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“Yes, Nana. You’re right.”
“Oh, is that Aaron’s cousin?” Mom asks. “The one you went on a date with?”
“Liv went on a date? Fuck me.”
“Nana!” I cry at the same time that Mom yells, “Mother!”
Nana cackles. “Sorry. Carry on.”
I sigh again. “Yes, the guy I went on a date with. We’ve spent a lot of time together over the last month and now…he wants more. I want more, but hell, I’m afraid. I don’t want to repeat what happened before. I can already feel it. I’m already more than a little obsessed with him.”
No one says anything for a long moment, but when they do, I don’t expect the gem to be from Nana.
“Sometimes love and obsession are one and the same. Sometimes you can’t tell them apart because they’re no different. Love is thinking of someone every day, wanting to be with them all the time, needing to know everything about them. Just like an obsession is.”
“It goes past obsession, Nana.”
“Addiction? You think love ain’t addiction, girl? Have you ever been in love?”
I shake my head.
“Then you’re shittin’ yourself if you think there’s a difference. I was addicted to your grandpa because he was my best friend and my lover. I needed him to live, and now that he’s gone, a part of me is dead. Because I love him.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“I’m saying maybe you aren’t addicted to him or obsessed with him. Maybe you’re falling in love with him, you flaming dingbat.”
My lips twitch. “I’m not falling in love with him, Nana. I think I’d know if I’m falling in love.”
Mom pats my hand. “You don’t always know when you’re falling in love, but you sure as hell know when you get there.”
“So you’re saying that, one day, I’m just going to wake up and be like, ‘Oh, shit. I’m in love?’ No warning? No preemptive mushy bullshit? Just bam, like that?”
Nana snorts. “You’ve been reading too many romance novels, my girl. Yes. Bam. Smack. Bang.” She claps loudly, her bracelets jingling. “If you don’t think you’re in love, you probably aren’t, because you know when you are.”
“I know I’m not in love.”
“Not you. You don’t count in that rule. You didn’t know you were growing boobs either, but you were.”
I laugh into my hand. So she’s right—I refused to believe that my budding breasts were just that. Breasts. “All right, all right. When I’m in love, I’ll know. But this doesn’t solve my dilemma.”
“You haven’t said what the damn dilemma is!” Nana thumps the arm of her chair.
I glance at Mom. I have. She’s just forgotten. Again.
“I don’t know if I can have a relationship with him because of what happened…before. In school.”
Mom curls her fingers around mine. “Princess, you can. You’re not a teen girl who doesn’t know better. You’re a strong woman who knows how to cope. If you really like him, if you really want to make it work, you’ll find a way to.”
Her words echo Tyler’s so closely. And deep down, I know it’s true.
“I’m scared,” I whisper, taking my hand from hers and pulling my knees to my chest. “I’m scared that he’ll be everything and then he’ll go and I’ll have nothing. I’m scared I’ll hurt him. I’ll hurt Dayton. I’ll hurt you all. I’m afraid I’ll send us all on a crash course like I did before. I don’t want to do that again.”
“So don’t,” Nana says simply.
“It’s not that simple, Nana!”
“Oh, pish! It is. You’re just complicating things with your bullshit, Olivia. If you want him and he wants you, then you have nothing to lose.”
