Page 65 of Reaching Gavin

“I’m going to say something really stupid now,” I warned her.

“Judgment free zone,” she promised.

“I don’t think I’ve ever really been in love before. There I said it. I, Cassie Hart, the girl who is always in love, didn’t really known what I was talking about for the last, oh, ten years of my life. I’ve been perpetually in love with someone since puberty, building futures in my head, and planning my life with a host of Mr. Wrongs. Why am I so afraid to do that now that I’ve found Mr. Right?”

“Because now you actually have something to lose.” Jess had always been the wise one. Jillian was good for being angry and burning things down with, but Jess was the one you wanted when it was time to face facts. Now that she’d found her own happily ever after, she had more insight than ever.

“Do you think I’ve lost him?”

She shook her head with a smile. “It’s not that easy. Love is actually hard. Love is sacrifices and compromises. Love is work. It’s being angry and storming out of the room and then walking right back into it. So, no, I think that what you two have is real. Right now, things suck between you two. But, in my experience, once you’ve found the one you’d go to hell and back to stay with them.”

“I didn’t find him,” I whispered, “I reached him.”

“It will work out.” There was no doubt in her words.

How had I come this far? How had Gavin come into my life and I’d already tried to ruin things between us. “I’m not ready yet.”

She seemed to understand what I meant. I wasn’t ready to face Gavin. I needed to get a hold of myself. I needed to understand and except that this was frightening and fresh and raw—and I needed to have faith—or learn to have faith—that he would still be there no matter how crazy I got.

Because I might have reached Gavin, but I needed time to accept that I deserved him.

I calledin sick to work the next day. It wasn’t the most mature move, but I justified it because Jess had returned. I hadn’t taken a single sick day all summer and I’d worked overtime, I could have one day to clear my head. Gavin called about an hour after I was supposed to be in, but I let it go to voicemail. I would talk to him. Soon. But not yet.

The fact was, that I didn’t trust myself yet. I needed to be clearheaded. While I was ready to accept that our relationship was going to take some work, I needed to find the right words to let him know where my lines were. I had no reason to suspect that he wouldn’t respect them. Yes, he had expressly gone against my wishes. With a good night sleep, I could see why he had done it. I didn’t agree with him, but I understood. That one lapse in judgment didn’t erase all of the times he’d shown an exceptional magnitude for thoughtfulness and respect.

Jess and I stayed in bed until an embarrassingly late hour, only getting up to grab food or go to the bathroom. We watched bad TV and she told me about her summer.

It was hard not to be in a good mood when you were around someone who was so in love. Even that gave me hope. Jess and Roman had faced their own obstacles and they’d found a way around them together. She was right, all of the hard stuff was what made love great.

We’d just begun to debate whether we should go out for take-out or order pizza again, when Jillian called us. The second we answered the video chat, I could see from her face something was really wrong.

“Guys,” she said, her voice cracking.

Like that, all of my problems went out the window. Our best friend was on the other side of the world and I wanted to be there hugging her immediately.

“I finally got to see that specialist,” she said.

Both Jess and I went rigid. Jillian had early onset Parkinson’s. One of the reasons she had gone to Scotland, was to try to see a renowned specialist in Edinburgh. It had been her boyfriend Liam’s idea—and we thought a clever ploy on his part to get her to consider moving there after graduation. The two of them were pretty serious, but nothing had been decided yet—that we knew of. I wondered if that was about to change.

“What did he say?” Jess asked in a clipped tone. If Jillian was going to be upset, she would be all business. Our best friend’s diagnosis had been what pushed her to go for med school. She’d been by Jillian’s side through this whole roller coaster.

“It’s bad,” she said, starting to cry. “I thought I would have a little longer. Maybe Liam and I would have a chance for a normal life. Now, it all feels off the table.”

Jess shook her head. “You should have at least 10 years until --”

“Try five,” she interrupted her. “I wanted to go to grad school. I wanted to have kids. I wanted to have Liam’s kids.”

She was getting increasingly upset. We heard a shuffling behind her and suddenly Liam appeared on screen, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and held her close. I heard him whisper, “We can still have all those things, chicken.”

We let her cry for a minute, all of us silent, as I held back my own tears. Suddenly, my own relationship issues felt ridiculous. Love was messy and life wasn’t guaranteed. Why was I trying so hard to control both?

“I just needed to tell you,” she said finally. “I knew it wouldn’t feel real until I did, and I need this to be real.”

“When are you coming home?” I asked her, no longer able to keep the question at bay. I’d been avoiding it for months, afraid of her answer.

“I’ll be back before the fall semester starts,” she promised. “It looks like Liam might be able to extend his student visa.”

None of us said what we were thinking. There was a really easy way for Liam to get his visa extended. I’d never made the suggestion before because, well, I suspected we might lose Jillian to Scotland if he ever asked her to marry him. But seeing them together now—having found my own other half—I couldn’t imagine how hard it would be if they were separated. He was her rock. She was his light. They needed each other.

Liam promised to look after her and cheer her up until he got her back home in weeks. We promised to be waiting at the airport as soon as she arrived. Then we hung up.

“Wow,” I breathed. “Perspective.”

“Don’t mix up her relationship with yours,” Jess said.

“It just makes me feel a little silly for being so upset.”

“You have a right to your feelings. But you know one thing that Jillian and Liam have learned to do really well?”

I shook my head. “Is it something dirty?”

Jess smirked. “Besides that. They learned to talk. They stopped running away from all the things that scared them. Remember how Jillian used to pretend she wasn’t sick?”

“Yep.” Jess had a point. If those two could face that, then I needed to woman up and confront my own fears. I just had to have faith that Gavin would be there facing them beside me.