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“You’re not pissed I didn’t tell you?” I asked, subtly trying to change the subject.
He shrugged and tipped his head back to take a drink of his soda. “A little. But seeing you now, seeing how much you’re going through, I get it. I know you, Una. I know what you think about love and all of this. I know you hate messy things, and you’d rather keep your life in order. So no, I’m not mad you didn’t tell me. I’m mad at you for doing this to yourself.”
I frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” he said, pausing to think of the perfect words, “that you allowed yourself to hide in this little hole, thinking you could shield yourself away from the world. You’ve barricaded yourself and your heart for years. And then, when you have the opportunity placed in front of you, you still won’t give in fully. Now, you have the perfect guy for you on the other side, wanting to show you off and shout from the rooftops. It’s your time, Una. Take it.”
I scoffed at that. Charlie didnotwant to shout from the rooftops about our relationship. I couldn’t tell Ali that it all started kind of as a challenge, but that was the truth.
I didn’t think I could fall in love. Charlie challenged that.
And he proved himself right. Because I fell in love withhim. Maybe.
“Charlie’s not going to want to be seen with me now. It was all in secret before for a reason,” I muttered, staring at the fire again. The more I said it, the more I would believe it. Eventually.
“That’s a lie and you know it. While I don’t understand why you were hiding, I know that’s a lie. You’re making an excuse to satisfy your heart, but you don’t have anything solid to work with.”
I looked up at him. “What do you know?” I snapped. “Are you in love with Aria now?”
The whole thing made me flinch. There was nothing more I wanted than my best friend to be happy, yet I still didn’t like it being with her. I blamed her for leaking the original Fairy Godmother post, even though I had no evidence of that being true.
Aria wasn’t a bad person. To most, she was rather sweet. There was some sort of grudge I held against her for being the daughter of one of my father’s pretend love matches.
“I’m not sure yet,” Ali replied, keeping his tone even and calm despite my snapping at him. “It’s too early to tell. But—”
I opened my mouth to interrupt him, but he held up a hand to stop me. I wanted to say it had been even less time for me and Charlie, so how could I possibly be in love with him? There was no way he could love me either in such a short time.
“But,” he continued, “love is different for everyone. Only your heart can tell you what it feels. Not your mind. Not anyone else. Onlyyourheart.”
Wrong answer. “You can’t trust the heart. It’s the biggest liar out of them all.”
“And you can’t trust your brain,” Ali replied. “It’s too easy to talk yourself out of emotions and gaslight yourself, you know. Like you tried to do a second ago.”
My lips clamped shut. Sometimes he dropped these little nuggets of truth and I wanted to smack him for it. Not because he was wrong. But because he was right, and we both knew it. He said things that opened my eyes and made me see the truth, even when I didn’t want to.
He was the worst.
“Answer some questions for me?” Ali asked.
I stared at him, confused.
“Picture Charlie on a date with someone. Anyone but you. Picture him with Cindy. How does that make your heart feel?”
I closed my eyes and pictured Charlie at La Madrina, but this time with Cindy. My hand flew to my chest, a physical ache taking form.
“Right. Now picture Charlie smiling and happy, walking down the hallway hand in hand with another girl. Maybe not Cindy. Maybe Rachel or Tia. They’re strolling along, fingers locked together, staring in each other’s eyes and looking as happy—”
“Okay,” I blurted out. “Okay, I get it. It hurts. It physically hurts me to think about him with another girl. To think of him with someone other than me. I get it. But that doesn’t mean—”
Ali shook his head and scrubbed at his face. He let out a sigh as if he were dealing with an irate toddler, not his best friend.
“Una, listen.” He got up and round the fire until he was before me in a crouch. He grabbed my hand and lifted it to my chest. “Not to me. But to your heart. What is it saying?”
I wanted him to be right. I really, really did. But I didn’t know how to listen to my heart, even though Ali was right in front of me attempting to explain it.
The heart acted irrationally. Trusting the heart was one of the main reasons I had my job. When people trusted their heart, they got hurt, and they came to me. Just like Louis did with his girlfriend.
The heart was a liar and couldn’t be trusted. Listening to it would only bring me pain and suffering. I stopped trusting my heart a long time ago…
