Page 79 of Anatomy of a Meet Cute
“It’s okay. We’ve all been there,” Duke said, patting her shoulder and looking at Jehan for support. “We can fix this.”
“And I thought I had a day,” Jehan said as she scooped up a particularly chocolaty bite of almond. Duke narrowed his eyes at Jehan as Sam leaned back against the couch and groaned. Picking up on the missed cue as she stood up and walked toward the kitchen, Jehan said, “Of course we can fix this. Or at least part of this, anyway.”
“It’s okay. I’ll figure it out. I dug this grave, after all.”
“Sam,” Duke said over the sound of Jehan opening cupboards. “Don’t take this the wrong way. But not everyone is your mom. Jehan and I don’t expect anything in return if we help you.”
“I don’t think ...” Sam faltered. She was going to say that she didn’t think everyone was like her mother, but that wasn’t true. At least, not entirely. Somewhere along the way, she’d started behaving like everyone was her mother. Like if she couldn’t handle her own needs plus anticipate every whim and expectation of any friend, partner, or mentor, shewasn’t worthy of a relationship with them. According to her mother, if Sam failed, the only relationship she was worthy of was one with shame. Without noticing it, she’d started to believe it too.
“You what? Don’t think that you approach everyone like you need to play defense? Because Jehan and I have seen it firsthand for months now.”
“I mean, I don’t think you two are like that ...,” Sam said, trying to ignore her sticky fingers.
“It’s true,” Jehan said over the sound of the sink. “You didn’t know the first thing about party planning, but there you were sending out invites because I helped with your grant applications.”
“But I wanted to help you, Jehan. My mother is different. She lives for a constant sense of obligation and stark repercussions for failure.”
“Both can be true. You can feel obligated and want to help at the same time. The question is how you feel after you help someone,” Duke said, hunching to catch Sam’s eye. “You can deny it if you want, but there are people in your life who love you and aren’t keeping score. Your mom just may not be one of them.”
Sam sniffed as Duke’s words wrapped around her. She was grateful to have her roommates’ unconditional love, even if she didn’t always have her mom’s. Holding back tears, her voice sounding small, she said, “I’m so lucky you two love me.”
“We are all lucky we love each other.” Duke straightened and picked up his spoon again.
“The thing is”—Sam sighed and rubbed a spot on her forehead with the back of her hand—“my mom’s not evil. I know my mom loves me. She just needs to back off and let me be my own person. Imperfect and separate from her as that may be. I think I need to apologize.”
“I know you didn’t ask, but I think you should be honest with your mom. You were wrong for the way you said what you said, not the sentiment behind it,” Jehan said, offering Sam a damp paper napkinfrom the drawer of take-out silverware they were saving for God only knew what event.
“I felt like I was honest.” Sam intentionally kept her focus on wiping her hands so she wouldn’t have to watch Jehan’s facial expressions.
“Were you, though?” Duke’s tone was gentle, but Sam didn’t dare look up. Her eyes had started to water again, and she couldn’t bear the thought that Duke might be looking at her with pity.
“I mean. I tried to manage her expectations with the catering and the venue.”
“Okay, but why do all of that when the best choice would have been to just tell her you couldn’t put the party together?”
“I was struggling with the idea of saying no. I mean, what if I actually hurt her and she stops speaking to me for good this time? In theory, I could live with the space. But never seeing my mother again? Over a party? Is that really worth cutting out our relationship forever?” Sam paused. Even voicing the idea made her feel like she was chewing on tinfoil, the words only half as uncomfortable as the painful sensation that came with the memory of having lived through a version of them. “I mean, sure, I don’t have unconditional love, but she does love me in her own way. And I wouldn’t just be losing my mother. Sneaking around to talk to my dad and being snubbed on family vacations ... that was awful.”
“So instead you hurt you?” Jehan ducked her head so she could look Sam in the eyes.
Sam let Jehan’s words turn over in her mind. She prodded them, then backed away with a shudder. Since she was little, she’d walked on eggshells lest she damage what little relationship she and her mother had. Looking back, she realized the more she tiptoed, the more the cracks grew. In this light, she wasn’t sure that avoiding a break was ever possible. No matter how much her mother said she loved her unconditionally, the truth was Sam was behaving as if her mother’s love was conditional, because it was.
“I just ...” Sam sniffed and ran her chocolate-stained napkin under her eyes. “I get where my mom is coming from. We all want to be loved and have our needs met. She just goes about it in a weird way. Growing up with someone self-centered, you just start to think it’s normal. I guess I let it go too far.”
“You did.” Duke nodded, then stopped to add, “But who doesn’t have something like that from their childhood? God knows I have stuff I need to work out with everyone from my little brother to my great-aunt.”
Her laugh sounded watery, but Sam was grateful for the joke. And really, Duke wasn’t wrong. In a way, part of getting older was making peace with the strange and unintentional scars family members gave each other.
“Guess I better try to talk to my mom.” The thought of her mom refusing to talk to her made Sam’s lip tremble. She’d started to dab at the remnants of her makeup when Jehan threw her arms around her.
“Don’t cry. We’re in the same place with our relationships. Only you can’t call off an engagement, so you’ll figure this out.”
Sam laughed, feeling her friend’s humor in her bones.
“I have faith in you two,” Duke said, grinning at them as if this were exactly where he wanted to be at roughly 7:00 a.m. on a Friday morning. “You want to talk about Grant now, or ...”
“Not really.” The warmth Sam felt for her friends faded as the two of them looked at her expectantly—Jehan with catlike intensity and Duke with a level of laid-backness that was so mellow it was obviously fake. After another tense breath of silence, Sam caved. “Fine. Say what you want to say.”
Looking pleased with himself, Duke took his time sticking his spoon in the ice cream before laying out the truth with his characteristic smile. “No one wants to hear their boyfriend was right, but ...”
