Page 61 of Shake the Habit

“That’s what Aunt Paula said, too.” I sighed. “But you know how I am with guys.”

“You mean how you acted with your previous boyfriends?”

Like an idiot. That was what she meant: I’d always acted like an idiot.

“KayKay, it doesn’t have to be the same. You changed everything else! You’re a new person,” she said.

“You really think I’ve changed?”

“In a lot of ways,” she answered. “But I was wrong that you’re totally new, because you’re also still the same girl we always loved, the same fun, sweet, exciting KayKay. Now you added even more good things, and there’s no reason that Caleb wouldn’t love you just as much as the rest of us do. Why does it have to end with him riding off with the carnival or leaving you in Georgia at a gas station? He doesn’t seem like the type, and you’re not that type anymore, either.”

“You know what? I think I’m pretty lucky to have you as my friend.”

“I’ll remind you of that the next time you sound like Aunt Amber,” Cass answered, and we ended the call with laughter.

Chapter 13

We were going to run out of tissues. I looked around, wondering what else we had in the office that could absorb tears. There was paper in the printer—would it help if she rubbed that under her nose and over her eyes? I figured that it would feel pretty rough. It had been Marc’s turn to buy toilet paper but he had forgotten, so there was no solution there. I hoped no one had to go to the powder room, because that printer paper would also feel rough when rubbed against other areas.

She took another tissue and that was it, we were out. “I’m so sorry,” she sobbed, but it wasn’t about the empty box. “I think I made the worst mistake of my life. What am I going to do?” She put her head on my desk.

“Taygen, you have to calm down,” I said firmly. “You’re going to make yourself sick and you’re really upsetting Sir.”

She sat up and breathed shakily. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated to my dog, who whimpered. Her bottom lip trembled hard in response. “Poor Sir. I’m ruining lives wherever I go!”

“Sir will feel fine after I give him a piece of cheese,” I consoled, but she was already bawling again. My Lord, I wished that cheese would work on her, too! She’d been crying forever and I would have done just about anything at this point. I’d already tried soothing phrases and positive affirmations. I hadn’t yet brought up self-love in the shower, but that might have helped.

There was also the nuclear option. I looked at my phone, considering what would happen if I texted Marc and told him that his ex-fiancée was in our office, crying so much that I thought she might damage something internally, like her uvula or spleen or something…no. No, I couldn’t do that, because I already knew what he would do: he’d drive here as fast as he could and maybe get another ticket, run in and see her tears, and melt. They would get back together even though nothing was resolved. I knew that my cousin’s heart was just as pertinacious as the rest of him, and it hadn’t given up on his former fiancée.

Beneath my desk, where Taygen couldn’t see, I texted Aria for backup—but she was busy. “I’m finally getting my hair done!!! Do you really need me?” she answered, and I said no. My parents were working, Aunt Amber was taking care her own little boy, and everyone else I could think of was also busy with important activities.

I looked up from my list of contacts and found her watching me through her tears. “I know you’re texting someone. Is it Marc?” Taygen asked, and she sounded hopeful.

That made me mad. “Did you come here to manipulate me into arranging a reunion?” I snapped.

“No!” she protested, but then her face crumpled and she sniffed so loud that I reached into the printer for a piece of paper so that she could blow her nose. “Well, I did, kind of. I’m sorry.” She lost control of her voice and the next words came out more like a wail. “I haven’t been able to eat or sleep. I can’t go to work. I can’t even be in my house because everything reminds me of him!”

“Where have you been, if not any of those places?” I wondered.

“My car,” she said, and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. Both of those were already soaked. “I’ve even been sleeping in it because my bed is so big and empty…”

The paper hadn’t worked to blot away her snot and tears. I rummaged in my bag and passed over a tampon. “It’s all I have,” I apologized, and she unwrapped it and dabbed at her eyes with the cotton end. “I don’t appreciate that you were using me to reunite with him, but I understand.” I, of course, had been the girl who’d slept in her high school boyfriend’s front yard to try to convince him not to dump me. It had been rough, both because I’d lain on their concrete pathway and it had scratched my face, and also because they’d had a lot of sprinklers. It was a long walk home in wet clothes after he’d rejected me.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized again.

“It’s ok,” I told her. “But Taygen, there’s really nothing that I can do. Y’all need to work it out amongst yourselves.”

“We can’t if he won’t talk to me!”

“He won’t talk to you because your father and brothers are threatening him!”

“They’re mad,” she mumbled.

“Then you have to tell them to stand down. Tell them that they’re part of the reason that you and Marc aren’t together anymore.”

“They’re my family!”

I sighed. “Taygen, grow up. And I’m saying that as someone who acted a lot like an adolescent for most of my life, both before it was appropriate to be so advanced and well after the point that it was weird to be so immature. You have to grow up too, and you have to decide what you want and what’s important. Is it worth it to force Marc to wear a brown suit that he hates at his wedding, only because that’s the color your father wore at his? Are you really going to tell him that he can’t work up until a normal closing time because he needs to have dinner with your parents three times a week, and for some reason they eat at a quarter to five? Will you ever admit that shutters look stupid on his house?”

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