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“Don’t make me drag it out of you.” Rainbow squints at me. “Let me see if I can figure it out. You’re not sick.” She eyeballs me from head to toe. “Money problems? No, that’s not it. Ooh! Are you pregnant?” My eyes go owlishly wide. Rainbow shakes her head. “No. I’d know if you were knocked up. Your aura would change entirely. So that leaves only one other option…your heart is broken.” Sympathy comes to her face and she pats my upper back. “Oh sweetie. Tell Rainbow all about it.”
I feel my bottom lip wobble. “I fell for a guy I probably shouldn’t have,” I tell her.
“You’re talking about that handsome new doctor who I saw you playing around with in the woods?” she asks with a knowing twinkle on her face.
I nod. “I always knew that he was off-limits. And I fell for him anyway.”
“Why do you say he was off-limits?” she interrogates me.
“Mason is Felix’s best friend. Well, I guess heused to beFelix’s best friend. But I screwed that up for them, too.”
Rainbow’s eyebrows pull in. “What does your relationship have to do with Felix? Or any of your brothers? Those boys are living their absolute best lives out here in Starlight Falls. Forget about them for a second.” She takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. “Tell me, what doyouwant?”
“I…think I want Mason,” I admit pathetically. “I think I’m in love with him. And when he said he loved me, I didn’t say it back. And by the time I was ready to woman up and admit my feelings to him, the whole situation had already blown up in our faces. And now, he’s gone.” I blink back tears. “Is it too late for us?”
Daphne’s eyes are full of pity as she looks at me. She brings an arm around my back and leans her head against my shoulder as I speak with her aunt.
“There’s no timer on love,” Rainbow tells me. “There’s no deadline. Of course it’s not too late.”
“Mason only came to this town to work at the medical clinic with Felix. But when my brother found out we were together, he fired Mason.” I exhale heavily. “I tried to talk to Mason and convince him we should be together but, I think he’s already changed his mind about me. He came to his senses and realized how much loving me had cost him in such a short period of time—his jobanda long-time friendship. So he stopped. He stopped loving me.”
Rainbow softly shakes her head. “Do you really believe that? Do you really believe this man stopped loving you in the blink of an eye?”
I shrug helplessly. “He lost everything important to him because of me. This new start meant everything to him. And he had it taken away because we got caught messing around. It’s all my fault.”
Mason sacrificed the life he was building in exchange for a few stolen moments with me. And then he realized I wasn’t worth it.
“That’s the story you’re telling yourself in your head,” Rainbow says, squeezing my hand. “But you wanna hear something funny?”
“What?” I ask eagerly.
“Most of the time, the stories we tell ourselves are very, very far from the truth.”
I whimper pathetically. “Well, that’s not funny at all.” My shoulders sag. “I want to believe that he still loves me and that we can work things out. But the voice in my head says there’s no way. Why is all of this so scary?”
The sage woman smiles kindly. “I know it’s scary, moonflower. Here’s the thing, though. You’re not pulling away from Mason because you’re scared of what your brothers will do. Hiding behind your brothers is convenient. The truth is, you love that man and it scares you. The idea of putting down your shields and truly stepping onto the battlefield of love with your weapons down terrifies you. But if you want to be a woman who stands on your own two feet and leads the life you dream of, that’s exactly what you’re going to have to do. Stop hiding in your brothers’ shadows. Stop using their big bossy ways as an excuse for not boldly stepping into the shoes of the woman you truly want to be.”
I absorb Rainbow’s words. I’m trying desperately to unravel the knots in my head. And then the truth comes spilling out. “Mason is out of my league. That man is utterly perfect. Like, not only is he gorgeous, he’s doctor-level smart. And kind. And funny. And…I’m a mess, Rainbow. It wouldn’t be fair for me to hoard a man like that for myself. A perfect man belongs with a perfect woman, doesn’t he? Mason deserves a perfect woman. Not a mess like me.”
I knew he’d eventually see my defects and walk away from me. I always knew it.
“First off, nothing your heart desires is out of your league, moonflower. Don’t ever let me hear you say that again,” she scolds me. “And secondly, the right man for you will not need you to be perfect in order to love you. All your imperfections will be absolutely perfect for him. You’ll be enough for him just by being who you are.”
My mind goes back to ‘Karli Day’. To the diploma Mason gave me. To the freaking long essay he wrote about all the things he likes about me.
Hell, was that his way of saying that I’m perfect for him?
“Gosh. All of this is just so silly…” I wag my head left to right, trying to shake off the whole situation.
Rainbow smiles. “It’s not silly if it means something to you, if it hurts you. What you feel matters, moonflower.”
“Thank you, Rainbow.” There’s a lineup of patrons at the cash register now. I rise from where I’m sitting, tugging Daphne up along with me. “We should get going. Thank you for your time.”
“Of course, darling,” Rainbow calls from where she’s now ringing up her first customer. “Come back tomorrow if you want to talk some more. We could even pull up your birth chart and check the astrological transits.”
“Thanks,” I say again. “But I don’t think I need all that.”
I don’t need to read the stars to know that I’m crazy about Mason. And I have a pretty good feeling that he’s crazy about me. And I’m willing to believe that that’s enough. It has to be enough. That’s the only possibility my heart is willing to accept.
