Page 65 of Wrapped in Perfection

"What else?"

"Things are black or white. But in reality, they are gray."

She's always been a good girl, innocent in many ways. And he tried to destroy her.

"You know what I think?" I ask.

"What?"

"I think the person you're with is a determining factor on whether trying hard enough can work or not. But if you have to try too hard, it was never meant to be."

"Harper told me to stop trying. I should have listened to her."

"Do I get to meet your friend soon?"

She smiles. "Do you want to?"

"Yes."

"Okay."

I trace her lips. "There are black-and-white things, but sometimes you have to mix in the gray. And if you're doing something that isn't working in your favor, then maybe the thing you wanted was never supposed to be the right thing for you."

She stares out the window.

I shouldn't broach the topic. I already know the answer. It only serves to put a knife of jealousy through my heart. I quietly ask, "You loved him for a long time, didn't you?"

Shame fills her eyes. She nods.

"What about him did you love?"

She scrunches her face. "I don't know. I thought I knew, but the more time I spend away from him... I don't know."

I swallow the lump in my throat and ask the question that has been plaguing me. "Do you still love him?"

"No." She says it with confidence.

Relief fills me, but I also see something else in her expression. "You're confused about what love is? You wonder how you know what it is if you could be so wrong about him?"

She slowly nods. "How do you know that?"

"I read it on your face. And I know what it's like to question pieces of you that you believed in and thought you knew."

She kisses my forehead. "And that is the dangerous part of you? The parts you questioned?"

Don't lie to her.

"Yes," I admit.

"And they are gray, not black-and-white?"

"Yes."

"They are things you would not want me to know, in fear I would leave you?"

"No. It's not fear you would leave me."

"Then what is it?"

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