Love Story (Love Unexpectedly 3)

I don’t want to move past it. I want to wallow in the memories of me and Reece together.

But…but…this is why I called tough-love Brandi. I have a couple of high school friends who know Reece, a bunch of college friends who don’t, but nobody besides my sister knows the whole story.

“It was pretty much like you’d expect,” I say glumly, washing down a cracker with the creamy wine. “He told me he more or less manufactured the entire mess with Abby back in the day because he didn’t have the balls to break up with me directly.”

“Sooooooo, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that those weren’t his precise words?” Brandi asks.

I throw myself onto the couch. “I may be paraphrasing. But the gist is the same. He’s a big coward who couldn’t handle the fact that I was going to college, so he ditched me before I could ditch him. Fast-forward a few years. Repeat.”

“But you weren’t going to ditch him, then or now,” Brandi says reasonably. “Right?”

“Not even close,” I say quietly. “I mean, I knew we’d have to do long distance, but I also thought I was going to marry him. It took me close to a year to get over him. It’ll take me even longer now that I know the man’s even better than the boy.”

There’s a moment of silence.

“It took him just as long to get over you.”

I roll my eyes. “I doubt that.”

“You doubt that, but you don’t know that. Honestly, Lucy, you don’t know anything because you haven’t asked him. Nor have you told him how you felt then, or how you feel now.”

“I don’t know how I feel now.”

Brandi’s voice is kinder than I expect, but also a little disappointed. “Lucy.”

I squeeze my eyes shut and stay silent.

“Luce…do you love him?”

Just hearing the words, even through my iPhone, from someone on the other side of the country, makes my stomach flip.

Love and Reece…they go together almost as well as the words hate and Reece. Hurt and Reece. Anger and Reece…

“Luce?”

“Yes, I love him. Okay? Happy?”

Boom.

I’d thought I’d feel better once the words were out, but I don’t. Because I’m not saying them to the right person.

And Brandi doesn’t give an inch. “You’re hideous right now. You need to get him back.”

I sit up. “What? No! He needs to get me back. He’s the one who messed everything up back then, letting me think he cheated. He’s the one who pushed me away.”

“And you let him.”

“What do you want me to do, chase him down? Fall on my knees and beg him to love me?”

“No, but how about you have a rational conversation with the guy, lay it all out there, because you’re an adult? And crazy in love with the one guy who’s always been the only guy?”

I scratch my nose. My little sister is super annoying when she’s right.

And yet, I can’t stop thinking of the look on his face when he stepped away from me. It was so…final.

I don’t doubt that Reece cares for me. And I know that he wants me, or at least he did when I was within easy reach.

But love?