“You can’t control the heart. You can’t make it fall in love when it doesn’t want to any more than you can’t stop it from loving the wrongperson.”
“Is dad that person to you? The wrong one you can’t stoploving?”
“Julian.” Her voice was quiet. “If I never met your father, I wouldn’t have you. That alone makes our loveworthit.”
I was thoroughly confused. My mom’s emotions were all over the place. It was a cause of constant tension in my life. My dad had hurt her. How could she say there was love there? In all this time I busted my ass for her, she never hinted she appreciated what I did. And, yet, here she was telling me how proud she was of me. It didn’t makesense.
It was almost as if my dad leaving againbrokeher.
But the insecure boy in me craved this approval. After everything, I needed to know I was loved, that my mom saw the sacrifices I was making daily for her. So I hugged her. And I squeezed her tight. I told her how much I loved her. How happy I was she was mymother.
But even as I held her, I knew she was wrong. What she and my dad had wasn’t love because love wasn’t hard like that. It was supposed to be easy. It made you better, braver,bolder.
With those thoughts, sitting on the worn out couch in my living room, holding my mom, I made a discovery that rocked myworld.
I was in love withKatie.
The surge of emotion was so much more than the feelings I ever felt for Michelle. I was wrong when I gave her those words so many months ago. In the same way my mom was wrong to give those special words to my dad. I knew now thatwasn’tlove.
Thiswas.
We’d been best friends; we were reacquainting ourselves with one another. It was too fast to fall this hard. That’s what my mind told me. But I couldn’t deny it. I only prayed she feltthesame.
I was scared as I climbed this new high, knowing nothing this goodlasted.
Notforme.
It just meant I would have to hold on tighter than I ever had before. I refused toletgo.
Istayedseveral hours with my mom that morning. We talked more in that short time than we had in the last several months. Hell, it was probably the most we had spoken to each other in years. I had been consumed with my life at school, my future, myfriends.
Without those distractions, I was just a guy talking to his mom. It felt good to open up, to tell her just how hard giving up college had been on me. It was the second time I had laid myself out there in less than twenty-four hours. While it was different from my night with Katie, it was just asimportant.
I could literally feel the weight coming off of me with every hour spenttogether.
I told my mom about Katie, how she was my saving grace. I admitted I was in love with her, leaving out the fact I knew it was purer than her love with my dad. No need to make the pain of dad leavingharder.
“Oh, Julian,” she said with a genuine smile on her face. “I’m so happy for you. I always felt there was something special between you two. But you were so young and I never wanted torushit.”
“There’s no way you could have seen that, mom. I didn’tseeit.”
She laughed. “No teenaged boy spends that much time with a girl he doesn’t love. Even if he doesn’t understand those feelings atthetime.”
“Mom!”
“I certainly wasn’t going to be the one to ruin thesurprise.”
“Well, consider us on thesamepage.”
“DoesKatieknow?”
“Not yet. I didn’t even know until thismorning.”
“Well, you’d better go tell her.” She said practically pushing me out of the house. It was for the best, my shiftstartedsoon.
When I drove up to work that afternoon, I was pleasantly surprised to see Katie’s fancy SUV out front. Now I knew what that vehicle meant to her, how she had thought she could spend money and the sadness would leave her. I wanted to protect that car, even if the thought was slightlyirrational.
Unfortunately, as I scanned the parking lot, I also saw Marco. I knew it meant the other shoe was about to drop. My life was a rollercoaster. It wasn’t thrilling; it was terrifying. It was exhausting. Ihatedit.
