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I nod, my throat too clogged with emotion to reply.
“You have a big heart, Eva. That’s a good thing. But it can also hold you back. Your parents are two adults who have the resources to seek out help if they need it. And as much as I hate to say it, whether or not they’re happy isn’t up to you. It’s up to them. You can work as much as you want—be as close to perfect as you think you need to be—but if they’re unhappy, nothing you do is going to change that.”
A tear slips down my cheek. I wipe at it with the flat of my fingers.
Fingers Ford grabs, twining them through his own. My heart flutters.
Shit. Shit I’m getting in deep here. Sliding down this hill faster and faster. I should dig in my heels before it’s too late to stop. I should pull away and keep my hands in my lap. I’m a mess. My world is a mess. I don’t have time for this right now.
I don’t want what Ford wants.
I don’t want to hurt him.
And yet I still give his palm a squeeze. Like I have nothing to lose. His hand just feels so warm and big and real. A reminder that an entire world exists outside the one in my head.
My family.
“You’re right,” I manage. “I try and I try, and I worry, and I try some more. But nothing changes.”
“What if you just let go?” Ford says softly. “I think deep down, you’re realizing the result is going to be the same whether you keep trying or you don’t. You’re strangling yourself, Eva. I think you’re also angry.”
“Oh yeah,” I say with a mirthless laugh. “I’m angry at my parents for not being more functional the way yours are. I know, I know, your parents’ relationship isn’t perfect, but you can’t deny that they’re happy together. They don’t resent each other the way my parents do. I’m—I guess I’m also angry at myself.”
“For?”
“For not being able to make everyone happy, obviously.” Another awful laugh. “And now that I’m thinking about it, I’m angry at myself for taking on this, like, ridiculously sexist female martyr role. Because I always swore I would never, ever end up trapped by sacrifice or obligation. Yet here I am, drowning in my parents’ issues, trying to fix them. I’m scared, Ford. Of ending up unhappy, too.”
I haven’t told anyone that.
I don’t even think I’ve told myself that until now.
“So stop. Being the martyr. You’re made for better things. More fulfilling roles. We all are.”
Can I? Just stop? Easy enough for this ridiculously privileged, ridiculously intelligent man to live life on his own terms and chase his own fulfillment. The whole martyr thing is all that I’ve ever seen in my own family. My mother. My aunts. Even my cousins.
Then again, there are plenty of other women I know who have chosen to live their lives differently. Women who don’t take it upon themselves to fall on that sword on behalf of everyone else, who don’t end up bitter and resentful. Women like Ford’s mom, Eliza, and my friend Julia. Gracie, too.
All of my girlfriends, now that I think about it. I’ve surrounded myself with a bunch of badass women who are striving to make their dreams come true, whether those dreams are growing a family or starting a business.
Women who work hard and view happiness as their right.
Who refuse to be trapped by convention or their pasts.
“You’re right,” I say. And I say it again, hoping it will catch inside my head and stay there. “You’re right, Ford. You’re right.”
Ford squeezes my hand. “You’re gonna be just fine, E. I said it before, and I’ll say it again. Trust yourself.”
“Trust the universe.” I grin.
He called me E. The nickname he had for me in college.
Makes me wanna kiss him, same as it did back then. So I do.
“What is it about you that makes me feel like I can do anything?” I ask.
“My tongue,” he replies easily, cutting me a saucy look from the corner of his eye. “I know how to use it.”
I feel a hit of heat between my legs at the memory of him licking me there. Eyes locked on mine, my nipple held captive between his thumb and forefinger as he ate me out with patience and skill and creativity.
Yeah, I’m gonna need that to happen again.
I want everything that happened today to happen again. The sun, the impromptu cookbook brainstorming session, the coming. Even the tearful confession—admission maybe is a better word—if only because I feel so much lighter. Not solved, and definitely not fixed. As I just learned, it’s not anybody’s job to fix anybody else except themselves.
But I do feel…seen.
And I’ve been around long enough to know that’s something extraordinarily special.
