Page 71 of It's a Love Story

“I’m happy,” she says and looks at her hands.

“With Coffee Bean Gary.”

“You can just call him Gary,” she says. “I think I might be in love.”

“Mom, stop,” I say. It’s not the silentMom, stopI’ve wished every time she’s thought she was in love. It’s coated in anger for how long she’s set me up to feel the way I do today. Love may be a real thing, but it’s not for us. Just stop. Gary’s going to leave. At least I was smart enough not to try.

“I feel like myself with him and I want to touch him all the time,” she says.

“Oh my God, stop,” I say.

“He’s asked me to move in with him, and I’m going to.”

“And you’re just going to do it? Give up your home and run blind into this thing and ride off on a goddamn unicorn?” My voice is jagged. My anger is razor-sharp, and I cannot reel it in.

“What? No.” She pats my hand and I pull it away. I’m just so sick of her happy stories, and I’m so sick of pretending to believe. “Why would you say that?”

I start to cry. The tears start in my chest and burn my eyes as they flow. Gary walks into the room with omelets and immediately retreats to the kitchen.

“Jane, what’s happening?”

It’s time. I know that. I can hear Dan telling me to face it and move on, and this makes me angry all over again. It’s nearly impossible to break a dynamic that’s been choreographed between two people for decades. You protect me; I protect you. We’re both liars.

“This is big for me,” she says. She thinks I’m crying about Gary. “It’s important. He’s important to me. I love him and I want to share things with him.”

“Great,” I say, wiping my eyes. “Good for you, I’m glad you can share things with somebody.”

She looks at me as if she’s been slapped but doesn’t know with what.

“What does that mean?” she asks.

I let my face fall into my hands. I don’t know how to untangle my thoughts and memories. I don’t know how to reach into the mess that I am and pull out the easy version.

“Is this about the movie? What’s happened to you?” she asks.

I felt it. I know what love is now, and I remembered that it’s not for me. “I’m just really angry.” At myself for believing I could have the fairy tale, at her for never owning up, at Dan for lifting the curtain and showing me what I can’t have.

“About Gary and me?”

“No.” I look up from my hands. “Maybe. This thing you’re feeling, it’s a daydream. I know better. And I think you know better too.”

Silence hangs between us, and the normal next step would be to reveal what I know to be the truth about my inherent unlovability. I could just open my mouth and tell her I know she’s been lying to me about who I am my entire life. But it’s too raw and I’m too angry. One more cut and I will bleed out.

CHAPTER 32

IGET INTO MY CAR TO HEAD HOME, AND THERE’S Atext from Dan: Landed. Did you make it home?

Me: I did.

Dan: Are we going to talk about this?

Me: Probably not

I send that text and the pit in my stomach deepens. I’m crying again, and it doesn’t feel like residual crying from before. I’m crying because I can feel myself doubling down. Dan: Jane

That’s all he says, but when I read it, I hear it in his voice. The way he says my name, the way he whispered it in my ear, into my neck, my mouth. I hate the way I let myself start to believe in this thing.

Me: Just stop. It’s over

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