Page 64 of Monsters, Vows, and Growls
“No,” she said. “You’re fire. And if he can’t learn how to meet you in the middle, he’s going to get burned.”
We stepped into the cottage. The room was beautiful. Candles flickered on the nightstand. The bed was turned down. Rose petals dusted the floor. The sight made me want to scream.
“This was supposed to beournight,” I said, my voice breaking.
Carol closed the door behind us. “Then maybe it still can be. Just not in the way you thought.”
I didn’t answer. I walked over to the bed, sat down in a pile of tulle and flowers, buried my face in my hands, and let myself cry. I don’t know how long I cried. I only stopped when I realized I was gasping more than sobbing, and my cheeks hurt from thesalt. Carol sat beside me in the big chair by the fireplace, legs tucked under her, champagne abandoned on the side table. She hadn’t said anything in a while, which I appreciated. She was letting me unravel at my own pace.
Eventually, I wiped at my face with the hem of my dress—elegantly—and said, “He left.”
“He did.”
“On our wedding night.”
“Technically, you told him you might’ve rushed the whole thing.”
I flinched. “I didn’t mean it.”
“I know.”
Silence again.
Then she asked, gently, “Do you think maybe… he wasn’t entirely wrong?”
I stared at her. “About what? About me being an emotionally unstable lunatic with a god complex?”
She didn’t blink. “About control.”
I pressed the heel of my hand into my forehead. “God. Don’t start psychoanalyzing me.”
“I’m not,” she said. “I’m reminding you of things you already know but don’t want to say out loud.”
When I didn’t respond, she waited. And then, softly continued, “Remember in sixth grade, when you had to switch schools in the middle of the semester because your mom said the house hadbad vibes?”
I groaned. “Ugh. Theenergy shift. She saged the couch.”
“And when she made you pack everything in one day so you could leave before Mercury retrograded?”
“I missed finals. I had to retake math in summer school.” I remembered.
“How many times did the school office have to call her and remind her to pick you up?”
I winced. Carol was right. Mom would say she'd pick me up at two thirty, but at least twice a month, she never showed. “She said the cat wouldn’t eat. So she had to make chicken and rice and couldn’t get there in time.” I responded weakly with one of her excuses. Another had been a bird that had been hit by a car, and she had to take it home first before she could come and get me.
Carol’s voice was quiet now. “Remember what you said to me one time?"
I laughed dryly, because over the many years of our friendship, I had said a lot of things to Carol.
“You said,It’s okay. She loves the animals more than me.”
The words hit harder now than they did when I said them. Because back then, I’d said it like it was a joke. I had felt like it for a long time, and they just had to come out, but it was easier to make them sound like I was making light of it than to fully deal with it.
Carol reached over, took my hand. “You’re not broken, El. But you’ve been carrying around this deep, bone-level fear for a long time. That if you’re not on time, on task, on top of every littlething—someone will forget you. Or choose something else over you. Even a bird. Or a hungry cat.”
The air left my lungs in a slow, stunned breath.
“And Patrick,” she continued, “he’s not your mom. He doesn’t need a ten-minute buffer to remember you matter. He’s… always known.”
