AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yes.” Then she orders, “Tell me the feelings you wish you could get rid of.”
I think for a moment before responding. “I’ve already told you that I feel like a loser…” She nods her head, so I continue to itemize my angst. “I feel misplaced. When I married Eva, it was like I’d stepped into pure happiness. I found my person. I was whole, you know?”
“I’ve never felt like that,” she says barely above a whisper.
The expression on her face quite literally causes my throat to constrict with emotion. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why Paige hasn’t been proposed to ten times over. “What do you feel?”
Her gaze drops to the tabletop before she finally says, “I’m lonely. I haven’t dated a lot and I’m scared. I’m scared to open myself up.”
“Why haven’t you dated a lot? That makes no sense to me.” Before she can tell me how few single men live in Elk Lake, I add, “There are towns all around here with single people.”
Paige inhales deeply before asking, “Do you remember me from high school at all?”
“Sure,” I tell her. “You were cute but kind of standoffish.”
The volume of her voice rises considerably. “Standoffish? That’s how you saw me?”
Clearly that wasn’t the right thing to say. “You kind of stayed to yourself. You and Missy.”
“You must remember why that was.”
I have no idea, so I merely shrug my shoulders.
“Tim, I wore a body brace. I was a total misfit.”
Now that she mentions it, I remember some kids used to call her brace girl, but I thought that had to do with her wearing braces on her teeth. “Really?”
Paige’s posture wilts. “Was I so invisible to you that you didn’t even know I wore a body brace?”
“You weren’t invisible to me, Paige. We just weren’t in the same group. We didn’t hang out, so I didn’t really know what your life was like.”
“Because you were with the cool kids, andIwas the loser.” A single tear slides down her cheek causing my heart to clench painfully.
“I didn’t think of myself as a cool kid. I was just me.”
Paige’s rigid posture collapses, and she appears to wilt in her chair. “And I was just me. The kid in a brace who could barely walk into school some mornings out of fear that you cool kids would taunt me in the hallways.”
That makes me bristle. “I never made fun of you, Paige.”
“But the girls in your group did and you didn’t stop them.” The look of hurt in her eyes nearly undoes me.
I try to remember things the way she does, but I can’t. “I’m sorry if I hurt you. I’m sorry that I didn’t come to your defense. The truth is that like most kids that age I was caught up in my own dramas and wasn’t really paying attention to those of others. Teenagers are selfish.”
She scoots her chair back under the table before saying, “I get that. And I’m not mad at you. I just always dreamed that some popular person would see me for who I was so that everyone else would give me a chance, too. Missy was the only one who ever stood up for me and I suppose that’s affected me in a lot of different ways.”
I look deeply into her beautiful blue eyes before saying, “We’re both pretty damaged.”
She tries to smile but the result is more of a smirk. “So, now that we both have a better idea of how the other feels, are you in? Will you agree to a pity pact?” I don’t quite nod my head and I don’t really shake it. It’s more of a circular kind of motion like I’m stretching for a yoga class. Paige takes the movement as an agreement and lifts her glass. “To us, and to closing an old chapter before starting a new one.”
I gently tap my glass against hers wishing I could somehow go back in time and make choices that might have made her life easier. “To having another friend who has our back.”
Her smile is so endearing I want to stand up and wrap her in my arms. But then she says, “I also think we should help each other find our perfect mate.”
“I’m not looking,” I remind her.
“Agreeing to a pity pact means you’re agreeing to try to move forward,” she says.
I’m not quite sure where she got that idea. All I was doing was agreeing to try to put some of my anger behind me. But what do I know? I’ve never heard of a pity pact before. Changing the subject, I ask, “What are you thinking about ordering?”
