I don’t want it to take me almost dying, or losing someone I love, for me to dare to live life.
I type my phone number in the message box and hit send.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The moment after I met Kevin, I called Jess to tell her all about him, and like then, my first instinct after sending my number to Adam is to text Jess. Jess has been a right arm to my left since college. My second is to think of that message Kevin sent her last night. I don’t send the text to Jess.
Instead, Jack’s words punch through my thoughts:
“You judge yourself by her,” he states, his jaw setting hard. “Don’t argue. It’s true. You know it’s true, and to your detriment.”
Followed by Adam’s first message:You looked beautiful and natural in the first photo. In the new photo you just put up, you look guarded and awkward. As if you’re afraid to be the woman in the first photo.
I’m clearly not self-analyzing effectively enough at the moment to tie those things together, but I’m aware that these thoughts are two pieces of a puzzle. That puzzle being the reason I didn’t send that text. Maybe there is nothing really to analyze at all. Maybe there is a time in life when we all don’t just become adults; we accept that we are adults, no longer resisting that reality, and once that happens, it becomes natural and even necessary to hold some things as sacred and private.
That being Adam for me.
Ten minutes later, I’m glad I didn’t text Jess for a whole other reason. Adam has gone silent. Thirty minutes later, same story. Okay, Ithink, forcing myself to be logical. Obviously, it’s only a mere thirty minutes, half an hour, and life is going on outside our conversation, I remind myself. It’s almost an hour later, and I’m settled on my couch, thunder rattling my walls, a book I cannot focus on open in my lap when my phone pings with a message.
I draw a breath and count to thirty, then repeat. Another breath, another countdown. Only then do I sit up, set my book aside, and reach for my phone. A new number is now live in my messages:Hi, Mia. It’s Adam. Sorry to be slow. My boss called. He had a morning meeting and I’m dealing with budget issues for the new project.
Relief washes over me and I scold myself. I don’t even know this man. Why am I so worried about the timeline in which he contacts me?Which highway are you designing?I ask.
It’s a massive forty-million-dollar road project, which will not be focused on just one road, but to start, we’re going to address the clusterfuck that is I-24 and create an underpass.
That sounds complicated.
It’s what I do, he replies.For me, it’s just like driving a car.
I actually rarely drive, I reply.I live downtown and walk to everything.
I live in the Gulch, he says.My employer is paying for my place for the six months I’ll be here.
He’s leaving,I think. This is a temporary fix, if that, and my world tilts left and right, unsteady, uncertain.
As for the Gulch, it’s a high-end section of downtown with clusters of restaurants, shopping, and bars.
I love the Gulch, I reply and then ask what I cannot help but ask.You’ll be returning to Texas?
Unless I have a reason to stay, he confirms.
It’s a good answer. The answer a girl would want, and for that reason, I can’t allow myself to accept it at face value.
From there, we text for a good hour, about his work, and mine, until he finally says:No video chat, but can I call you?
My fingers curl on my knee. Why is this a big deal? Talking on the phone is no different from texting. I sigh and grab my earbuds before I text:Okay.
A minute later my phone rings. “Hello,” I answer.
“Hello, Mia,” he replies, his voice just as it was on the video—low, masculine, warm. “This is better.”
“Is it?” I ask.
“It is,” he assures me. “Now we can talk about things that matter.”
“We weren’t already talking about things that matter?”
“Not the really important things, like why I’m like you and you’re like me.”
