Page 39 of Fighting Happily Ever After

“Seriously. What’s going on with you? You look like someone just ran over your puppy, and you haven’t had a dog since we were kids.” It was a lame attempt at a joke, but it made Faith smile nonetheless.

She hadn’t intended on saying anything to Hope, but it seemed to be the day for saying things she shouldn’t be saying, and there didn’t seem to be much point in keeping it from her either, so, with a sigh, Faith told her sister, “I broke up with Logan.”

“You what?”

“Well, I guess that’s the best way to describe it, even though we weren’t really dating or anything. It’s all just…” To her horror, tears sprung from her eyes and once they started, she couldn’t stop them. And she didn’t even try.

Hope sat in silence for a few minutes and let her sister cry. Finally, she reached out and squeezed Faith’s leg. “You need to stop, Faith.”

She looked up and swiped at her nose. “Stop crying?”

“No.” Hope laughed. “Stop pushing people away. Specifically, Logan.”

“That’s not fair,” she said, quick to defend herself. “You don’t even know what happened.”

“I don’t need to.” Hope sat back against the headboard. “I know that he has feelings for you. And you have feelings for him. That scares the hell out of you, so you push him away.”

“I don’t.” She shook her head, needing to get her sister’s words out of her brain. She was wrong. It wasn’t like that. It was that they weren’t compatible.They could never work. They weren’t meant to be together. They never had been. They…“Shit.” The realization hit her hard. “I do,” she said, more to herself than Hope. “But I don’t know why.” She sniffed hard and looked to her sister for an answer. “Why do I do that? Why do I push so hard?”

Hope’s smile was kind despite the fact that she probably wanted to smack her sister senseless for being so obtuse. “I think it all makes sense now.”

“What makes sense?”

Hope nodded to herself. “This was it, wasn’t it?”

She looked at her sister sideways.

“This was what changed everything for you. When we were kids. You were young and impressionable and completely influenced by overhearing that argument. To the point where it changed everything.”

It was. It was the one moment in a sensitive time for a young Faith. In that instant, watching her parents who claimed to love each other more than anyone else in the world speak so cruelly to each other, everything shifted. Faith locked away a piece of her heart that day and from then on, she refused to let herself love or even believe in the concept of it. After all, why would she want to expose herself to that kind of pain?

She shrugged in response to her sister’s comment. It seemed so trivial when her sister said it out loud. After all, everyone fought, right? It wasn’t a deal breaker or a relationship ender. At least, it didn’t have to be.

“You got scared that someone who loved you more than anyone and anything else in the world could have the ability to hurt you so badly. The way Mom and Dad hurt each other with the truth of the adoption. If you let someone love you like that, you give them the power to hurt you, too. It’s very vulnerable.”

She couldn’t disagree with anything. “Then why would you let someone love you if you knew they could hurt you?” Faith asked honestly. “Why would you open yourself up to that?”

“That’s easy.” Hope smiled so wide, it lit up her entire face. “Because the love is so great, it’s worth the risk. A million times over, it’s worth it. And I think you’re missing the biggest point of all, Faith.”

She tilted her head and listened.

“Mom may have kept a crazy big secret and they may have had a huge knock-down fight about it where they said terrible things, but what you’ve chosen to ignore all of these years is that even though that happened, it didn’t break them. It didn’t destroy everything they’d built together, because they loved each other so deeply, they couldn’t be broken. Not ever. And that’s the real magic. If you let yourself love…” she paused, letting it sink in, “you’re giving yourself the greatest gift you possibly could.”

Faith knew her sister was trying to help, but she couldn’t possibly understand. The secret between their parentshadstayed with them. That night and that fight, it had broken their relationship and instead of owning that, they just continued to act as if nothing was wrong and that they were perfectly in love and the very definition of romance. It was a lie. All of it.

As if she knew what Faith was going to say, Hope scooted closer to her on the bed. “But I don’t think this is why you’ve closed your heart, Faith.”

“What?”

“You’re smart enough to know that people fight and they make up. You’ve always been smart enough to know that.”

She opened her mouth to object, but Hope was on a roll. “There is no way you’ve been jaded and bitter about love this whole time because of that. But I think I know what it is.”

Faith tilted her head. “Do you now?”

“I do.” Hope’s grin couldn’t be contained. “You’re scared.” She nodded, pleased with herself. “Loving someone and opening your heart to someone else is the most vulnerable thing you can do. And you’ve simply been scared.” She smacked her palm to her forehead. “It’s so painfully simple that I never saw it, but you, my sweet sister, are a big, giant scaredy-cat. What if you love Logan and he doesn’t love you back?”

Her words hit her in the gut, but she couldn’t deny them. What was the point?

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