AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Renn breaks the silence first. “What?”
“He was lying. He wants me to not go,” I tell her, because that makes sense.
He was trying to scare me with that dinner invitation. He doesn’t really want to have dinner with me. This is all a game because I wouldn’t leave him alone.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Willow says.
I throw my hands up. “Well, what other reason could there be then? Why would he invite me to dinner? A student.”
A crazy student.
I don’t say that, of course. But it’s true.
I mean, it’s not as if he’s talked to me since. Or even approached me or in some way acknowledged what happened between us. For which I’m very grateful; I’d rather forget that embarrassing day. But still.
“You seriously can’t think of any other reason why he’d ask you to out to dinner?” Vi asks.
“Uh. No.”
“Oh my God,” Renn almost moans, shaking her head. “This is Cooper all over again.”
“What?”
Cooper was my lab partner last semester, and Renn somehow got it in her head that he had a thing for me. She even went so far as to send him my racy pics one day; long story: we’d gone out shopping and I’d bought some nice lingerie at Renn’s insistence — I knew I shouldn’t have — and when I modeled it for her, she took pics and texted him from my phone.
I was so embarrassed.
To this day, I can’t look Cooper in the eye.
“This is not Cooper,” I state very firmly.
Renn rolls her eyes. “You’re so clueless.”
“No, I’m not,” I tell her. “Not every guy is after me. No one even wants to talk to me, okay?”
“That’s because they’re all idiots,” Willow almost snaps, angry on my behalf.
“Exactly,” Vi says. “But he’s not.”
“I mean, look at his stellar record,” Renn contributes. “You say that with his grades and genius, he’s all set to go to Harvard. On a scholarship. Oh and he’s the best tutor on campus.”
“Yup.” Willow nods. “And these aren’t even the most important points that make him smart.”
She finishes with raised eyebrows and a pointed stare at me, and I can’t help but ask, “What’s the most important point, then?”
“That he asked you out on a date,” Willow explains.
I go still for a second or two.
Even more than that, I think.
A date.
This is a date.
He asked me out on a date.
I’ve been so numb ever since he asked me that it never occurred to me. It never even crossed my mind. But then…
No.
This can’t be a date.
I mean, I can see why they’d think that. I went to him for a tutoring session but he asked me out to dinner instead. It’s the kind of story that you tell people, about how it all started, their epic love story.
But my friends don’t know the whole truth. About that day. About him. Because I never told them.
I know, though.
And this can’t be a date.
Right?
Right.
My fragile brain can’t handle the hope. It just can’t.
So I take a deep breath and tell Willow, “No. It’s not a date. Trust me on that.”
“But why do —”
“Just take my word for it, okay?” I say, debating whether I should tell them everything but then thinking it’s too much right now; I’ve had enough stress for one day. Instead, I say, “Besides, you think everyone likes everyone else.”
“I do not think that,” Willow protests, drawing back.
Violet chuckles. “You so do. You’re always matchmaking these days.”
Yup.
Last month, Willow got it in her head that Ruth — who’s her therapist as well; in fact, Willow was the one who referred me to Ruth — needs to find a man for herself. And Willow had the perfect guy for Ruth all ready to go.
I’m so glad that we talked her out of that though. Not only is it unprofessional to involve yourself in your therapist’s love life, but the man she chose — the accountant from the bookstore where she works — turned out to be in sort of love with Willow herself. So, a disaster waiting to happen.
But I guess this is what happens when you’re in love yourself. You see everything through your love-colored glasses. And Willow is in love. Gosh, big time.
So much so that she married the man she loves last year, over her Christmas break from college.
Simon Blackwood.
Or rather, Dr. Simon Blackwood. Our psychiatrist at Heartstone.
I’m not going to lie, I was sort of against their relationship in the beginning. I didn’t find it very romantic, a patient falling for her psychiatrist. In fact, I was quite angry with Dr. Blackwood myself. I thought he was taking advantage of Willow and her condition. Besides, there’s a thing called transference that happens between a psychiatrist and a patient when they grow inappropriately close. They feed off of each other in an unhealthy and toxic way.
So I thought it was science.
