The days turn into weeks.
I force myself to watch The Princess Bride, like a masochistic punishment. I bawl my eyes out, mourning something I refuse to name, and watch it again.
Alba finds me on the dock one September evening. I’m staring out at the water, working to keep my mind utterly blank—despite the thought that keeps playing on a loop: What am I supposed to do now?
Alba plops down next to me and I cringe, feeling like I’ve overstayed my welcome.
She must read something into the way I shift involuntarily away from her.
Violet, she starts. You know you can stay as long as you want here, right?
I nod. Words are beyond me.
But the deal is, if you’re going to stay, you have to tell me what the hell is going on here. She jostles my knees, which I’m hugging close to my chest. I’m worried about you.
Like a dam breaking, it all comes flooding out. Losing my job. Getting sucked back into my family’s chaos and never-ending list of demands. The dating profile they made for me. Feeling so completely and utterly lost.
I stop abruptly when I get to the moment I arrived in Cape Breton. To meeting Finn. She doesn’t let me get away with it.
And Finn?
It was real for me.
Even now, I can’t quite give up the whole story. So I only say, He asked me to go back with him to Scotland.
Alba nods, like this is the least surprising thing she’s ever heard. I’m not hearing the problem here.
How can I tell her that he’s so completely out of my league without sounding like the world’s most pathetic loser?
He didn’t really like me, Alba. Not really. It was just a summer fling.
Well apparently not for Finn—he literally asked you to go home with him.
Alba, come on, be serious. I’m here, I put my hand as low as it’ll go, resting on the dock. Jobless, basically friendless except for you and Florence, a total weirdo who only hangs out with her family and used to write Zelda and Link fanfiction.
Yeah, I’m going to need a copy of that immediately.
Ignoring her, I hold up my other arm, as high as it’ll go. And here’s Finn. With his perfect hair and his Greek-god body and his cool, sports-guy energy and his flock of women that follow him to every bar, and his fifteen billion Instagram model girlfriends.
Alba looks at the gap between my arms, something like disgust on her face.
Violet, I’m going to be real with you, okay? You have like… a really fucked up perception problem. You always have.
What do you mean?
You are way too hard on yourself and way too forgiving and generous with everyone else. Yeah, Finn is hot. But whatever bullshit persona you decided was the real him, I certainly never fucking saw it. I saw a guy whose entire goal this summer was to beat you at Scrabble. And his dance moves were not giving cool, sports-guy energy, for the record. You two looked like total dorks, possibly totally in love dorks.
I shake my head at her. You don’t get it.
Nah babe, you don’t get it. Remember what I said to you? That part of the appeal of Finn might have been that he couldn’t be serious for you, because he lived so far away? But then he obliterated that particular obstacle, and I think it scared the shit out of you. She shakes her head sadly at me before continuing.
But let’s put Finn over here for a second, okay? Let’s look at all the other stuff going on and start picking that apart. And if, maybe, your view of those things turns out to be completely off-kilter, well, we can take another look at this particular situation.
How am I supposed to do that?
Start with your family. Start with your job. Then we’ll circle back to Finn.
THAT NIGHT, I CALL MY mom.
