“Yet, despite all that, you’re still pro-relationship and pro-love?” I stared at him. On the one hand, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. On the other, I could admit that I was envious of the fact that he still believed in love so hard because of what he’d had with her.
“Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Isn’t that what people say? It sucks balls to have lost it, but that doesn’t mean I’m giving up on finding it again. I will find it again. Eventually. It won’t be today and it sure as fuck won’t be anytime soon, but when I do, it will be even better than it was with Anna because, next time, it’ll be with the girl I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with.”
“That girl wasn’t Anna?”
He shrugged. “Apparently not. It doesn’t matter, though. I’m torn to shreds and my chest feels like a tank has driven over it, but I’m still standing and you’re an idiot.”
“I’m an idiot?” I jabbed my thumb at my chest. “What the fuck did I do?”
“You’re in love with Isabella, and instead of fighting for her, you’re sitting here talking to me. Stop holding back and just fucking go for it already.”
I grunted. “Just because I’m ready to go all-in with her despite the mile-high walls she’s got around her doesn’t mean that it’s what she wants.”
“You don’t know what she wants,” he countered. “All I’m hearing from you are excuses. You say you’re ready to go all-in, so go all-in.”
“I would, but the more I try to get close to her, the harder she pushes me away. It doesn’t matter what I do, I can’t seem to make her understand how I feel.”
“Do you love her?” he asked point blank.
I slammed back in my seat, crossing my arms over my chest. “Yes, but again, it doesn’t really matter if she doesn’t love me.”
“Fuck that.” He snorted, the crease between his eyebrows appearing above the rim of the sunglasses. “You love her even if she’s been trying her best to shut you out?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then it all seems kind of simple to me,” he said. “If you can honestly tell me that you love her regardless of how difficult she’s been trying to make it for you, then why the hell are you still here?”
Exasperation tightened my gut. “I think I may even love her because of how difficult she’s been making it for me. She’s stronger than anyone I’ve ever met and I love that strength. I love the courage that she has to go at everything she does even if she has to do it all by herself.”
“Then why are you telling me all this and not her?”
“Fuck you,” I grumbled. “I’ve told you that already. I just can’t seem to get through to her.”
“Why are you trying to get through to her?” he asked as if it was the most obvious fucking thing in the world. “Just tell her. You don’t need to get through her walls for her ears to work. She can hear, right? So just fucking tell her already. Stop beating around the bush, man up, and say the actual words.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but then I realized that I couldn’t. The reality was that he was right. For everything I’d done to get through to her, I hadn’t come right out and told her how I felt. A situation that I was going to remedy immediately.