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I lift my head from my knees and stare at the wall opposite the couch. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope.”
“I can’t tell him.”
“And why not?”
“Because…” I grip the phone tightly, almost shrieking.
I mean, I know it’s the obvious solution. If I hate lying so much, I should tell the truth. But I can’t.
I can’t tell the truth.
“Because why?”
“Because look at my life, Willow. Look at it. I’m alone. I’ve always been alone. I’ve always been lonely. No one cares about me. My dad doesn’t even acknowledge my existence. My sister has a bone to pick with me about everything. My mother wanted me dead. Even before I was born. She wanted to abort me because I’m the result of an affair and she didn’t wanna ruin her reputation.”
She gasps. “I didn’t… I had no idea.”
“Yeah.” I swallow. “She never cared about me. I’ve always been a burden to her. A headache. Well, except now. She texts me now. Asks after my health. The yoga thingy. I guess she’s only doing it to ease her conscience. I don’t know. But it’s sure as hell not because she cares about me. And I’ve always accepted that, you know. I’ve always accepted that she won’t love me or care for me or treat me like I matter and that’s okay. I can take that. I have taken that for years. I’m used to it. But I can’t… What if…”
I trail off, my heart hammering inside my chest. All these panicky things coming to the surface. All these fears that were easy to keep inside up until now. But they won’t stay in anymore. My doomsday brain won’t let me.
“What if what?”
“I love him, Willow. I’m in love with him. God, I love him so much and no one has cared for me like he does. Not one person. And he looks at me. He’s been looking at me since I was sixteen. I’ve always been visible to him, Willow. Always. Me. The girl no one sees. What if I tell him and he stops? What if I tell him and he thinks the same thing that I’m thinking? What if he thinks I’m defective too?”
Gosh, if he thought that, I’d die.
I’d literally die.
I’m clutching his rose to my chest right now. The rose he left me on the pillow because I told him I wanted it.
And it’s not even a dead rose, no. It’s not something discarded or dying. He plucked it out fresh and alive and rosy.
Just for me.
I’ve got it in my hands and I’m crumpling it with my fingers like I imagine my heart would crumple in on itself, if he thought that. If he thought that I was defective too, like everyone else in my life.
I wouldn’t be able to live. I wouldn’t be able to move on from that.
“Vi, he won’t think that. He can’t. Because you aren’t defective. There’s nothing wrong with you. Not one thing. And you’ll know that if you tell him.”
Tears stream down my cheeks. “Why wouldn’t he? Everyone else does. I can’t, okay. I’m just so scared.”
I can hear her tears too. She’s crying for me and I could just hug her for being my friend. “Listen, Vi. Listen very carefully, okay? I know it’s scary. I know that. I know it’s easy to deny and pretend. I did it too, remember? So I know. And you love him. That’s scary too. I get that.” She pauses before saying, “But now you have to decide if you trust him or not.”
“Of course I trust him.”
“Enough to tell him about yourself?”
My heart jumps to my throat and all the words I was going to say get trapped there, just off my tongue, unable to get out.
“You have to decide, Vi. You have to decide if the man that you love, the man for whom you drove thousands of miles, the man for whom you were ready to take anything because he was hurting, you have to decide if you trust him or not. If you trust him enough to tell him this scary thing about yourself. You have to decide that, Vi.”
I have to decide if I trust him or not. The man I love.
Do I trust him?
The thought flashes in and out of my mind all day, long after I’ve ended my conversation with Willow, long after I’ve dried my tears.
It comes and goes and it’s bobbing on the surface still when he gets back from work.
I hear the crunch of gravel outside and I realize he’s here.
I was in the kitchen, finishing some things up, and I rush to the door. I throw it open and run out to the top of the porch stairs. The ones he fixed the other day. It smells of new wood and polish.
But I’m not focusing on that.
