"Hello?" a male voice called from the front.
Blossom's frown deepened.
"Sounds like Jamison," I said, pretending to be surprised. "Wait here. I'll be right back."
I escaped before she could respond, my heart hammering as I rushed to the front of the wellness center. Manuel and his father waited by the register.
"Hi Jamison, Manuel," I said.
"Hi, Ms. Washington."
"Are you doing okay?" I asked.
"Yeah." He gave a tight and brief fake smile.
"You said you needed help moving some boxes?" Jamison asked.
"I do, and I appreciate the two of you coming by to help. They're in the back."
They followed me, and as we approached the yoga room, I hung back and allowed Manuel to go ahead.
"In there," I said.
He stepped forward, and at the same time, Blossom looked up from her phone. Her entire body went rigid.
"Blossom."
Manuel's voice cracked on her name, and the longing in both of their faces was so obvious that I was confident Jamison and I had made the right decision. They loved each other. No doubt they loved each other.
"Mom, what's going on?"
Though she asked me the question, Blossom never took her eyes off Manuel. He hadn't taken his eyes off her, either.
"We brought you here to talk to each other," Jamison said. He moved to stand beside me, a couple of inches inside the room.
Blossom finally dragged her eyes from the man she loved. "We already said everything we needed to say days ago."
"Breaking up is not what you want," I said.
"You don't know what we want," Blossom said, but her voice wobbled.
"From where I'm standing, I see two people who are miserable without each other and are too afraid to admit they made a mistake."
The room fell silent. Blossom and Manuel made a point of not looking at one another.
I took a breath. "Jamison and I need a few minutes of your time, and we need you to listen to what we have to say."
Blossom folded her arms protectively across her torso, and Manuel shoved his hands into his pockets, his jaw tight, eyes trained on the floor.
I exchanged a glance with Jamison. This was it. We had to bring our A-game.
"The two of you are making a mistake by splitting up. You believe you're going to fail because of comments we made, but you're not."
"How can you be so sure?" Blossom asked.
"Because you love each other, and the fight you had is not really about money. The fight you had is about fear. Fear of pain. Fear of failure."
Jamison cleared his throat. "Love is terrifying, and it's risky, and there's no guarantee that things will work out. But I one hundred percent believe it's worth the risk and worth taking the leap because the alternative is moving through life and never finding out how much joy you can experience." When he finished talking, he looked at me. Those words were meant for me. "You can't plan love. It just happens on its own, whether or not you're ready. But that doesn't mean it's easy. When you love someone, you don't give up when the going gets tough. You work through your issues."
