“I know it’ll take a lot to find the courage to do that,” she went on.“But I also know you will.”
“I think it’s safe to share that there were a lot of communication breakdowns with his previous relationships.So one way or another, I think he’d appreciate it.”
She tipped her head to the side.“Are you needing to prove you’re not them?”
“Oh, girl,”—I went back to bapping the tablet—“absolutely.When I say he was burned, I mean he wasburned.”
“Ulk,” she forced out.
“Yeah,” I agreed, still bapping, and beginning to feel angry that those bitches not only gave him that heartache but also put me in this place.“And I think it’s safe to say they seriously misrepresented themselves.I can see with Hutch, twice bitten, seven million times shy.”
“Uh, Mabel, did you hear me earlier?”
I turned from the tablet.“Which part?”
“Sister, you both think you’re FWBs, you guys don’t live all that close to town, and he just dropped you at work when, now that cooler heads are prevailing, including mine, it didn’t seem like you were really in any danger.He may ask you to take it slow.He has every right to take time to make sure.Right now, you two are still very new.But none of that negates the fact the man is in deep with you.And I may be wrong, and I will accept your friend divorce if I am, but he’s in that state and he likes it.”
Since my breath had stopped coming and my heart had exploded again, she reached out and took both my hands, held strong and kept on.
“Now, I can see your play in delaying this discussion, because other heads are cooling, but his isn’t, and you need to give him time to shake off the fact that he experienced a Saturday night where the woman he loves, or the woman he’s falling in love with, same thing, was in danger.You might have been more like…danger adjacent.But danger was very close to you.Now isn’t the time to broach it.But you have to let him off this FWB thing.You have to tell him where you’re at.Again, I might be wrong, but I’m guessing, for Hutch, it would be a relief.”
She let me go, started separating tags, doing this still talking.
“He might need time to be sure.You also need time to be sure.You both were burned.But at least you’ll be on the same page while you’re taking that time.”
She was correct.
I already knew this too.
Not the Hutch-is-in-love-with-me part.
That…
That…
I couldn’t hope (okay, maybe I could hope a little because I was far from the only one who was not in the least behaving like an FWB).
She was correct that adults adulted, and they did it looking after themselves and the ones they cared about.
Crap.
Adulting sucked.
Why couldn’t we just go along as we were, find ourselves in our eighties, our children and grandchildren grown up and off in the world doing their thing, look at each other in our rocking chairs on our porch, and say, “You know?I don’t think we’re friends with benefits anymore.”
Ugh.
“So…you hanging in there with all that Lion and Lamb thing?”she asked the tags she was writing on.
“I’m struggling,” I told her.
She turned to me.
“I see her in my mind’s eye a lot, how she was, begging for help,” I told her.
“Oh, babe,” she whispered.
“And not only that.After I saw that woman, I called Hutch first.It was stupid.I feel like an idiot.I totally panicked,” I explained.
