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“Everything’s a mess, Mack, and it’s my making.”
“It isn’t. Life is a mess. You can’t predict it. And you have people who love you, even those who want to cage you up and make you into who you aren’t.”
I put my hands on his chest. “Like you? Caging me?”
“Now, I’m caging you? For fuckin’ real, Princess?” he asks mildly. “I want to help. Sure, I might have fudged the truth a little over your car not being ready, but that was to make sure you were okay when those calls came in, and—”
“You what?” My blood goes cold.
“There was a delay with the part, but I’ve had it fixed since you started staying at my house. I didn’t tell you?”
“No.” Anger spikes high. “You didn’t.”
“It’s not a big deal. Just a few days.”
“How many?”
He doesn’t answer. “Look, Sidney, I’d like for you to stick around longer, but I’m not putting anyone in any kinda fuckin’ cage. I protect, not lock up. And I’m not into making someone who they’re not.”
“But I’m a mess.” He’s had my car fixed. I was staying at his place and . . . “Mack . . .”
He steps away from me. “The only reason your life feels like a mess is you made it that way. You ran instead of telling your parents where to go. You tell me where to go and I bet you tell Vic the same.”
I don’t answer because he’s got a point, and I don’t like it.
“Maybe it’s good your mom is coming. You can tell her where to go.”
I look at him and fist my hands at my sides. “That’s what she’d do, try and force me into something.”
Mack crosses the garage, rubbing a hand on his face. Then he stops and comes back. “That’s where you’re wrong.”
“Am I?”
He stops and goes completely still. “You really think that’s what I’m fuckin’ doing? I’m forcing you? I’m actually caging you and trying to make you into something you’re not, Sidney? Because why? Why would I do that?”
Because, I want to say, you didn’t tell me about my car. But I also really want to say that I don’t know.
That’s a lie because, yes, I do, because he won’t want the real me. The me I am when he’s not there. That Sidney’s not that different, just a bit less shining, a little lifeless. Boring.
Because I think he wants to change me because I’m lacking.
I’m more than aware this is childish. Juvenile. I know how old I am. I’ve built up my own business, and I come from a life of privilege. I know I’m successful when it comes to work.
But compared to him, to what he is, so comfortable in who he is, so at ease with the world, everything, and everyone. He’s honest and charming. He’s good. He’s a man who knows what he wants and goes for it.
So why would he want me?
He’s a shining light, and I’m Sidney Novak, an almost thirty-year-old woman who lets her mother interfere.
“Because you can? Because,” I say, needing to push, to run, “you had my car fixed and used that to keep me here. You’re just a prettier, more exciting version of her.”
The air stills, grows somehow cold.
“Then we’re done. If that’s what you think. We’re done. Have a good life.”
I almost double over from the pain of his words, and the expression on his face.
There’s no going back from all this.
