I laugh out loud. It’s not a sound full of levity or humor. It’s a motion packed with disbelief and sadness and a little disgust.
I’m not better, no different, than Molly McCarter.
I take the blue pillow and press it against my eyes.
Neither one of us deserve Peck. When I think about the things Nana told me, and how his mother left him and how awful it must have been for him growing up, I realize how strong he is. None of that bullshit has stopped him from opening his heart. But when she implored me to love him …
“You can’t start or stop love, honey. It’s just there or it’s not, and it’s present between you and Peck.”
The look in her eyes. It was clear how much she adores here beautiful grandson.
“Just … love him. Like you, he’s never really had someone love him unconditionally … He’ll be kind. He’ll drive you crazy with his incessant need to make sure you’re all right. Please just be the same to him. For me.”
I’ve already let Nana down. I didn’t trust him to keep my heart safe. I didn’t love him unconditionally.
Is that what this is? It’s that I love Peck?
“Hey,” Navie says.
She runs a brush through her hair. She’s irritated with me, and I know it. But I’m irritated with myself, so there’s that.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. My voice is muffled under the pillow, but she gets the gist of the sentiment.
“Yeah, well, apologize to yourself.” She puts the brush on the table and works to pull her hair on top of her head. “Are you coming to Crave tonight?”
“Nah.”
She rolls her eyes. “Look, you can stay here all you want. My house is … not yours, but you’re welcome here. But, and this is a big but, if you think you’re going to stay here and mope around because you are, in fact, a fucking idiot, then you aren’t so welcome.”
Her words are harsh, but the look on her face is not. A smile touches her lips.
“Gee, thanks,” I kid.
“It’s for your own good. I can’t let you sit around here and add to that HAS Line.”
“Um, what?”
“Oh, nothing. I just woke up to six shipping notifications expected to arrive at my house in the next three days.”
I cringe. “Yeah. But two of those are ice cream. There’s a new Banana’s Foster flavor that really screamed my name.”
“Oh, so it screamed Hey Fool? Awesome name for an ice cream flavor.”
I throw the pillow at her. She laughs when it lands a few feet from her, not even getting remotely close to its target.
She sits in the chair. I sit up too so I don’t feel like a therapy patient getting help for my issues. That would only embolden her to give me a lecture, and that’s not what I need. Not that I particularly know what I need right now, but that’s not the point.
“Look, it’s the middle of the day,” she says. “You’ve literally not gotten off the couch today.”
“I’m sulking.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’m avoiding my problems.”
She smirks. “Seems like that would be hard to do when you are your problem.”
“Navie …”
“Have you even called about your rental?” she asks. “Or are you just pretending life off my couch isn’t happening today?”
“Yes, smartass.” I take out my phone and look at the screen. It’s blank. “No one has called or texted.”
She quirks a brow. “Not even Peck?”
“Once last night.” I half-groan, half-whine as I sit back against the cushions. “It was when you forced me to get into the shower and said I looked like the bride of Frankenstein.”
“Did you call him back?”
“No.”
“Dylan, you … Ugh.”
I throw my hands in the air. “What should I say? I don’t know whether to be mad at him or at me or at Molly or at the world or just … fucking … I don’t know. I. Don’t. Know. It’s all confusing. I don’t even know anymore.”
Navie shakes her head. “Honesty coming in five seconds.”
I make a point to grab on to the edge of the couch, making her laugh.
“When things get all confused in your head, it’s fear,” she says. “You are the most logical person I know. Except the HAS Line. But anyway, other than that, you’re great at breaking stuff down. At sorting your problems. At making decisions. But when that all gets muddy, it means there’s fear packed in there. That’s why it’s all jumbled.”
It actually makes a lot of sense logically. It also makes sense knowing how I feel inside.
I am scared. Scared shitless. I’m scared of falling in love with Peck. I’m terrified not to love him too. I’m scared of spending my whole life and never feeling the way I do when I’m with him.
What if I screw it up? What if I become a jealous monster because surely every person who lays eyes on him wants him? What if I end up disappointing him the way people always disappoint me?