Page 66 of Actually Yours

“Don’t you know I want to be here for you?” He says the words softly but with so much sincerity that I don’t doubt him. I know he’s the guy who wouldn’t lie to me. Maybe the only guy who wouldn’t lie to me.

“I made so many mistakes.” I don’t tell him what they are, hoping he’ll know. Starting with picking his brother that first night.

He nods like he understands, and we fall back into silence.

“Can I ask you something?” His strained voice breaks the quiet surrounding us. I brace myself for his question, knowing what’s about to come.

“OK.”

“That night we met,” he starts and stops.

I turn to look at him, his profile so perfectly silhouetted by the night sky behind him. His jaw is clenched and his eyes are narrowed as he stares straight ahead.

“Yes?” I give him permission to continue.

“Why did you choose to stay with Robby?” There, it’s out there. The big, pink, sparkly elephant in the room is finally being addressed. “I mean, I get it, you guys were there to meet, but I thought, maybe incorrectly, that we had a spark, you know, before he turned up.”

His vulnerability in admitting this urges me to give it back to him. “We did,” I assure him, earning another hand squeeze. “From my end, the sparks were sizzling. I was 100 per cent sure you were there to meet me. That you were my match.”

He turns to face me and our eyes lock.OK, maybe he doesn’t always need to wear his glasses. Unfettered access to his green gaze has my heart ping-ponging around in my chest.

“So, what happened?”

I shrug, embarrassed by my choice that night. “Robby turned up, and I got…confused?”

“Confused?” he repeats my word back to me, slowly.

“I thought, incorrectly it turns out, that I had to trust the algorithm. That the people from the LIB app had picked the perfect guy for me, and that guy was Robby.”

Jake snorts, and I let out a giggle.Boy, was that algorithm wrong.

“And then Robby said something about you…and I guess I got triggered?”

He looks so alarmed that I scoot in closer to him, linking my arm through his.

“What did he say?”

“He told me you were a workaholic, that you were married to your job, that he was surprised to see you out when all you dois work, work, work. And given my experience with my dad, this had all my alarm bells ringing. Dousing all those lovely sparks.”

Jake digests this information and I wait. Thinking back again to that night, to that snap decision that I’ve forced myself to live with ever since.

“That’s all it took? For you to choose Robby?”

I shake my head. “That’s all it took in that moment, but I can’t deny that I liked your brother. Really liked him, enough to date him for six months. I also can’t deny that I was—am—pretty messed up and believed that the type of relationship I had with Robby was normal. Was what I deserved.”

His already clenched jaw hardens further and I ache for the pain I feel I’m causing him. But if we’re ever going to be anything, he needs to know the truth.

“Robby was who I thought I should be with; he fit my type exactly. He appeared to be fun-loving, spontaneous, a dreamer. And it’s what I told myself I wanted. It turns out I’ve been choosing men who were the complete opposite of my dad.” I stop and let out a small laugh. “It should have been obvious to me how I picked these types of men, but apparently I enjoyed having my head deeply buried in the sand.”

“We all have issues from our past that shape the way we behave as adults,” he says, excusing my behaviour. And I love him for trying.

“It’s not just that. I was choosing men the opposite of my dad, true, but I was also dating men who I knew deep down I could never love, so that I’d never be truly hurt when they would inevitably leave me. Turns out I probably need some therapy.”

“We could all benefit from therapy,” he says, again chiming in with the most perfect comment.

“I think all of this played a part in why…” I trail off, not wanting to say more because it will reveal too much, anxiety at the rawness of this moment swirling through me.

“Why?” he probes, not letting me off the hook this time.

---