“No!”
“Are you sure? Because if it’s that guy you were going out with, your brother says he’s a jerk. A brown-noser with no personality of his own. And a person like that doesn’t deserve a minute of your time.”
I smiled again. I had the feeling that smiling was all I did when he was around.
“No, it’s not him. I do need time and distance, and that is why I’m here, but it’s nothing to do with Dustin. It’s way more complicated and important than some dumb ex.”
Seeing that he really cared, that he was attentive and maybe even worried, I realized I could tell him anything, and that with a little luck, he’d understand me. Just maybe. I mean, he had, hadn’t he, a few minutes before? In fact, I wasn’t sure anyone else had ever understood me so well.
I sat on the sand, and he did the same. I closed my eyes and listened to the sea and tried to find the words to tell him this was a crucial moment in my life, a moment that might change everything.
“I don’t know if you know this, but my grandmother left me her house and the bookstore.”
“Hoyt mentioned it.”
“Do you and my brother spend all your time talking about me?” I growled.
That seemed to make him uncomfortable. “Heismy best friend,” Trey said, “and he talks to me when he needs to. And he’s worried about you.” He sank his fingers in the sand and brought up a handful. “And to be honest, I listen closer when you come up.”
He grinned. I shook my head. What was I going to do with him? His flirting disconcerted me, and I wondered how real it was. I didn’t want to get overexcited. I couldn’t afford to.
“Let me put it this way,” I said. “Imagine your future is all planned out and you’re sticking to it. And then one day something changes. A new road opens in front of you. So on one side you have the so-calledimportant things, stuff that really is tempting: a wonderful world where you can be someone and make a name for yourself. Respect, admiration, comfort. And the other road isn’t so flashy, but there are other things there that maybe matter more.”
“Like…?”
“Memories, identity, roots…dreams. Hopes. And not having to worry about repairs because you’re too poor to afford them!” He laughed, but I tried to ignore it. “Well, I’m standing at that crossroads, and I have to choose. Either I go back to Toronto and keep studying and working at the publisher or I stay in Montreal and leave everything behind to run the bookstore.”
“Wow. Those really are two totally different paths!”
I looked out at the sea to watch a bird flying low over the water’s surface.
“So what would you do?” I asked.
“No answer I can give you will help. The solution depends on your priorities, on what you really want. You have to get your own ideas in order, think about your dreams, decide what’s important for you.”
“It sounds so simple when you put it like that. But what if I choose wrong? What if I throw all my eggs in one basket and regret it and then it’s too late to change my mind? What if I have no idea what I actually want?”
“We’ve all asked ourselves those questions,” he said in a caring tone, seeming to understand how complicated the situation was and how hard it must be to live in my skin. “But ask yourself, Harper: What do you want more than anything in the world?”
I needed a few seconds to respond. Then something emerged from me without my even thinking of it.
“I want the opportunity to be happy.”
“See? You do know what you want.”
“And I want to understand myself. Because I don’t. I–I don’t knowwho I am. I feel like somewhere along the way I forgot. Or maybe I never did know. And if I don’t know who I am now, how will I know who I want to be in the future?”
I felt sad, nervous, edgy, exposed after sharing all my thoughts with him. All the thoughts I never said aloud. He grabbed my hand and held it. But he didn’t try to give me answers. And him just being there and waiting made more and more words rise up within me.
I stood. I had to move, had to do something. I walked to the water’s edge. He followed me.
“I keep thinking about the consequences my decisions could have. That’s what I do all the time, keep turning the same subject over and over. It feels like so much effort, but in the end, all that ruminating gets me nowhere. I feel stuck. I feel like I can’t move without knowing all the answers in advance, and even when I do take a step, all I can think about is what others will think of me, and it’s like I’m trying to show them… I don’t know. Something. Why do I care so much what others think of me? Dammit, I’m just a dreamer. A dreamer who will never turn her dreams into reality. Who will never fill the void inside her.”
Trey wrapped his arms around me. He pulled me in tight, as though he wanted to protect me from the surrounding world. When he spoke, his lips just barely grazed my earlobe. “That’s not true, Harper. You just… You just have to believe in yourself. I know what I’m talking about. I know how you feel. Trust me.”
I closed my eyes. No one had ever held me like that before. Emotions flooded me, making my hands shake. “Why should I trust you? Or is that another story you don’t want to tell me?”
He grinned sadly, and I felt the heat of his body through my clothes. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Just let me find the time, okay?”
