Page 110 of Meet Your Match
It was like trying to convince myself to jump out of an airplane when I had a gut feeling my parachute wouldn’t work. It was like someone else telling me it’s fine to take a step, but I’m blindfolded, and when I hover my foot, I’m just certain there’s a cliff there, and that I’ll tumble off it and to my death.
I was frozen in place, fright-stricken, trying to survive by just staying still.
“I hate seeing you this way,” Livia said softly, but I jerked as if she’d screamed. We’d been silent for so long, her playing with my hair while I cried quietly.
“I know.”
“You love him, too.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, and how more tears found their way out, I’d never know. I couldn’t believe how much I’d cried. It had to be a Guinness World Record by now. My eyes were so swollen I was surprised I could even see at all.
“You do,” Livia repeated, smoothing a hand over my hair. “Babe, why are you torturing yourself?”
“You know why.”
She sighed. “Okay, yes, I do, but…” She paused like she was gathering her thoughts. “If there was ever a time to move forward, or a person to move forwardwith— is this not it?”
“Livia, James broke me,” I said, pushing up so I could look her in the eyes. I hated how my voice trembled. “But Vince? He… he could kill me.”
“Or he could bring you back to life.”
I rolled my lips together, tasting the salty tears there.
“You’re scared of being hurt again,” she said, my face warping as she did. “And that’s okay, that’s normal,” she assured me, covering my hand with hers. “And truthfully, I cannot promise you that it won’t happen. No one can, not even Vince. That’s what’s so fucked up about relationships, about love. We give ourselves, we trust, and then we get hurt. We wonder why we ever did that, we hate everyone for a while, until… we don’t. Until we meet someone, and we laugh again, and wefeelagain, and we start to wonder if we can fall in love again. So we do.” She laughed a little. “And then, they fuck us over or we fuck them over and we’re right back to square one.”
“So youdoget it.”
She squeezed my hand. “I do. But listen, you want to know the difference between the people who end up alone and the ones who end up with the love of their life?” She leaned in on a smile. “The former never open themselves up to love again because they’re too afraid of the pain that might come with it. And the latter understand that love is worth it, and that they’re strong enough to survive whatever comes before they find it.”
I nodded, eyes bubbling over again. “You do realize how stupid that sounds coming from someone who has told me dozens of times that love is a construct, right?”
“Yeah, well, I’m not you,” she said, quickly waving me off. “I get my kicks in different ways. But baby girl,youare in love. And if I was ever in your shoes, I’d want you to smack me and shake me until I saw it and listened to you, too.”
“You haven’t smacked me yet.”
“I’m close.”
I chuckled, leaning my head on her shoulder and thinking about the night I spent with Vince and his family. They were so lovely, so different from James’s that it had knocked me for a loop. With James, he made me feel like we were invincible, but his family only made me feel like a bug that needed to be squashed. Vince’s family only spent a few hours with me — one night — and somehow, they made me feel like I’d been in the family for years, like I belonged there with them.
The words his dad had said to me before they left made more tears pool in my eyes as I recalled them.
“I wondered when my boy would give his heart to someone. I’m glad he waited for you.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, the tears were released, my bottom lip quivering.
“I want to, you know,” I whispered. “Trust him. Jump in. Try. I just… I feel frozen. I feel… scared. I’msofucking scared, Livia. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, and the sickest part of me keeps saying it’s better to feel this now than later, that losing him today will be easier than a year down the line.”
“Probably true. But what if you didn’t have to lose him at all?” She nudged her shoulder up until I lifted my head and looked at her. “What if he stayed? What if you made it?”
I covered my heart where it fluttered at the thought. “I felt this way once before, you know. I thought I was gettingmarried, I thought we would be together forever.” I shook my head. “I think that part of me is broken now. I don’t know how to access it.”
Livia frowned, and we were both quiet for a long moment before her eyes widened and she lit up. “Oh, my God. I’m a genius.”
She jumped up from the couch before I could ask what the hell she meant, and then she ran back to my bedroom. I heard her rummaging through something, and then a curse before a loud thump rang out.
“Liv?” I called, dragging my ass off the couch to go get her. But she swept through the living room before I had the chance, a familiar box tucked under her arm as she grabbed my wrist and tugged me toward the sliding glass door that led to my back yard.
“Come on.”
