“I have plans. But I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
Then he was gone, and I was left feeling bereft. This was not at all how I’d hoped this evening would go.
And what kind of plans did he have? My heart lurched as I considered that he might be seeing someone else. That maybe that’s why he didn’t call me while he was in New York. Because he was out on dates with women who would actually kiss him. Who would more than kiss him.
For the first time in my life, I understood the phrase green with envy. Because I felt sick with jealousy at the idea of him being out with other women. Which was totally irrational, because I was the one who set up our situation. I was the one who had said friends only. If he was seeing other women, he wasn’t doing anything wrong.
“Is that your boyfriend?” my mom asked.
“We’re just friends. We’re not dating.”
She raised one eyebrow like she didn’t believe me. “How old is he?”
Given that I was currently embroiled in my own jealousy spiral, and while I adored my mother, getting into this weird hang-up of hers was going to make me roll my eyes so hard that my ocular muscle would spasm and make me go blind. Even if I was the last person who should be judging anyone’s weird hang-ups. “He’s twenty-seven. Not fifty-seven. He’s only three years older than me. We’re basically the same age.”
She must have heard how unwilling I was to have this discussion with her, because she immediately backed off and then proceeded into territory that made me want to roll my eyes even harder. “He’s not very conventionally handsome, is he? I can’t really see him ever getting a leading man part.”
“Okay, I’m making an appointment for you with your eye doctor, and we’re getting your vision checked. I know opinions are subjective, but yours is wrong.” Maybe it was because she’d never seen him act. The intensity, the sheer talent, the vulnerability he conveyed, the way he made every character into a real person who deserved to find love and their happy ending.
I shouldn’t have been surprised at her reaction—my mom had always looked to find the bad in every guy that I’d ever expressed an interest in. During my Felix Morrison obsession, she’d reminded me more often than was necessary that he was a fictional character and that I’d never date him.
Ha. I’d showed her. Well, sort of. Since we weren’t technically dating.
But she seemed to always find the flaws in guys that I had crushes on. To discourage me. Did that have something to do with my dad? Did she think she was protecting me from feeling the same kind of heartbreak she had? I wondered if her bringing up what was wrong with guys I liked played into my phobia issues at all. And why hadn’t this ever occurred to me before?
My phone beeped, and there was a message from Shelby.
And while there was no way to parse out her tone, I felt in my gut like something was wrong. Maybe because the text was so short, with no greeting, no flowers or emojis. I knew that she needed me.
But before I could tell my mother that I had to go, she hugged me and said she was off to have a small get-together with her professor and a few of her classmates. She kissed my forehead. “Love you, kiddo!”
“I love you, too. And you did a really good job tonight.” Then I practically sprinted out to my van.
Fortunately the campus wasn’t too far from my apartment, so it didn’t take me long to get home. When I burst through the door, I expected to find . . . I didn’t know what I expected. It certainly wasn’t Shelby sitting on the couch watching a Noah Douglas movie and eating chocolate chip cookie dough.
“Hey.” She didn’t make eye contact with me.
I closed the door and said hi back. I shrugged my jacket off, leaving it on the back of one of the kitchen chairs. “Is everything okay?”
“I just wanted a girls’ night.”
That wasn’t it. I heard the pain and sadness in her voice. But whatever was wrong with her, she didn’t seem quite ready to tell me yet. I’d just wait until she was. I grabbed a spoon from the kitchen and sat down on the couch next to her. In this movie Noah played a medieval knight avenging the murder of his wife and child. We watched the movie for about an hour until it got to the scene where Noah’s character was about to kiss the princess he’d fallen in love with during his quest.
Shelby paused the movie just as the kiss started and put her spoon and the tub of dough on the coffee table and announced, “I’m going to break up with Allan.”
She immediately burst into sobs while I put my arms around her. “What? Why? Did something happen? Did he do something? I’ll kill him if he cheated on you. I’m not even kidding.”
“No,” she said in a muffled voice. “Tonight Allan’s mother told him that if he married me, she would never speak to him again.”
Why would that make Shelby want to break up with Allan? “So? That sounds like a good deal to me. You get Allan and you don’t have to deal with Harmony.”
“But how can I do that? I don’t want him to have to choose. I don’t want to come between him and his family.”
“You’re going to be his family,” I told her. “That witch should be thrilled she’s getting you as a daughter-in-law. I wish I had a brother so that you could marry him and we’d always be related.”
Her crying started to subside, and I asked, “What does Allan say?”
“He said he loves me, he chooses me. But I don’t want him to have to give up his family.” Her voice wobbled and broke, like she was going to start sobbing again.
“So he wants to be with you and you’re going to run away? That doesn’t seem right. It’s not your fault Harmony’s a psycho. And I’m sorry you’re going through this, but I think pushing the man you love away is probably the worst thing you can do. And take that from someone who is slowly learning that avoiding things isn’t the answer. If you love him, which you do, and he loves you, which he does, and you want a life together, then that’s what you should do.”
“You’re right. But this is going to cause him so much pain. And I don’t want to be the reason he’s in all that pain.” She reached for the extra roll of toilet paper we kept on the coffee table because neither one of us ever remembered to buy Kleenex. She blew her nose and then put her face in her hands while I rubbed her back.
I kept trying to make her feel better. “You aren’t the reason he’s in pain. His mom did that, not you. And think about how much worse it would be if you broke up with him. I’m pretty sure that would destroy him. You’re his entire world.”
She nodded. “I can’t even imagine my life without him. But I would give him up so that he could be happy.”
“Which is why you’re the one he deserves to be with. The person who puts his happiness above their own.” Unlike his stupid mother, but I refrained from adding the last part on.
“Okay!” She straightened back up. “I’ll call him after this movie’s over and talk it out with him. But thank you, Juliet. You’re the best friend a girl could ask for.” She hugged me tightly. “Let’s finish this and then I’m going to have a difficult conversation.”