“Oh yeah, dress shopping with your mom should be fun. Doesn’t she hate that kind of thing?” Alex laughed. I could hear his affection for me in his voice, and it made me wistful.
“Yeah, she does. It should take all of five minutes if she has her way. Longer, if I have mine,” I laughed uneasily. I had no idea how to interject with the ex-boyfriend bomb. How do you tell your current boyfriend that your ex-boyfriend, who you still have intense physical feelings for, wants to take you out for dinner to explain himself? Or that he paid a really hefty repair bill on your car? Alex wasn’t exactly the jealous type, but that didn’t mean he’d accept that news with a smile.
The choppy sound of the radio in the ambulance calling for a team to head to a local public school interrupted Alex before he could respond. “Sorry babe, I’ve got to go. I’ll give you a call later tonight—hope you have fun with your mom and Tessa today!”
“Yeah, okay. Thanks…and be safe,” I told him.
During our conversation, I’d finished driving up Tessa’s driveway and had parked beside my mom’s truck. Tessa was waiting for me on the front porch, grinning from ear to ear.
“You should see the two of them in there, bickering like an old married couple,” she shook her head.
Normally, I’d joke along with her and laugh about how ridiculous our parents were. But today, I didn’t feel like doing that. Instead, I walked up to the porch and sat down heavily on the front step.
“What’s wrong?” Tessa asked, sliding down beside me.
“Braden paid my car repair bill so that I’d owe nothing when I picked it up today,” I sighed.
“Gee, sounds terrible. What a jerk,” she responded dryly. I nudged her shoulder with mine.
“Don’t be a dick,” I frowned. “You’re my best friend, you have to side with me. We’re angry about this because now I’m indebted to him.”
“What, does he expect a blowjob as thanks or something?”
I almost laughed, because the old Braden totallywouldhave expected a blowjob after doing something nice…although I wasn’t going to completely rule that out, not after the hungry way he’d looked at me. “He wants me to go out for dinner with him tonight. He’s not taking no for an answer.”
Tessa didn’t seem surprised at all by this news. I stared at her, my mouth agape with disbelief. “Please tell me you’re not in on this.”
“I’m not ‘in’ on anything,” she argued, frowning. “But when has Bradenevertaken no for an answer? I knew he couldn’t keep his distance for long.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Are you blind?” she demanded, giving me an incredulous look. “Braden is still carrying a very heavy torch for you. Anybody could see it. Hell, I think Mr. Smith can see it and he actuallyisblind. Legally.”
“Right so then dinner is a terrible idea, as I suspected,” I groaned, thinking about how he challenged me into saying yes by pointing out that I had never let fear run my decisions before.
Lately, that’s all I did. I let fear run my life. I let it chase me away from a job I had loved. I let it keep me silent. I let it build walls around my heart.
I wanted to be fearless Elle again.
“I don’t know about that,” Tessa shrugged. “I do think you need to sit down and hash out the past, especially if the two of you are ever going to move forward.”
“I’m not sure I want to hear him out,” I sighed again, feeling confused and conflicted.
Tessa’s fingers tapped against the wood of the porch as she thought. After several long minutes, she finally turned to speak, her expression empathetic and compassionate. “I don’t think you’ve put your relationship with Braden behind you. I think it still lives in your heart and your skin, and I think it’s trying to claw its way out…so I do believe you need to hear him out, if only to get the closure you need to move on with Alex. You do want to move on with Alex, right?”
I hesitated long enough for Tessa’s eyebrow to shoot up in a questioning look. “I’m not sure. I’ve been feeling kind of…stuck for a while. Even before I came back to town,” I dropped my eyes to my lap. If I couldn’t speak the whole truth, I could at least share a morsel of it. “I wanted to move forward with Alex…but I’m not sure. I have feelings for him, but they’re…”
“Not poignant?” she supplied, a sad smile on her lips. I nodded. “Elle, you’ve always been the most fiery, passionate person I’ve known…and I’ve noticed that you don’t burn for him the way you should when you’re in love.”
“That’s because I’m not in love,” I confessed. It hurt to admit such a thing out loud. I’d been denying it for so long, hoping my feelings would change and grow. So far, they hadn’t. If anything, I’d become more and more numb, more and more detached. I didn’t know if this was just another unfortunate side effect of PTSD, or if I was on the wrong path. I had loved my jobso muchwhen I first started working, now the mere thought of returning made me feel sick with dread.
Since arriving home, I’d still had episodes of panic—like when my car broke down on the side of the highway—but it wasnothinglike it was in Barrie. Here, I felt different. I felt like healing was a real possibility now, but I had no idea what that meant for me—or my future.
Sensing my heartache, Tessa threw her arms around my shoulders and pulled me to her. A single tear escaped, trailing down my chin like a silent punctuation mark on my revelation.
“Have you told Alex how you feel?”
“How can I tell him? We live together, weworktogether. Besides, maybe I’m just depressed. Maybe my feelings for Alex are being blocked out by that.”
