary.”
“What are you scared of?” Gracie asks gently.
“Well, according to my brother, I’m afraid of abandonment, rejection and betrayal.”
“That would be understandable. That’s why you didn’t even date until you were in university. And even then, you somehow found emotionally unavailable guys.”
I frown. “That’s true. I guess I’d learned to associate love with disappointment and rejection. But I don’t need a man. I know that.”
“But what are you afraid of?” she probes again.
I’m silent, thinking. And then my throat squeezes and I have to swallow painfully. “I’m…” I clear my clogged throat. “I’m afraid of becoming my mother.”
My friends gaze at me with troubled expressions. Gracie reaches over and takes my hand to squeeze it. I hate feeling vulnerable like this. Saying that out loud is… terrifying. But their obvious compassion makes sharing that worry almost a relief.
“When I was telling you about the problems Cole and I were having and how he was griping about not getting enough bedroom action and I was trying to defend him because it was true, I didn’t want to sleep with him because I was so turned off by him basically being a child…
” I pause to inhale a breath. “That was when I realized I was acting like my mom. Making excuses for him and staying with a man I didn’t love anymore because I didn’t want to end things. ”
“Oh my God.” Gracie gazes at me. “That’s what you thought?”
I nod miserably. “And I was determined that after that, I would never become my mother.”
“I know your mom hurt you when you were a kid,” Gracie says. “She let you down when you needed a mom. She was so focused on her own needs she didn’t see yours. And her needs… weren’t healthy.”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“You see that,” Gracie continues. “But you have to see you are not like your mother that way.”
My lips tremble and a tear squeezes from the corner of one eye. “I could be.”
Gracie shakes her head and Alexis and Lauren both murmur, “No.”
“Why do you think your mom was like that?” Lauren asks.
I’ve thought about this a lot. “She was afraid of being alone.”
“Why?”
“I think maybe it’s a lack of self-esteem.” I brush tears away. “Like she needed a man to feel complete. Like she wasn’t good enough if she was alone.”
“But you don’t feel that way. Do you?” Gracie asks.
“No.” I think more on that. “Absolutely not. I know who I am. I like myself. I believe in myself.”
“Maybe the difference between you and your mother is that she thinks she needs a man. You know you don’t need a man. But you want a man. You want Jayden.”
“I love my life. Although…” I hesitate. “There are moments when I think I might be missing something. Like at Harrison’s wedding, seeing him and Meredith so happy and in love gave me a little pang of… something. But it’s not something I need in my life.”
“There’s no shame in wanting it, though,” Gracie says. “We know there’s no shame in not finding love. Your mother doesn’t understand that. And we know there’s no shame in not even trying to find love.”
“Yeah,” I whisper. Because that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been trying not to find love, weird as that sounds.
“But…” She pauses, and I meet her eyes. “There’s also no shame in finding love.”
“You keep blowing me off.”
I open my mouth to object, then close it. I sigh. “I am.”
Troy leans in the doorway of my office. “We have to talk about this.”
“I know we do. Things have been busy.” He just doesn’t know what I’ve been busy with.
Also, I’m sad. I haven’t told him that, either.
“Okay, when? Let’s put it on our calendars. We need to make a decision about this.”
He’s pushing for a decision about which of the target companies we want to acquire.
And he’s right, I’ve been avoiding the conversation.
Not that I’m afraid of having it; but I’ve been working on an idea and I want to be able to lay it all out for him in a convincing way.
I have a meeting on Monday that should hopefully give me the confidence to move forward.
I pull up my calendar on my computer. It’s Friday, so I’m looking at next week. I chew on my bottom lip. “How’s Tuesday morning for you?”
“I’ll check and let you know.”
“Okay.”
He leaves.
I hate this tension between us. We’re friends but we’re also business partners. This isn’t the first time we’ve had disagreements. We’ve managed to get through them in the past. We’ll get through this.
That night at home, I go into the spare bedroom to check out my orchids.
I have to refill the water in the humidifier, then I check the soil in the pots to see how dry it is.
Most shouldn’t need watering yet but the paphiopedilum need more water.
They’re so pretty, a vibrant pink, the dorsal striped pink.
I also have a beautiful bright-yellow/lime-green plant.
The spotted one is kind of ugly but I take extra good care of it since it’s not as attractive as the others.
The dendrobiums are gorgeous—taller with multiple blooms in chartreuse, white, and blush pink.
I also have phalaenopsis orchids in shades of purple—orchid purple—yellow, white, and a rare blue one. I peer more closely at it.
“Oh no.”
One leaf is yellowing. That’s not a good sign.
I gently pinch the long, slender leaf between my fingertips.
It’s soft. I look at the pot. Oh shit. I’ve overwatered it.
And it’s gotten so big! Noooo. I get rid of the excess water and inspect the roots.
They’re supposed to be green, but some are brown and a little mushy.
I have to save this plant.
I have special scissors up here for my orchids so I spread out a towel and trim the roots. I’ll leave the yellow leaf until it falls off. Hopefully, that will be the only one.
I’ve had other failures since I started growing orchids. But not lately. And this blue plant is so unique and it’s grown so well. It’s one of my favourites.
I sit on the floor to repot it. I feel like crying. Which is crazy. It’s just a plant.
But I know it’s not the orchid. Not just the orchid. It’s all the things I talked to my friends about. It’s my mother. It’s my disagreement with Troy. And Jayden. I’ve never felt lonely before and I don’t understand why I feel lonely now. I feel hollow with loneliness. I miss him.
Betty senses my unhappiness and sits in front of me. I reach out for her and rub her shoulders. “You’re so cute. I don’t know how you can be so cute.” I bend and kiss her between her bulging eyes, right on her wrinkled fur. I lift her onto my lap and cradle her.
Am I really happy being single? Or am I just settling?
People settle in relationships all the time. Look at my mom. I don’t believe the men she’s married since Dad are great loves of her life. She settles because she’s afraid of being alone. Maybe because she thinks she doesn’t deserve more than that.
So is it possible I’m settling for… myself?
Because… I need to be honest with myself here.
I truly don’t think I’m afraid of being alone.
But like my friends talked about, there are risks to falling love.
To having a relationship. Am I avoiding those risks by swearing I don’t need a man?
By convincing myself that love doesn’t last and marriage is a trap?
I stroke Betty’s soft fur.
I’d rather be alone than in a bad relationship. But… I’d rather be with Jayden.
I close my eyes as red-hot pain burns through me.
There are risks to falling in love.
I didn’t want to take the risks. But what if… it’s too late? What if I already love him? And that’s why this hurts so much.
I don’t need a man… but what if I want a man? What if I want Jayden?
Oh God. What have I done?
I think I do love him. So much. But I’ve lost him because I didn’t believe in love. No. I lost him because I’m afraid of love… afraid of becoming my mother.
I press my cheek to the top of Betty’s head. “What do I do, pupper? What do I do about this?”