Page 48 of XOXO, Yours

I glance down at my phone on the porch step next to me, and through my blurred, watery vision, I see the SOS text I sent them. I don’t even remember doing that.

"Oh, honey," Cora says, coming up the porch steps, and that's all she has to say before she's sitting next to me and Hope is on the other side and I am thoroughly, helplessly flanked.

"I did something stupid," I say.

"You did something scared," Hope says, which is not the same thing, and she knows it, and I know it, and the distinction makes me cry a little harder.

"He said he loves me."

"We know," Cora says.

I look at her. "You knew?"

“I told her how he took you out for tacos the night at the hospital. Then all the times you weren’t available for some things we invited you to. You mentioned you were in a situationship.”

“Your complexion has never looked better. Good sex can do more for your skin than anything Sephora can concoct,” Cora says. “So we knew you were getting some.”

“Well, I fucked it up. No surprise there.” I shake the letter at them. “He ended it."

Hope rubs circles on my back and Cora holds my hand tightly.

“He ended it because he loves me and he can't—" I stop. Press the letter briefly against my chest like that will do something useful. "He said he's ready whenever I am. He said if that day comes⁠—"

“Here’s what I’ve learned from being with Oliver for a few months, you can love and be loved and still be scared. No man can ride in on a white horse or whatever and erase our broken pasts. No one can change our history and make us whole,” Cora says.

“What about you and the new sheriff,” I ask Hope.

“Same thing. Griff has his own wounds too. All of that can exist and we can love each other through it. Just like the three of us have done.”

“That’s the thing, Jules,” Cora says. “You already know how to let yourself be loved. You already know how to be part of a family. Payton isn’t asking you to dull your sharp edges. He doesn’t love some perfect version of you. He loves you. This broken, snotty one.”

“The overly tired and kind of mean you,” Hope adds.

"I'm scared," I say.

“We all are,” Hope says.

"He's twenty-two."

“Which probably means he has amazing stamina?” Hope says.

Cora and I both look at her since Hope has never been very vocal about anything sexual. We all laugh.

“Ew,” Cora finally says. “That’s my brother-in-law and I don’t want to think about him like this.”

“Okay,” I say, “but at some point, we have to share brief notes about whether or not the enormous dick is a Blankenship trait or if Payton just won the weiner lottery.”

We laugh again and then a wave of sadness rolls through me and the tear start anew.

"Jules." Cora takes the hand that isn't holding the letter. "Do you love him?"

“He’s fixed a ton of problems here at my house. Always stealthily, while I’m not looking. And always leaves me notes. Little messages that make me laugh and give me a stupid amount of joy. And I’ve kept every one of them like I’m in the sixth grade.”

I take a deep breath. "Yes," I say. "I love him."

"Then the rest of it is just excuses," Cora says. Not cruelly. Just plainly. "He's not too young. You're not too damaged. You're just scared, and scared isn't a reason. It's a feeling."

"The person who keeps leaving," Hope says quietly, "isn't him."