32. Thirty-two
Thirty-two
I ignore Bo.
He calls. He texts. I avoid him.
When I get home from my dad’s, his message of, I haven’t talked to you all day. I miss you, earns a response from me of, Sorry, crazy day. I’m beat . It’s the most stripped-down version of the truth I can give.
Friday, with Mabel, I force myself through book club and our usual banter, but there’s no enthusiasm. I don’t even tell her about Bo starring in my very own lumberjack fantasy just a week prior.
He invites me over for dinner that night; I tell him I can’t miss yoga.
I do go to yoga, but I spend half of the class in child’s pose forcing myself to breathe.
Sunday, I skip church, the first time in our months together, telling him I have to help my dad.
Lying .
Every day that passes the next week makes a brand-new truth crystalize: I have to end it with him.
A lifetime spent trying to make the right choices so I could live just a little bit longer, missing out on big experiences to protect everyone involved. Maintaining order—predictability—so that whatever was coming around the bend would never be a surprise. I’d always be ready.
Yet here I stand in my sweat-soaked gym clothes, staring at my beloved grocery store on Friday night, wrecked. All my rules and order never once prepared me for the plot twist that was actually waiting around the bend.
I love Bo but can’t tell him that the woman he looks at like his mother is dying. It’s cruel.
I pull a cart out of the line as I walk in, irrationally annoyed by the fact it has a squeaky wheel. Waving feebly to Monica, I head toward the produce.
When I get there, I just stare. Nothing makes sense. Being with Bo, avoiding Bo—both options make me ache.
“You planning on buying anything, or are you just going to stare at those tomatoes all night, Pam Beesly?”
I freeze.
Bo .
He doesn’t wait for me to answer before reaching his hand to my face and gripping my cheeks with his thumb and forefinger, squeezing slightly so my lips pout like a fish. He tilts my chin, forcing my eyes to meet his. “Wanna tell me what the hell is going on with you?” he asks, a harshness in his voice that isn’t normally there along with a deep crease between his eyebrows.
His dark hair, usually tucked back behind his ears, falls forward over his face. It takes all I have not to brush it to the side.
I sigh through my puckered lips, sadness and panic swirling in my belly. Instantly, my throat clogs, eyes burn, heart fractures.
He must see because his face softens along with his grip on my cheeks.
“Hey,” he says, dropping his hand from my face and pulling me into a hug—a touch I didn’t know I needed until he gave it. “What happened?”
My nose smooshed against his chest I breathe in his Bo Mountain Breeze. I’ve missed him—I realize now how much.
I push myself off his chest, lift my chin to face him and swallow back the tears I don’t want to cry.
One breath.
Two.
“This isn’t working,” I say quietly.
His eyebrows pinch. “What isn’t?”
Three heartbeats, then: “Us.”
He takes a step back. “What? Birdie, what’s going on here?”
I shake my head, guilt dragging my gaze to the floor. “It’s not fair to you, Bo. If I get sick…” I lift my eyes to his face—etched in confusion—and blink away, focusing on a basket of oranges.
“Birdie, I already said tha—”
“I heard what you said,” I snap, squaring my shoulders to him. Damn him for making this harder than it has to be. “And that’s part of the problem, you don’t listen to me,” I lie. Again. Because that’s what I do now. The truth is, if anyone has ever listened to me in this life, it’s him. “You think I need all these changes—that my life had no meaning before you. Well, you’re wrong, Bo. I was just fine and then—then—then—then you show up and think I’m some sad puppy that needs to be rescued. But I’m not. I miss how things were. It was easier, and—and—and I’ve lost focus on what’s important.”
When I finally look at him, his jaw is tight, clenching repeatedly. He pulls the toothpick from his mouth and snaps it in half before shoving it into his pocket. After an eternity, he nods slowly, looking around the bins of fruits and vegetables.
“I guess this means you aren’t adopting Huck, then, huh?” he finally asks.
My chin pulls back. “Wha—”
“You can’t, right? I mean, if I’ve wrecked your routine too much, then a kid will annihilate it.” He looks at me, eyes wide. “Makes sense though. I get it.”
“Bo, I—”
“And,” he starts, pausing to rub his knuckles under his chin, “I guess this means I won’t be seeing you Sundays anymore.”
No more church?
“No, I di—”
“Lucy will be disappointed—I think she liked you—but they say kids are resilient, so I guess she’ll understand.” He gives a knowing nod.
Too knowing.
I glare at him—he’s playing me. “What are you trying to do?” I demand.
“Me?” He laughs in disbelief. “What the fuck are you trying to do, Birdie?” he asks, voice elevated. “You give me some bullshit spiel about not wanting this, and your lie is written all over your face.” He holds his hands out to his side as my nostrils flare.
A woman walks by with wide eyes that I glare at, a casualty of my insanity.
I yank the handle of my cart and start stomping away from him. I’m not doing this.
With him.
I don’t need it.
Or him.
“Really, you’re just going to walk away?” he asks, following me, making my blood come to a roaring boil in my veins.
Like a delusional fool, I scoff but don’t respond, squeaky wheel mocking me as I try to outrun him.
“You know this is insane, right, Birdie?” he presses as I start throwing random items in my cart just to give my hands something to do. Bagels? Sure. Cookies? Why the hell not? “You’re shutting me out for no reason, like I don’t mean anything to you—like you don’t mean anything to me! I already told you, I don’t care about th—”
“Goddammit, Bo!” I stop the cart in the middle of an aisle and look at him, voice borderline shouting. “I’m in love with you.”
It’s not the whole truth, but it’s just as true. I love Bo and it’s as wretched as it is wonderful .
His reaction comes in the form of a step, quick hand around the back of my neck, and pull to impact. Bo crushes his mouth to mine and kisses me.
When we stop, it’s only because a familiar voice yells, “Oooh-weee! Someone call the fire department ’cuz there’s smoke comin’ from aisle four.” It’s Monica, and I can hear the smile on her face.
We laugh into each other’s mouths as we pull away. At the end of the aisle, Monica stands behind her register, fanning her face with her hand, toothpaste-commercial-worthy grin on her face. “Y’all get a room!” She cackles before a customer starts unloading groceries in front of her.
“Just so I understand this,” Bo says, turning back to me, tucking a rogue hair behind my ear. “You realize you love me, and your reaction is to avoid me and then end it in a grocery store?”
Somehow, despite everything I’m not telling him, I laugh.
“I guess, yes, that sums it up. Why?” I ask, moving from the aisle toward the freezers that line the back of the store. “What would you do differently if you were in love with someone?”
“If I was in love with someone, I would keep texting and calling and showing up at grocery stores when they get skittish, obviously,” he says, leaning on the handle of the cart.
I still—the bag of frozen berries I’m holding dangles midair as I look at him.
He whistles smugly, like he knows what he’s said but wants to hear me acknowledge it. “So when you love someone, you stalk them?” I ask, slowly lowering the bag into the cart, not giving him the satisfaction of seeing me get all swoony over him. “That’s healthy.”
The cold air pops out at me as I open a freezer filled with popsicles, and Bo leans next to me, pink sticky note on his finger in front of my face.
“What’s this?” I ask, eyes going to his.
“The last one—read it.”
I do—repeatedly. Three words that have the power to change the course of my life: Fall in love.
I let the freezer door close, swallowing the chill.
“You knew this would happen.” I don’t have to ask.
He nods, tousled hair falling into his face, dark eyes locked on mine. “For me. From the second I saw you standing on Gran’s porch.”
“You love me.” Another not question.
“I love you,” he says, pressing the sticky note to my chest, taking my hands in his, “and you love me.”
I simply nod, letting his words wash over me. Bo has a wife and I might die, but we love each other anyway. A flower growing in soil that’s too rocky but somehow blooms.
“You know,” I say, pulling my hands from his and opening the freezer door again, “your listmaking skills need work.”
He laughs as I hand him a box of popsicles. “Really, Pam Beesly? How’s that? Seems I got what I wanted.”
I shake my head. “Only barely.” I lift an eyebrow as I look at him. “Usually if you’re trying to win someone over, a proper list needs to tell them how wonderful they are. At length. ”
Cart moving again, he’s next to me.
When I stop to look at the cooler of meat, his hand catches around my wrist, pulling me close to him. Any trace of amusement is gone from his face.
We’re close, so close the movement of our bodies when we breathe presses into one another. “I’m in love with you, Birdie,” he says, voice lower now. Serious. “If you want the reasons, I can give them to you.”
“Bo, I—”
“I’m not done,” he cuts me off with a light kiss before continuing. “And you don’t get to shut me out because you feel things that are scary; you tell me. And we deal with it. Together. Even if it’s hard and ugly. We figure it out and love anyway.”
Another pause, another kiss. Everything he says goes into my ears and drips a delightful kind of warmth throughout my whole body like the wax of a candle.
In the middle of the grocery store, I’m speechless.
“I love you because you grocery shop on Fridays, dance with your dad on Thursdays, laugh with Lucy, and take care of Gran the way no one else can.” With his final words, a needle pops the bubble of the beautiful dream I’m standing in. Because, yes, I’m taking care of her, but I have no doubt someday he might not see it that way. This reason he’s listed for loving me is one he might eventually give for hating me.
But, as if he sees me getting lost in my own head, he gives me another kiss. “I would say I love you because you pulled me in the back of your minivan after drinking triple sec and giving me a fake name, but maybe that’s just lust.”
I snort. “Well, for a stalker, that’s a pretty solid list, but it’s not that long.” The smile that covers my face is huge, giddy, and absolutely ridiculous.
He vibrates with a laugh, an easy, “I can give you one hundred reasons,” and another light kiss on my lips.
“You love me,” I say, as if trying to manifest my own belief in his words.
“I do.”
“Even though there’s a good chance I’ll die.” I offer him an out, my last-ditch effort for us to both walk away from this inevitable disaster.
“There’s a great chance you’ll die.” He’s so matter-of-fact. Unfazed.
I slap his chest. “You know what I mean, Bo. There’s a great chance I’ll die before you. Much before you.”
“Birdie, I’m not going to live my life thinking about what ifs. My dad died in a car accident and my mom took off, so did my wife. None of them had a genetic mutation that led to their fate. It’s just life.” He pauses, looks at me. “As much as I can’t stay away from you because of Mandy, you can’t push me away because of this.”
I open my mouth to argue, but he puts a finger over my lips.
“I’m not diminishing your circumstances or how stressful and scary it must be. But I’m telling you, I don’t care. I want to be with you. And your groceries. And your lists. I want it all.” He pauses, kisses me lightly, then, “Your genetic mutation is mine, Birdie. Let me do this with you.”
And this moment is one that I wish I could bottle up. It is the most romantic thing that has ever, will ever, happen in my life.
Sometimes I look at my chest and wish my life was as permanently beautiful as the ink on my skin. Mostly, my life is beautiful the way real North Carolina wildflowers are beautiful—only sometimes. A fleeting blooming just to eventually wilt. But this? This moment in sweaty gym clothes next to Bo who loves me is wholly perfect.
With no way to compete with what he’s just told me, “Okay,” is all I say.
His slow-to-grow smile is huge, and he rubs his nose against my cheek before repeating, “Okay.”
I look at my cart filled with groceries, some that I don’t even want. “I need to pay for these.”
“You do.” He pauses, expression turning wolfish. “Then we’re going to take them to your house, put them away in your well-labeled kitchen, and get George Strait.”
I raise my eyebrows, crossing my arms over my chest. “Oh really?”
“Birdie, if you think the night I find out the woman I’ve been chasing for four whole months loves me and is staying anywhere but my bed, you’re out of your mind. Lucy is at Libby’s. I want you.” Then, like we aren’t in a grocery store, he squeezes my yoga-pant-covered ass and nips at my neck, pushing the squeaking cart down the aisle.
I don’t bother arguing.
He knows just as well as I do—I want him too.