It isn’t my career.
It is simply a dessert I love to share with my mother.
By the time I leave, I’m a happily blubbering mess, but lighter than I’ve felt in years. Since I put aside my paint brushes to earn a business degree instead of an art degree, in fact.
There is no small black raincloud over my head, no lurking dread.
There are only hope and optimism and the sense that everything I want and need is waiting in the wings, ready to rush onstage and assist me. All I have to do is ask, to reach out my arms and invite happiness in.
I can do that now.
The list showed me. I can handle fear and dread and rising to new challenges.
But most importantly of all, I can handle being happy.
I’ve wasted so much time secretly feeling like I didn’t deserve joy—not joy in life or joy in creation. That false belief was buried deep in my subconscious, but it’s been excavated now. Before, a part of me thought happiness was only for daughters who gladly followed in their parents’ footsteps and best friends who didn’t keep living when their dearest girl was gone.
But Claire would want me to live a bright, big life.
My parents want me to hitch my wagon to the shiniest star. They all believe I’m worthy of joy and goodness and now, finally, I do too.
A few days ago, I thought testing my limits might be about sex.
But it’s about so much more than sex.
It’s about intimacy. Being alive. Celebrating every second. And saying it—
I want it all.
I want my best life.
I want the life my friend imagined for me.
And the life I now believe I deserve.
And there’s only one person I want to share this good news with.
I drag my little rolling suitcase into my old room, take the world’s fastest shower in my childhood bathroom, put on a red sundress that makes me feel beautifully, passionately alive, and go on the hunt for Jesse.
Thankfully, I have a pretty good idea where to find him . . .
It’s time for number seven.
28
Jesse
I’m locking up the garage for the last time—ever—when my name floats toward me like a balloon whisking its way to the sky.
“Jesse.”
Ruby. I turn, heart stuttering as I shove my keys in my pocket and try not to run down the empty sidewalk to her.
Because that bright, happy red dress says it all.
Or at least, I hope it does.
“You’re wearing your favorite color. Cherry red,” I say, drinking in the sight of the woman I love.