Nothing Feels Better (Better Love 3)

7

“J. What the hell is going on in here? Your yarn baskets explode?”

I look up from the floor where I’ve laid out all of my yarn. Kelley sets down his gym bag and Ivy steps around him, closing the door of the condo behind her.

“Ooooh, are we organizing?” V asks as she tiptoes her way through the yarn piles scattered around the living room floor and sits down in an open space. “I’ll help.”

“Thanks, V,” I say, then return my attention to sorting.

“Didn’t we just do this not that long ago?”

I nod. “By weight, but it’s gotten a little crazy, so now we’re doing color. We gotta consolidate first, though. I’ve got a bunch of the same skeins started, so you’ll have to put those together.”

“Why don’t you finish one skein before starting a new one?” she asks, picking through my massive yarn stash.

“That’s a great question,” I mumble, and she lets out a soft laugh. “It gets a little chaotic. I sometimes forget I’ve started one skein between projects and then I’ll just grab a new one. Or I’ll buy yarn before I know what I’m gonna use it for, or I’ll buy some and forget that I already had the same one at home.” I chuckle but don’t look up from my task. “The result is this.” I wave my hands over the sea of skeins and tangles between us.

“Hmm.” She hums, and I glance up just in time to see her and Kelley exchange a look. Because Ivy knows. She always knows.

“I’m gonna hop in the shower,” Kelley says, and heads down the hall toward the bathroom.

“Don’t fall!” I sing out, and I hear his bark of laughter just before the bathroom door shuts. A minute later, I hear the shower turn on.

“What’s up, J?” Ivy asks, her voice soft as ever. She glances to the small end table, where the elephant I started knitting for my mom lies unfinished, then waves her hands over the disaster on the floor. “Last time we did this was because...well...has she—”

“No, V,” I cut her off. “I haven’t seen her or heard from her. It’s not that.”

Ivy releases a sigh of relief, and her shoulders loosen. “Something else, then?”

I shrug. “A couple things.”

“Wanna talk about it?” Her question is genuine, and not at all judgmental. I drop the tangle of yarn I was holding into my lap and scan her face.

“You got time?”

“All the time in the world for you, J.”

I watch as she returns her focus to the yarn, giving me space to speak when I’m ready. She knows that whatever I have to say is going to be difficult, and she knows it will be easier without her eyes on me. Ivy always knows.

“The commitment deadline is soon,” I breathe out. “In a matter of days. I have to decide my future in just a few days.”

“Is that a bad thing?” she muses. “I thought you were pretty set on Harvard. Excited for it, even.”

“I was.” I pause and wait for her to ask another question. She doesn’t. “But...I don’t know. It’s a big deal, you know? What if it’s not what I want for the rest of my life? What if I’m doing it for the wrong reasons?”

Silence stretches between us, long enough that I glance at her and find her studying me with a furrowed brow.

“You sure this doesn’t have anything to do with her?” It’s a statement disguised as a question, rhetorical in every way. Because Ivy always fucking knows.

“She said she was proud of me, V,” I admit. “Like she was the reason I was going to med school. Like I was doing it for her or some shit.” I scrub my hand over my face, a memory from just a few months ago invades my mind. The fear I felt blends with something worse, something that makes my stomach churn. I lower my voice to just above a whisper. “For a split second, V, I was happy to know that she was proud of me,” I confess. “I was...pleased. Isn’t that fucked up?”

“No,” she says pointedly, “it is not messed up, J.”

I shake my head and sigh. I don’t know if I agree with her.

“How old were you when you first knew you wanted to be a doctor?”

“Seven,” I say quickly. I don’t even have to think about the answer. I remember the exact day. My parents brought me to an awards banquet, honoring the work my mother had done in reconstructive plastic surgery. There were speeches from fellow doctors and former patients, hailing my mom as the best in her field, and I was in awe. I was so proud of her and of the things she’d accomplished. I knew immediately that I wanted to be a doctor. A surgeon, just like her.

Ivy nods knowingly, then catches me off guard by asking, “How old were you when that desire changed?”

“What do you mean?” I ask, confused. “It didn’t. It hasn’t changed.”

“Exactly. Don’t diminish your accomplishments, and don’t credit her when she deserves none. You’ve wanted to be a doctor since you were seven years old, J. You’re the one who has worked your butt off. You’re the one who got accepted into not one, not two, but three top med schools. You. And you would have done it with or without her influence.”

She pauses to reach out and take my hand.

“You did it despite her, even. Despite everything. And it’s okay that, for a minute, you were glad to know you’d made her proud. She was important to you once. She’s the one who messed up, J. Not you.”

I squeeze her hand and give her a smile. I don’t tell her about the object in my pocket because I don’t want to worry her. I still don’t fully understand why I’m carrying it around instead of tossing it in the trash where it belongs. A reminder of what I’ve overcome, probably, but I don’t know that Ivy would see it that way.

Regardless, talking to her has helped calm my overactive thoughts. It always does. Ivy is going to be one hell of a lawyer, but I think she’d make an even better therapist. I tell her as much, but she laughs it off.

“When you’ve been to as much therapy as me, J, you pick up a few things.”

Kelley comes out of the bathroom, auburn hair wet from the shower, and heads into the kitchen. “I’m making burgers,” he calls out. “You down, J?”

“Definitely,” I call back, then flick my eyes toward Ivy. She’s sitting crisscross applesauce on the floor, and she’s humming to herself as she sorts through the many skeins of yarn scattered around her. There’s a knock at the condo door a few minutes later, and Kelley yells out from the kitchen.

“J, will you grab that? It’s Bailey and Riggs. They’re coming to eat with us.”

I pop up and head to the door quickly, not even bothering to hide the bounce in my step. Kelley has been able to tell that I’ve been more chaotic than usual. The impending med school commitment deadline is causing me more stress than I’d expected, and Kell knows that having my friends around dulls the buzz. He invited them for me. Big gooey cinnamon roll that he is. If V is the protective Mama Bear of our friend group, Kelley is the nurturing Papa Bear.

“BRIGGS!” I shout as I fling open the door, and Bailey barks out a loud laugh.

“Briggs?” she repeats, then waltzes past me into the condo with Riggs trailing behind her. “What the fuck is a Briggs?”

“It was either Briggs or Railey, and I told him no Railey,” Riggs adds, knocking me on the shoulder on the way past. He definitely shot down Railey. Still a little bummed about that.

“Ugh, J, we’re back on the ship names?” Bailey groans, flopping down next to Ivy then surveying the floor in front of her. “By color?” she asks Ivy, and Ivy nods.

“We were never off the ship names, B,” I tell her, and my smile grows as she starts sorting the yarn skeins with Ivy. “Yours was easier than Ivelley’s.”

“Ivelley is terrible, J.”

“I kinda like it,” Ivy chimes in, and I smile.