I arched a brow. “I sound kind of like a badass.”
“The baddest ass of them all.”
“What did Hayes do?” This story was fascinating to me. Hayes and I sounded completely different from how I knew us, now. He seemed very serious, ever concerned with how or what I was doing.
“He followed you off the field and serenaded you. You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling. His friends on the team sang back-up.”
“And I walked away?”
“After showering him with a cup of ice water, yes.”
“Sheesh. I might have been a badass, but I was also kind of a shrew.”
“No. Just private. You didn’t want everyone pointing you out, whispering about you, looking your way. And once Hayes figured that out, he apologized beautifully and started making some headway.”
Private. That was a piece that felt like it fit.
“We were good together,” I mused, reclining on the mountain of pillows at my headboard. It was more a realization than a question for Remi.
“You were that couple, Birdie. The one that was going to make it.”
She sounded so certain. I swallowed, a lump in my throat. We lapsed into quiet, punctuated by the crunching of chips as we watched the movie, something about a girl hating ten things about a guy. My mind was busy, though, and I could only half-way focus. Did I want that, still — to be that couple? Did I want us to be the one who was going to be around years from now, surrounded by kids and stacks of bills and laundry to take care of?
The kid was an inevitability at this point. I didn’t have much choice in that matter, and I was okay with that. Even with significant chunks in my memory, a baby felt right, if perhaps a bit early. But everything else? The jury was undecided. I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life. Ostensibly I had already made that decision. Mom had told me I had been working an internship for a small marketing firm when I had the accident. I had no real desire to go back there, though.
And Hayes…Hayes was another decision I wasn’t certain I wanted to make all over again. I was attracted to him, but the more time I spent with him, the more I realized there was something…some wall between us that was completely my creation. Maybe it was simply an echo of my initial ambivalence playing itself out again. Maybe I needed Hayes to prove himself to me once again, break down whatever this barrier was so I could trust him once again.
Because whatever this was between us…I didn’t trust it. Not yet. Regardless of Remi’s assurances, nothing and nobody was that perfect. And until I got to that point, Hayes would have to be content with being a father but not a lover.
I shifted, and Remi clicked pause on the remote. “All right, hit me with it. This is one of your favorite all-time movies and you’ve barely heard a word.”
“Just sorting through stuff in my head.”
Remi huffed out a breath. “Well, obviously. What are you sorting through?”
I raked my fingers into my hair. “Gah. So much. I hate not knowing. I hate this uncertainty. Why the hell did I choose to go into marketing, of all the career possibilities? There’s nothing about finding ways to sell stuff that calls to me. Hayes. If we were so perfect, why is there this part of me that doesn’t trust him? Here I am, in a position where I pretty much have to trust my instincts and nothing else. No offense, but the people around me could be telling me — or not telling me — absolutely anything. My instincts are saying be cautious with this one.”
Remi was silent. I liked that she didn’t jump right into speech. Despite the firecracker vibe I was getting, she was a thinker. Careful. She chewed the side of her cuticle as she considered, and finally spoke. “I get it. And I think you’re right…you need to trust your instincts. Maybe there’s something about Hayes that you never told me, so your psyche is making it plain that you need to hold him at arm’s length. Maybe it’s just your prickly self, trying to win the battle against falling in love with him all over again. You know…you lost that battle the first go-round, so this is your opportunity to win.”
“But actually lose, all at the same time, if I was really in love with him.” I interjected. I shoved my fingers into my hair. This was so confusing!
“Very likely. But that’s up to you, and what you want. Think of like this, however uncomfortable it may be. You have been given something not many people are: a chance at a do over. So, take your time, explore all of the options available to you, and screw anyone who tries to rush you.”
“I think that’s exactly what I need to do,” I murmur. “Thanks, Ro.”
“Anytime, chica.”
“It’s ok you know,
To be carried now and then,
Strength too needs a rest”
Tyler Knott Gregson
November 22 │Birdie
I LAY IN BED THE NEXT NIGHT, FLIPPING THROUGH THE TWO MONTH SECTION OF A BOOK ABOUT WHAT TO EXPECT DURING PREGNANCY.
You’re probably still not showing. You might feel bloated, though, and those pants are likely starting to feel a bit snug. Time to break out the yoga pants! You’ll also be experiencing mood swings and want to sleep around the clock. Sneak in a few naps whenever possible.
Other fun things you may be experiencing include constipation, morning sickness — which can hit any time of the day, trust us — and aversions to foods you normally love.
Embrace the suck! In our experience, this too shall pass.
I snorted and tossed the book on the floor before climbing out of the bed and moving to the bookcase. Embrace the suck, indeed. I was tired of feeling sick. I was tired of feeling tired, although I couldn’t sleep to save my soul at the moment. I was wide awake, my mind continually drifting back to Hayes and our discussion several days ago.
I felt guilty, and it was pissing me off. Post-accident Birdie Grant had promised Hayes Ellison exactly nothing. Maybe ante-amnesia Birdie had made promises, but I didn’t remember that chick, and if I didn’t want to be bound by her decisions, then I shouldn’t have to be. Right?
I pulled several books from my bookcase and tossed them on the bed before climbing back in and studying them. They were worn and clearly well-read, the covers thin with age and use and the pages dog-eared. Guess I was one of those, I thought, fingering the corner of one page. I’d read, aka stalked, a humorous Reddit thread on people that used bookmarks versus those who did not. Most of the commenters did not think very highly of people that dog-eared, folded, or splayed their books open when they paused their reading.
These were books I loved. Pride and Prejudice. Anne of Green Gables. An entire shelf of Nora Roberts. An assortment of marketing textbooks, complete with neon sticky placeholders and highlighting throughout. The Stand, which looked like horror and stood out amongst the others with flagrant disregard to genre. The Kite Runner. Love in the Time of Cholera.
My choices should tell me something about myself, right? I liked romance, clearly, but my taste was more eclectic than I would have imagined a marketing major would display. I was a reader, and not just of fluff or dry business books.
But was I, still? Couldn’t I read and enjoy other books now…books that previous me had not had the faintest interest in before? Did I owe these books anything?