“Then it’s time to start living your life, Nettie. Stop putting it on hold. Stop denying that he’s it for you, and you’re it for him. Be happy. Have a baby. Get married. Live happily ever after. You know you’re not going to find that with anyone else but each other.”
She was right.
When the thought of him with someone else literally felt like I couldn’t breathe, I needed to examine how I wanted the rest of my life to look.
Because one day he would give up.
One day, he’d stop trying so hard.
One day, he’d move on, and I would have nobody to blame but myself.
Eight
Why do you use such sound logic and reasoning when I’m just looking for someone to be as overdramatic as I am?
—Nettie to Boone
Boone
She moved in later that night, and by the time I was lying in bed a couple of hours later, staring at the ceiling, I wondered if I’d made the right decision.
Separate rooms.
When we’d been in the same house, we’d shared a bed.
And now, she was moved in, and I was under the same roof as her, with her not in my arms like she should be.
I fisted my hands and pressed them both against my eyes, rubbing so hard that my eyes hurt.
This was torture.
This was utter torture.
I was…
A sound had me pulling my hands away from my face and listening hard.
I was fully expecting not to hear the sound again.
But there was another creak.
And another.
Footsteps moving toward my bedroom.
My breath hitched and stalled in my lungs as she came to a stop right outside my door.
She stayed there for a solid minute before she finally pushed inside.
Again, my breath hitched.
She shuffled across the wood floor, then stood beside the bed for so long that I almost asked her what was wrong.
But then she crawled into the bed with me and scooted underneath the covers.
Still, I didn’t move.
I almost felt like I was having an out-of-body experience.
