I laugh nervously. “We arenotthe same, and I find it hard to believe you ever were.”
My phone buzzes with a text, and he says, “Look at the photo I just sent you.”
I glance down at my messages to find a picture of a man that is Adam, and yet he is not. His hair is much shorter, almost buzz cut. He’s wearing glasses. His entire persona is uncomfortable rather than confident.
“That was you,” I say, and it’s not a question.
“Yes. Now you know why I saw you beneath your photo.”
“Yes, but you’re not that person anymore.”
“Yes I am. I have always been that person. I’ve just learned how to control that part of me. Once I did, it changed my life in every possible way. Even my career. No one was paying for apartments in the Gulch for me before I changed myself. Believe in yourself, Mia.”
“Easier said than done.”
“Until it isn’t. I’ll teach you how. If you let me.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
He’ll teach me.
If I let him.
“I’m a hard damn learner,” I reply, my laugh that follows a bit choked, a familiar awkwardness in it and me that I simply can never escape.
“And I wasn’t?” he challenges. “I had to nearly die to come to my senses. But the good news is that now I can help you in your journey.”
“And what way would that be?”
“Ultimately to believe in yourself, but we both know that’s a process that takes time.”
“Forever,” I murmur.
“Not forever, but humans are not creatures of change. I read a book on this topic years ago. Did you know that a woman who grew up in an abusive home statistically marries an abusive man? We gravitate toward what we know, even if that something isn’t pleasant.”
Thunder rumbles above, the walls vibrating with the low, deep sounds, a pummeling of rain on the rooftop, as if Mother Nature is demanding I sit up straighter and listen to this man, or perhaps listen to what the history of me tells as my own story. And once again I’m thinking about my presentation in college when I’d stood at the podium and amounted to nothing more than the passing of time for the audience. This time when I think of being ignored that day, therefore freeof embarrassment and failure, it’s not with the fondness of my previous framing of this moment.
We gravitate toward what we know even if that something isn’t pleasant,I repeat in my head.
Invisible is not pleasant.
Invisible is safe.
Once again, he’s in my head as he adds, “Sometimes the familiar becomes the crutch that holds us back and even tears us down.”
My phone buzzes with another call, an intrusion to this insightful conversation with Adam that I resist—that is until I eye the caller ID, and my lips press together. “I have to take this,” I say, and for reasons I cannot explain, considering I barely know Adam, I add, “It’s my mother, who I have reason to believe is probably cheating on my father. She just got home from a weekend away. I need to take it.”
He’s silent a beat and then adds, “Just remember, sometimes moving on is living life. Change is not always bad, Mia.”
“I don’t want my parents to break up.”
“But you want them to stay together and be miserable?”
“No. No, of course not.” The line stops ringing. “I want them to fix what is broken.”
“Sometimes the only way to fix what is broken is to force a change.”
“Like her sleeping with her new boss?”
