Talk about fearless.
“Okay. Who peed in your Cheerios this morning?” Gaten jolts me out of deep thoughts.
“What?” I play dumb, finishing my plate in one bite.
“None of that. Something’s bothering you.”
I’ve been off since Xavier cut me out of his life, but Mom hasn’t noticed a thing. The irony of my best friend’s father picking up on my emotional distress more than my own mother speaks volumes.
“It’s nothing,” I lie.
“Boy drama, maybe?” he keeps trying.
I nibble on my bottom lip, fidgeting with my fork.
“Boy drama it is.” He nods. “Well… if you ever want to talk about it, I happen to be quite the expert,” he teases, and I smile at the accuracy. He has a point. Who better to talk about men than the guy who successfully married one?
“How did you know to take a chance on Dave?” I say beneath my breath. “Weren’t you… I don’t know, terrified?”
A deep, croaky laugh rips from the back of Gaten’s throat.
“Are you kidding? I thought I was going to shit my pants.”
I laugh quietly.
“But you did it anyway? Even knowing there was a chance he could reject you?”
He nods. “That’s right.”
“Why? I mean… how?” I can’t seem to make sense of it.
“I’m not going to lie to you, I almost didn’t,” he admits. “Almost turned around and drove right back home that night. I couldn’t cope with the possibility of him laughing in my face. Turning me down.
“And sure, the thought of never telling him felt good. Safe. Like I was protecting myself but then…” He pauses. “I realized that one day, years into the future—maybe one year, maybe twenty—I’d find myself lying awake. Wondering what could’ve happened. What could’ve been. And while I was scared of rejection, there was one thing that scared me more… Regret.”
I get chills just from that.
“And well… it worked out pretty well for me, didn’t it?” Gaten winks. His tale of love gives me hope. Hope that somewhere, somehow… there is a world, a scenario in which a happy ending is possible for Zac and Love.
Scratch that—for Xavier and Aveena.
“Take it from me, kid.” Gaten maintains the eye contact as if to anchor the message deep inside my brain. “Biggest risk you could ever take in this life is not taking one.”
My heart hurts just a pinch when he says it.
He’s dead-on.
Dia winds up joining us a few minutes later, only to steal a plate of pasta away to her room and haul me back upstairs with her. The next few hours are a blur.
Except maybe the nagging voice in my head.
The one telling me what I don’t want to hear.
Tell him, Vee.
Tell him or spend the rest of your life wondering.
A pit the size of my fist expanding in my throat, I climb inside my car with Dia before we leave for Finn’s. Then I shoot Zac the text I can’t come back from.