Page 30 of Love is an Open Book
“You sound entitled.”
“I think I am entitled to choose to do what I want with my own life,” I say. “We both got a lucky draw. I’m not denying that.” Our parents made enough money to send us to college, and if I’d needed one, I had a job waiting for me. It isn’t a privilege I take lightly, but I’ve absolved myself from letting it dictate my actions. “But I’m not obligated to take on a life someone else built for themselves. It was Dad’s dream, notmine. He obviously agrees, since he’s not the one here asking me to give this all up.”
“I just think you’re taking the easy route.”
I turn to face him in the shadow of the shed. “Easy? You think my decision to stay in Illinois and work at a garden center is easy to explain at every family occasion? You think I enjoy opening up LANE TREE FARM shirts for my birthday each year and hearing the same jokes about how they’re supposed to be for employees only? You think it’s easy to know I’ve let Dad down, but knowing if I do what he wants, I’d be letting down myself?”
Scott sniffs, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I didn’t mean it that way. But what’s really keeping you here?”
“Besides a good job, my house, and my friends?”
“By friends, you mean Mia?”
Knew that one was coming. “She’s one of them.” I step inside the cedar-scented dimness of the shed, searching for an open shelf to store the tarp. “Also, my buddies from work, and Serafina and Joe, you know, the parents of my future godchild?” Joe’s in full dad mode already and recently texted me asking if their houseplants were toxic, even though the baby’s not born yet, let alone crawling.
Scott shifts a flowerpot to make room on one of the shelves. “So if Mia wasn’t in the picture...”
I want to protest that staying close to my best friend would affect my decision even if I didn’t have romantic feelings for her, but that would mean admitting he’s partially right. “This isn’t about her.” I shove the tarp onto the shelf, and brush past him, back out into the open air.
“You’ve been friends since college and you’re both single more often than not,” he says, trailing after me. “Has nothing really ever happened between you two?”
“Nope.” Not until this summer. But that’s all pretend. “Youcan’t seem to wrap your head around it, but I’m happy here,” I tell him. “Happy with the way things are.” Mostly.
“Enough to give up any chance of moving back?”
I hesitate. Am I willing to lose somewhere that was a part of me for so long, just because I don’t want it right now?
Scott shuts the door with a smug smile. “I’ll tell Dad you’re thinking about it.”
Iamthinking about it, that’s the trouble. I can’tstopthinking about it, not when Scott takes one look at the contents of my fridge and says he’d rather pay stadium prices than drink the beer I have on hand. Not even Joe catching a fly ball and giving it to the kid a few rows below us is enough to get my mind off my responsibility to take over the family business.
All I can think is,amI ungrateful?
I picture Dad’s face when I told him I was doing an internship at a home-improvement chain the summer before I graduated, instead of coming back home to work like I usually did. I think about how I’ve tried so many times to explain the farm isn’t just good memories, it’s sad ones, too. About how maybe I’ve tricked myself and it’s not really that I want to be here, but that I don’t want to bethere.
Maybe it is an act of rebellion, or entitlement, or a stubborn desire to not end up like him. Dad spent years living with regret and I don’t want that for myself. I’ve never told Mia about my feelings because I don’t want to risk losing her. But if my dad is trying, after nearly fifteen years, to move on with his life, then maybe I should rethink things.
Because that look in Mia’s eyes yesterday... It wasn’t apathy, or disinterest. It was desire. The same desire that flared in my own chest, despite years of pushing it aside.
I guess my brother is right. There’s more to consider than where I make my home. There’s whether I’m going to end upstuck, just like Dad, dreaming of a someday that’s out of reach. I need to decide whether what’s between Mia and me will always be enough. Whether trying for more is worth the risk. And this experiment is the perfect way to find out.
Scott had it backward. I’m staying for me, but if I move, it would be because I need to let her go.
We make it to the bottom of the third inning before Joe stretches and says, “Hey, I’m going to grab some nachos. Want anything from concessions?”
Scott, who already inhaled a Chicago-style hot dog and a pretzel and is happily drinking a beer, shakes his head. I do, too, but Joe shoots me a look. “Don’t you owe me one?”
I catch his eye and realize he wants an explanation about my supposed date. Knowing he won’t let it go, I sigh and scoot my way along the crowded aisle after him, since Scott catching wind of anything Mia-related is the last thing I want.
Once we’re in line, Joe turns to me, dark brown eyes alight with interest. “All right, you’ve kept me hanging all week. Who is she?”
I already went through all the possibilities—telling him a version of the truth or making something up—and haven’t settled on a decision.
Hands in my pockets, I shrug. “I was trying something new. Didn’t work out.”
“What, like a blind date?”
My boss tried to set me up with her niece once. Not going that route again. “Something like that.”
