With Jonas back in school, he doesn’t have Colt bringing him home. Lots of phone sex, but the only face-to-face was when he came over Wednesday to have lunch with me. And that timing didn’t feel right because I was a tad preoccupied with being railed on the kitchen counter while on the phone with my ex-boyfriend. It’s not like my lunch break isthatlong. This girl had priorities that didn’t involve imploding my entire life before sitting on an hour-long conference call with a bunch of old white dudes who own a chain of senior care facilities.
“Oh my God, Whit.” She throws her head back with a groan. “Just tell him. If it turns out that not having more kids is a dealbreaker, you guys keep up this casual hookup thing until one of you meets somebody new—which, in my opinion, is better than always having Alex on speed dial.”
“It’s not that simple. He wants official, not casual. He’s only agreeing to take it slow for Jonas’s sake. If it were up to Colt, he’d probably be moving his stuff into my house right now.” I blink down at the floor, following the grooves in the planking and tracing over them with my socked foot. “But I alsoreallylike him, and I’m scared of how much it’s going to hurt if he decides it’s a dealbreaker. If…if he doesn’t want us because I’m broken.”
I drown myself in red wine as tears run in rivulets down my cheeks. They splash across my sweatpants, spidering out along every thread until they’ve contaminated large swatches of the fabric. Somewhere inside my body, I imagine, there’ssomething similar happening with my fear. It’s seeping through and replacing the hope I once felt about us.
Blair watches me quietly, not offering unsolicited answers or suggestions.
With a heaving breath, I let out a squeaky whisper: “What if I’m not enough?”
The words leave my soul feeling wafer thin.
“You are.”
But I’m not.
I’ve had this inkling since I was a little girl. Since the first time my mom blamed her new gray hair on me moments after hanging Blair’s spelling test on the fridge with a gold star magnet.
I wasn’t good enough for my parents.
And Alex liked that troublemaker girl, but I still wasn’t good enough for him because we had a baby and I wasn’tfunanymore. And I’ve never been good enough to make it past a second date with anyone because I come with a kid and a shitty ex and all kinds of unwelcome baggage. And I’m not good enough for Jonas, because I can’t get my shit together enough to give him the mom and the family and the life he deserves.
I’m not enough, and I’m too much.
Why would Colt think any differently?
“What if I’m not enoughfor him?”
“You’ll be enough—the perfect amount—for the right person.” She slips her palm into mine. “Foryourperson. They won’t think of you as broken or whatever bullshit you’re telling yourself, just like I don’t think those things are true. Nobody who knows and loves you would think that way.”
“I get you probably want me to have an awakening where I suddenly believe you, but…” I fiddle with the ring on her finger. “I’m scared.”
“Lucy Wells used to say, ‘Do it afraid.’ You wouldn’t be scared if your heart wasn’t already invested, and that’s not going to become less true the longer you hold out, is it?”
“Is it exhausting always being right?”
Her grip tightens around my fingers. “Can you please go tell Denver I’m always right? He doesn’t believe me.”
“Bullshit. That man hangs on every word you say.”
Blair smiles to herself, then looks up at me through dark lashes. “Because he’s my person, Whit. You’re gonna find that.”
I’m equal parts doubt and hope.
Colt
I hand Mom her caramel apple and toss a handful of kettle corn into my mouth. The Wells Canyon fair is teeming with families and groups of teenagers, bopping around on the waves of a sugar buzz. It’s loud and colorful and I wish more than anything that Whit was with me. It hits harder when a couple passes by, leaning into each other with a giant teddy bear held between them.
I’m people watching, and being people watched right back, because Beau’s stealing popcorn from my bag as if he’s not some kind of low-tier celebrity now. He’s oblivious to the stares—too focused on a popcorn kernel stuck between his teeth.
“Isn’t it weird as hell that people are constantly looking at you…and like, pretending they aren’t?” I make a face at a pair of teenage girls acting like they’re watching something on a phone while holding it in an entirely unnatural position.
He shakes his head in disbelief. “This definitely isn’t the norm. Most places I go, nobody knows who I am.”
“They don’t know who you areyet. Pretty soon you’ll be as big as…” Mom’s hand waves vaguely through the air. “Oh, I don’t know—one of those big-time singers, like Luke something-or-other.”
“Hear that?” I elbow my brother. “One day you’ll be so famous, Mom won’t remember your name.”
