Page 39 of Aim for Love

MOLLIE

Nora and Sophieare unusually quiet when we get back to our hotel room. They’re both remorseful over what happened, over encouraging me to “try” walking on that pipe, carried away in the moment and blind to the dangers.

My own mind is a whirl. I’m ashamed of myself for going along with whatever my friends told me to do. And right after I’d told myself I was entering a new phase in my life, too. I’d thought—now that I’m 30—I could live up to being “sweet and daring,” like Hunter called me. But I’d done it again by letting someone else define what that meantforme, instead of listening to my own voice inside my own damn head.

I’d thought I was someone I’m not in that moment. Someone careless. Someone who can sleep with a lovely man and forget about him in a few days when she goes back to her “real” life. Someone who has a real life she cares to go back to. If one idea could change everything, I’d thought a casual near-death experience could really kickstart my thinking. How stupid.

Hunter had been so disappointed in me. Like he saw me as that different person in that moment, too.

When my mind is chaos, I always turn to my mother. She has the most orderly mind of anyone I know. She runs a newsroom that never shuts down and lots of people constantly ask her questions that depend on timing and accuracy. She knows how to triage a problem.

Stepping out on the balcony of our hotel room for privacy, I call her. After I explain the issue—trying to be succinct, as Mom always taught me—she says, “You sound like you’re having a quarter-life crisis.”

“What? I’m just being stupid by trying to impress a boy and my friends even though I’m old enough to know better.” My mom’s answers are usually not existential.

“Well, that’s the immediate problem, yes,” she says, as usual showing no mercy for my embarrassment. “The root of the problem, what’s motivating you, is unhappiness with your life. That’s obvious.”

“You sound like Nora and Sophie,” I grumble.

“I most certainly do not,” she snaps. “They’re trying to slap a bandaid on your symptoms. I’m telling you to deal with them. Sit down, make a list of everything you want from your life, and then come up with logical solutions to move forward with. This is not something you fix in a week or by sleeping with some boy you met a few days ago.”

“Hey, I did meet him a few days ago, but he’s notsome boy,” I protest.“He’s really…he’s…he’s kind and he rescued me from my own stupidity. More than once. And he called me daring and he reads books to try to understand the world better. Also, he’s a man.”

Mom is silent for a beat longer than she ever is. She’s constantly multitasking, so maybe she got distracted by something else. “Well, perhaps you put him on your list,” she says finally. “Your list of things you want from your life. If nothim, someone like him. That’s what it sounds like you want, to me.”

My mouth is dry, and not only from the lack of humidity in the Colorado air. I forgot this is what happens when I talk to my mom: she calls me out. She sees things I haven’t acknowledged about myself. She senses that when I talk about Hunter, I get more excited than I’ve been about anything else in a long time.

“And don’t seek out near-death experiences unless you’re willing to deal with the consequences,” she adds, ruthlessly.

I grimace. That’s fair. My kind of daring should never involve anything that requires balance. “You’re right,” I say. I go back into the room and grab the notepad that’s on the nightstand, and a pen. Mom doesn’t object when I tell her I have to hang up because she understands the momentum of the moment.

I sit down on the balcony chair and start a list of what I want—what I actually want, not what Sophie and Nora, or my friends back in Denver, tell me I should want. It’s not merely a list of what Icanhave. It starts with “never parallel parking again” and ends with “someone like Hunter” and in between, a life starts to take shape that I didn’t expect.

Hunter might not want to hang out that evening for our planned axe-throwing date, but I’m pretty sure he won’t ghost me. He’s not that kind of guy.

So I’m not surprised when he arrives, shoulders hunched and hands tucked in his jeans pockets, and says, “I’m not sure I’m in the mood for this today.”

“I’m so sorry about earlier,” I blurt. “I wasn’t thinking. I was trying to impress my friends by being…what you called me. Daring.”

He stares at me for a moment, and I get smaller under his gaze. “That’s not daring, that’s…” he trails off, and I know what he was thinking: stupid. I’ve been thinking it myself, all day. I’ve been a woman who can’t see herself clearly. If nothing else, this has opened my eyes. Like cleaning a mirror.

“I know.” I nod. “I know. Daring is trying something when you’re scared, not throwing yourself at a situation to see what happens. You can be daring and plan. You can be daring and careful. I get that. I swear I do.”

“I’m really just so mad at Scott for taking you guys out there,” Hunter goes on, taking his hands out of his pockets. “He’s actually a really good guide. And then he doesn’tthinksometimes.”

“He was probably trying to impress Nora. It’s a vicious cycle.”

Hunter sighs deeply. “It’s not…that’s not what I want.” He swallows, looking down as he fiddles with his hands. “Nora and Scott, revving each other up with their dares and the flirty teasing and counting down until the end.”

“That’s not what I want either!” Everything feels wrong, like the peace between us has shattered.

He looks up and our eyes connect. The question hangs there between us, unsaid:Well, what do you want?

And even though I spent all afternoon trying to figure it out, I’m scared to share my answers. It’s too much, too big to spill here, standing in front of a cage in this noisy room full of tipsy people holding sharp objects.

“Maybe we should back off a little,” Hunter says, and my heart clenches. “I don’t want you to…get hurt.”

I wonder if I’m the only one in danger here; I can’t tell from the way he looks at me so kindly.

---