Page 137 of Don't Go Breaking My Heart
So I do. I crawl into my bed—which smells like Turner’s laundry detergent and sex and cologne—and try not to cry while telling her everything.
She listens. Makes occasional noises of sympathy. Doesn’t interrupt.
When I finally stop talking, she exhales. “Okay, so to clarify…you went to look at the apartment because youdon’twant to fall in love with him, and then you dry-humped him on a bed in the model unit?”
“That sounds accurate,” I mutter.
“Poppy,” she says gently. “You already fell. You’re just trying to move out before you have to admit it.”
I swallow hard. “I know I should. Move out. We’ve crossed lines. It’s complicated. It’s messy. We started sleeping together before either of us even talked about what wewanted. And now I don’t even know what I want anymore.”
My throat tightens.
“Look,” Nova says, “if you need space—real space—to figure it out, move. But if you’re just running because you’re scared he might actuallyfeel the same wayand it’ll ruin everything... then girl, you’re not escaping. You’re delaying the inevitable.”
“Which is what?”
Nova doesn’t miss a beat. “You’re in love with him.”
I blink at the ceiling like it might offer an escape hatch. “I amnot?—”
“Poppy.”
“No, I?—”
“Poppy.”
I flop onto my side, defeated. “How would that be possible?”
I do the mental math, unsure how many days it’s been. Confused.
Nova snorts. “You think love follows a timeline? Like there’s a minimum-waiting period before your feelings are allowed to count?”
I roll onto my back again, staring at the ceiling fan that’s doing a halfhearted spin. “I didn’t plan this.”
“No one plans this,” she says. “That’s literally what makes it real. If youcouldplan it, it’d be a Pinterest board, not a relationship. And need I remind you how my relationship got started? It was a mess.”
It was. Her relationship with Luca Babineaux began with a lie. Lots of them. A secret relationship, sneaking around.
It should’ve crashed and burned but it didn’t.
Once she stopped lying to herself and to her brother it became one of the truest, purest forms of love I’ve ever seen.
I press a hand to my stomach like I’m trying to quiet the butterflies or suppress an incoming emotional breakdown—jury’s out on which.
“Nova?”
“Yeah?”
“What if I stay and he doesn’t feel the same way?”
She’s silent for a beat. Then says, “Then you’ll know. And you’ll survive. But if you leave without telling him how you feel you’llneverstop wondering.”
Of course—she’s right.
Still.
That does nothing to stop my stomach from twisting in knots and my fight or flight instincts from kicking in.
