Page 30 of I'm Not Yours
At the top, we stood and stared at each other. He smiled at me again, our legs touching, and I could feel his happiness: his happiness that we were together, that I’d kissed him, that I’d agreed to bike with him.
I felt him, as I always had. I felt his friendship and kindness, his deep attraction to me, his sadness that I kept scrambling away from him.
In my head—not out loud—at the top of that hill, the serenity of the sweet countryside all around, I heard the words I’d said thousands of times before.I love you, Jace. I love you, I love you. I will always love you.
He kissed me again, hugging me close, and I kissed him back, sinking right on in.
10
I had an interview in Boston. I went from there to an interview in Houston, then up to Seattle.
I practiced my confident act. Breezy and smart, ultrastylish and competent. I could manage people, keep up with fashion trends, work with designers and other creative types, improve sales. My feet hurt in their four-inch heels.
Each interview made me feel sicker, as if I were wandering around lost, entering enemy territory where everyone was living a life that I didn’t want to live anymore, complete with spears, dead animals around their necks, and warring factions. I watched people scurrying about, stressed to the ceiling, faces tight. I saw the piled-up folders, the fashion photos, the couture clothes, the intense conversations among Type A people who thought a lot of themselves. I couldfeelthe competition there. I didn’t think I could do it anymore.
The whole time, I imagined Jace beside me, smiling gently, in every interview. I saw him on his bike. I saw him relaxed at his home, on the deck. I saw him bandaging my ankle and my leg. I felt him kissing me, holding me.
I asked for an outlandish sum of money for my salary, to which the executives I was talking with nodded their acquiescence and told me about the other benefits I would receive.
I teetered out of each interview on my sweet designer heels, feeling skittish. Unhappy. Filled with dread.
My fancy clothes were suddenly so uncomfortable.
I had been living a whirling, hard-charging, fashion centered life for years.
I no longer wanted to do that. It was nothing to me.
What did I want to do?
What appealed?
What did I like to do?
I started doing math problems in my head. How cheap could I live until I could figure this out? The house was free, there were taxes, though . . .
My time in poverty in the trailer park told me that I could not use much of my savings or I’d start to feel the three S’s: sick, scared, and sliding. As in sliding back into being poor.
But it was abundantly apparent that I needed to do something different with my life, workwise. What could I do . . .
I wondered what the letter I’d sent was doing in my former company.
She would have hit the roof, stayed on the roof, and thrown her designer heels at everyone while cursing me.
The farther I got away from her, the better I felt. I laughed.
When I was in Seattle for my interview, Jace called me. I was strolling through Pike Place Market, which overlooks the waterfront in Seattle, surrounded by wildflower bouquets, spices, fresh vegetables of all colors, and fish being thrown by fish sellers. I had bought a six-foot-long woven tapestry of red poppies for the house; not that I was staying in Schollton.
“Hey, Allie.”
“Hi, Jace.” I ducked into a quieter corner.
“How are you?”
“Fine.”
“How were the interviews?”
“My feet hurt.”
