"Life isn't a movie."
"No, but you're acting like you're trapped in one and someone lost the remote." She taps a finger against her chin with exaggerated thoughtfulness. "What was her name again? Iris? Irene?"
"We're not doing this."
"Isabel? Ingrid?" Her eyes spark with mischief. "Oh wait—Ivy."
My entire body goes rigid, shoulders tensing under my button-down. Even my breathing hitches.
Jules's grin turns triumphant. "Ha! I knew it. Your face is like an open book with very large print and helpful illustrations."
I groan, burying my face in my hands. The stubble I couldn't be bothered to shave this morning scratches against my palms. "Kill me now."
"You know, after everything you told me that night, I thought you'd be over her by now." Jules continues, swirling the ice in her glass. "But here you are, four months later, still looking like someone shot your dog whenever I mention her name."
"Can we not psychoanalyze my emotional damage tonight?"
"Why not? It's my favorite hobby." Jules signals Sammy for another round. "So what's the plan? Pine forever? Or actually do somethingabout it?"
"What's there to do? She blocked my number." I drag a hand through my hair, making the curls stand up at odd angles. "Which I totally deserve, by the way."
"So?"
"So that's pretty much the universal sign for 'fuck off forever.'"
"Or," Jules says, pointing at me with her cocktail pick, "it's the universal sign for 'prove you're not the same selfish dickhead who broke my heart.'"
I stare at her. "That's the most optimistic interpretation of being completely shut out that I've ever heard."
"Look, I don't know this Ivy girl, but I know you." Jules fixes me with that unrelenting stare, like she's scrolling through my soul's Yelp reviews. "If she's really it for you—and clearly she is, since you're basically a monk now—then stop wallowing and do something about it. Because some other guy is going to realize what an idiot you were to let her go."
Jules gets up to pay our tab, and I sit there turning her advice over in my mind. The bar noise fades to background static as I trace patterns in the condensation on my glass.
She’s right—Ivy's it for me. Every woman I've encountered since I left Hallow's End might as well be wallpaper. They laugh at my jokes, and all I can think is how it doesn't sound like wind chimes mixed with mischief. They touch my arm, and my brain immediately catalogs all the ways their hands are wrong—too soft, too cold.
I haven't looked at another woman because no one else exists in the same universe as her. How the fuck am I supposed to be interested in some random girl at a bar when I know what it is to have Ivy trace patterns on my chest in the dark? When I've seen her cry over a documentary about sea turtles, then immediately start researching marine conservation efforts? When I know she hums old Disney songs while cooking, and leaves sticky notes with positiveaffirmations on her mirror because "everyone deserves to wake up feeling loved"?
They're not Ivy, with her ridiculous collection of vintage teacups, and her habit of reading three books at once because "each mood requires different words"—something I've always adored about her. They don't have eyes the color of deep water that seem to see straight through every defense I've ever built. They don't bite their bottom lip when they're concentrating, or get that little crease between their eyebrows when they're trying not to laugh at one of my terrible jokes. They don't smell like lavender, and something green I could never identify, but would recognize in a crowded room.
None of them know that the trick to calming me down when I'm spiraling isn't talking or fixing, but just existing in the same space until my brain stops ricocheting off every wall it can find. They don't make me want to be the kind of man who remembers anniversaries and brings flowers for no reason.
I ruined the best thing that ever happened to me because I was too scared to admit I was already completely gone for her. Too scared to risk being vulnerable with the one person who'd seen every ugly part of me and somehow still thought I was worth loving.
The worst thing? Somewhere out there, she's probably healing. Moving on. Learning to trust someone new with all that softness I was too much of a coward to protect. Some other guy will figure out what I was too stupid to hold onto, and he's going to spend the rest of his life grateful for my monumental fuck-up.
Jules returns, dropping a twenty on the table and shrugging into her jacket.
"You coming?" she asks.
"Yeah."
I still don't know if I'm the kind of man who can earn a second chance. You can't exactly go back in time. But you cango back . . . better.
Maybe that's what growing up really is. Not running away from the scary parts, but running toward them head-on. Even if they might break your heart all over again.
I drop the lastof my belongings into a cardboard box, dodging the tinsel bomb that seems to have exploded across the office.
"You can't seriously be taking that horrifying garden gnome as a trophy," Jules appears at my cubicle, her hair tangled in the Santa hat she's been forced to wear for the office holiday party. "Though I'm still convinced Karen from accounting picked that for Secret Santa on purpose."
