“Because I miss her. I can’t stop thinking about her. The house doesn’t feel right without her and Callie and Lola there.”
“You told her that?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“She said that she couldn’t.”
“Did she give you a reason?”
“She said that what we had was not sustainable and that we couldn’t drag our families into this. She said that my feelings would pass and that we couldn’t make any life changing decisions now.”
Dr. Lavine was supposed to be objective, but I knew him. He was impressed by the reasons she’d given. It made me both proud, because she’d impressed him, and also pissed off because that probably meant he agreed with her.
“You think she’s right?” My tone was defensive.
“It’s not a question of right or wrong.”
I hated it when he gave me wishy-washy answers like that.
“But you agree with her?” I asked directly.
“Don’t you?” he shot back.
“No.”
He paused and I thought this was going to be another one of the times he waited for me to speak, but it wasn’t.
“So, if I understand you correctly, you told her: you missed her, you can’t stop thinking about her, and that it didn’t feel right without her and her daughter and mother there?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell her that you want to be in a relationship with her? Did you discuss having any sort of commitment or stability? Or did you just list what you were feeling?”
Fuck. What the fuck had I been thinking?
“Did you tell her you loved her?”
“No, I didn’t tell her I love her. I don’t even know if I do love her.”
He sat up straighter in his chair. “What do you think love is?”
I just stared at him. Usually, I had no problem filling silences, but right now I had nothing to say because I had no idea.
“It wasn’t a rhetorical question. I’m actually asking you.”
I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I think love is…you know, it’s when you care about someone, obviously, and you feel like you can’t live without them.” Everything I said was how I felt about Skye, so I stopped talking. I thought I loved her, but what the fuck did I know? I’d been confused about why she hadn’t jumped at the chance to move back in with me. I was clearly an asshole.
“So, you think love is a feeling?”
I boomeranged the question right back to him. “You don’t?”
“Sure, there’s part of love that is a feeling. But thinking of love in terms of feelings is so abstract. Not to mention, feelings change.”
Exactly. Which was why I didn’t trust it. Therefore, I didn’t trust myself to live up to it.
Holy shit.
