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He shrugged. “Ever since we first met when I was nine and she was seven, she has seemed to always know exactly what she wants and is working toward it.”
Ed clapped him on the back. “Don’t give up, son. Fear gets even the best of us and works to confuse us into taking the wrong path.”
Marcus thanked them and went to the counter to pay for his boxes, and then headed back to Everett’s to pack them up. It sounded like they were asking him to have hope, and hope was much too dangerous to even consider having.
nineteen
JOSELYN
By the time Macie got home that afternoon, it was after four, and Joselyn had managed to stop crying, move from the table to the couch, and stare off into space for hours. Her stomach was growling from not eating, the couch was more comfortable yet not comforting, and staring off into space had given her no answers. Now she just felt numb.
Macie stood in the doorway, bag hanging from her shoulder, keys in hand, looking at Joselyn. After a short pause, she said, “You two broke up.”
Joselyn nodded. “I messed everything up, and I don’t know how to fix it.”
There was a good, long pause before Macie asked, “Don’t know how? Or are afraid to?”
Joselyn looked at her sister.
Macie set her stuff down and joined her on the couch. “Tell me what happened.”
Joselyn took a deep breath and it hitched at the end from being curled into herself and all the crying. “You know, we got along just fine before we started dating. The parts where it was just the two of us brainstorming and planning and getting things set up—those parts were all so great. Then, I don’t know. We just started disagreeing and all the bad things just started happening.”
Macie sat with her legs crossed, facing her, and she reached out and pushed a lock of hair out of Joselyn’s face. “Maybe you weren’t getting along because you were both tired. Burnt out. You two have worked nonstop for weeks.”
“Maybe. But Macie, a lot of things have gone wrong.”
“Yeah, there were a lot of factors outside of your control that didn’t go according to plan. It wasn’t something either of you did or didn’t do.”
“Right. It was an omen.”
“Itwasn’tan omen. You don’t even believe in omens.” After a pause, Macie asked, “Do you love him?”
Joselyn turned to sit cross-legged facing Macie. “I do. So much. I realized that I always have— it just took me a bit to figure it all out. Now I can’t even imagine life without him, ever. Being with him just feels...” she searched for the words to explain it, “exactly right. So much more right than anything I ever guessed something could feel.”
Macie was quiet, so Joselyn just looked down, absently playing with the ankle of her sock.
“Do you know what I think? I think that this is all your brain’s fault.”
Joselyn chuckled and wiped away a tear, shaking her head. “Leave it to a little sister.”
Macie chuckled, too. “Really, though, I think your brain is just trying to protect you from any possible dangers. It likes to do that anytime you’re doing something big and scary. I mean, think about it— it’s the same thing it was doing by trying to get you to procrastinate opening your own business. It used fear to keep you from taking a risk.
“It did the same thing in trying to get you to procrastinate having a long-term relationship with anyone. For years, you’ve been saying that you can’t date anyone seriously until you got your life more together. Then you started working as Marcus’s consultant and doing an amazing job of it. I don’t think you could’ve found anyone who would’ve been able to honestly say that you didn’t have your life together.
“So then your brain shifted its story and tried to protect you by saying you couldn’t date Marcus because you couldn’t be successful at a new relationship and a new business at the same time.”
Joselyn just looked at her sister, not even knowing how to take in everything she was saying.
“Think about this logically and honestly and tell me, do you think you need to be protected from a relationship?”
Joselyn lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “Marcus is leaving. I could use protection from that.” A flash of how much it had hurt back when he disappeared from her life in high school hit her. It had been the most painful thing she’d ever experienced, and he hadn’t even left Nestled Hollow. Now he wanted to leave across an ocean. Permanently. The pain she was facing was unfathomable.
A knock sounded at the door and Joselyn raised high enough to see the road through the window. “Did you text Mom and Dad?”
Macie shook her head and got up. She swung the door open wide and their parents walked into the living room, looking at her with long faces.
“How are you doing, sweetie?” Her mom sat down on her other side and wrapped an arm around her shoulders in a hug. “We’re sorry to hear that you and Marcus broke up. We were rooting for you two.”
