Forget about Bates.
Forget about the valentines and the mask.
And the feelings …
Forgetting will be easier than facing it head-on. I can go home, block him, find the cameras, and rid my life of every trace of Bates Finnegan.
Anxiety builds in my chest at the thought because, deep down, I know that’s not what I want. But confessing what I do want is far scarier than being a coward and running away.
I’m standing on the precipice of continuing our relationship or ending it. I know that if I getout of this car, walk up the sidewalk to his front door, and knock, he’s never letting me go.
He chose to hold this conversation at his place. He could’ve suggested mine, but he didn’t, and I know why. He wants me to be sure that if I show up, I know the choice I’m making. There’s no going back if I walk through those doors.
Maybe I’m delusional, falling for the illusion of choice when there really isn’t one in the end.
Maybe he never planned on letting me go.
Maybe I never wanted him to.
I exhale loudly, the sigh bouncing off my driver’s window and windshield. I fight the emotions bubbling up inside of me, and I don’t quite understandwhy.
My phone vibrates, and I see my dad’s name flash on my car’s display screen, and it suddenly hits me. The reason I’ve been struggling to accept the way I feel about My Masked Valentine, about Bates.
What if … what if something happens?
What if Bates is my damn soulmate and something tragic rips him away from me, like the universe did with my mom and dad?
My dad has never recovered. Never moved on. He claims he’s happy. But I know he struggles with loneliness from time to time. I can’t imagine what it would be like to find your person, start a family, and then everything changes when your partner is torn away from you.
Agony, unlike anything else in the world lives within him, and he hides it behind stoic coaching, soft smiles, and a hard exterior. Only I get to see the softness beneath the face he presents to the world.
I wonder if he’s always been that way or if he became that version of himself to survive after losing my mom.
Heaviness weighs down on my chest, a strange sensation that I’ve never understood completely. I have an urge, a need to talk with someone I’ve never met—well, at least, someone I don’t remember.
Movies, shows, and books all depict a mom as being this safe space for a child to turn to. To get hugs, support, words of advice or encouragement. To guide their child in the right direction, helping them understand the difference between the wants of their heart compared to their mind. To support them no matter what path they take.
I’ve never felt her absence so deeply until this moment as my mind races uncontrollably, filling me with unknown grief.
I could use a mom right now.
I miss her, even if I don’t know what that means.
I miss the moments we never got and the ones we’ll never get to share. I’ve always convinced myself that I didn’t want a big wedding, a big show of dramatics, but that was also because I was in denial about sadness I wasn’t ready to face and I had never met someone who I pictured all of that with, until Bates.
She won’t be there to help me pick out my dress or help me get ready on the day of. She won’t be there in all the moments where mothers are meant to be.
I know that’s okay. I know tons of people don’t have a mom, and they do just fine. But in this second, I wish I had someone to rub my shoulders and tell me it’s all going to be okay because the truth is … I’m absolutely terrified.
I’m not scared of Bates; I’m scared of what I feel forhim. Of how intense and absolutely soul-consuming it all is.
My dad always said that when he met my mom in high school, he just knew, then and there, as if love were that easy. But in a way, I understand it.
The first night I met Bates last year, I was drawn to him immediately, like there was some invisible string between us, constantly pulling us toward one another. My denial morphed into hatred and anger because I was fighting the attraction every step of the way.
Instead, I focused my attention on My Masked Valentine and fell for someone I didn’t know, which made the way I felt toward Bates even more confusing.
But they’re one and the same, both sides of the same coin, and I think my soul recognized it, even if I didn’t realize it until now.
