“But,” he adds with a raised finger. “What I think doesn’t really matter. And everyone is a jerk when they’re hurting. So, the question is, jerk included, do you still want him?”
Yes.
There’s no hesitation in my answer. It’s there, jumping to the forefront of my mind like a call of desperate longing.
He’s mine and I want him.
Caleb’s words come back to me again. “You just don’t have the stomach for real trauma.”
The squeezing in my gut is an echo of the punch it had taken from those words. Caleb had thrown them at me at the end of his tirade, completely ignorant of how my Dad died. But while his words had hurt, they didn’t cancel out everything else.
One argument was not going to stain six weeks of growing attachment.
It didn’t void the way his presence (normally) makes me feel calm. Or how coming back to that house makes me feel like I’m coming home. Just sitting on Caleb’s couch, in pajamas, quietly eating a meal feels… sweet. Deliciously sweet.
He makes me laugh (whether he means to or not) and when he touches me, every inch of my skin goes up in flames.
Even during our fight, there had been moments when I’d wanted to hold him. To comfort him. To defend him against the criticisms he was leveling on himself. How he ‘isn’t as good as his brother’. How he ‘isn’t enough to keep a woman in East River’.
Just how is it possible that Caleb doesn’t see what I see? I wonder. How can he value himself so little?
When the attacks had grown too sharp and the wounds had cut too deep, I’d had to leave. To escape the entire argument. It had been my only course of action.
But now, Caleb’s comments have been relegated to a painful memory and I have a world of experience handling those. Right now, I’m more interested in the future.
If there is one.
“I’m going to take that as a ‘yes’?” David says, glancing at my cheeks. I press the back of my hand to one and realize I’m blushing.
“Sorry, yeah. I do want him,” I shake my head. “But I’m not convinced the feeling is mutual anymore.”
“Naaah…” David stretches the word, turning it into a comedy foghorn. “The guy is crazy about you.”
“You seem awfully confident.”
“I am,” he says, puffing out his chest.
I roll my eyes and sigh again. I rub at the furrow between my brows.
“I dunno, David. You should have heard him last night. He clearly has this image in his head. That I’m some flighty, flakey, unreliable socialite who wants to hightail it back to New York at the first opportunity. Not to mention blind when it comes to my own emotions and behavior.”
“Like I said, grade-A jerk,” David shrugs. “But that could be temporary.”
“Yeah, but that’s not the point. What I mean is… That’s how he sees me. Who would ever like someone as selfish and unaware as that? And if he did like me, thinking I’m like that, would I even want him to? Because that’s not me. Ugh.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I feel like I’m talking crap.”
“Kinda…” David chuckles, “but that’s sort of part of the whole ‘falling in love’ thing.”
I freeze and glance up at him from beneath my lashes.
“You know?” I check. How has he figured out that I’m in love so quick, even though I had a six-week head start?
“Well, I’ve never seen you cry over someone before,” he says with a shrug. “Barring recent, understandable situations. You’ve never cried over a bad date or an ex-boyfriend. And now that I tell you it’s healthy for you to be here—to stay with your mountain man—you were basically bawling with relief. It doesn’t take a genius, Liz.”
“Okay fine,” I hold my hands up in surrender. “I love him.” The words feels funny on my tongue. I’ve never used it in this context before. I’ve loved friends and I’ve loved family. But I’ve never fallen in love. “But whether that’s enough will remain to be seen.”
“Want some advice?” David asks.
I shrug and then have to pull my blanket tight again.