“How about we make a deal?” I suggest to Mala. “I’ll tell my person that I like him if you tell JB.”
Mala scrunches up her face to consider the deal. “What happens if I don’t do it?”
“Nothing at all,” I assure her. “But if youdotell him, then no matter what he says, I’ll bring you three sleeves of chocolate biscuits. How’s that?”
Mala’s eyes light up. “Really truly? You’re not joshing?”
“Not joshing.”
So we agree to it, and after lunch, I procrastinate heading back into the office, with a long walk around Clerkenwell, talking myself in circles about why it’s probably better if I renege on my end of the deal. Why Rory and I still might not work out just because Emily’s not in the picture. Our lives are still going in different directions, and although we have a foundation of friendship, that wouldn’t necessarily translate to romance. And even if I do decide to say something, I should wait longer so I give him more time to move on from Emily.
But I know that if he were to get back together with Emily or start dating someone new, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself for not speaking up sooner.
So I find myself walking into the Boots down the street from the school, perusing the cards aisle just to take a look. I leave the store and return three times before I end up buying one—not a Valentine’s Day theme or anything romantic, just a blank card with a floppy-eared hound dog on it.
And then, after more internal waffling, I sit on a bench in one of the grassy squares and start to write in the card. I don’t pen sappy poetry or sentimental verses, just a few plain-sounding sentences saying I’ve realized I like Rory as more than a friend. The words that would be too difficult to say aloud are alarmingly easy to put down on paper, like they’ve been waiting for their chance to flow out.
Once it’s done, I nearly drop it in each rubbish bin that I pass on the walk back to the school. But some force more powerful than my doubt keeps me holding onto it.
Too nervous to deliver the sealed-up envelope to Rory in person, I give it to the woman who works at the front office of his school and ask her if she could pass it onto Mr. Cooper. The woman assures me that she will, so I leave it in her hands and dart out the door, to be as far away as possible when Rory opens the card and learns the inconvenient truth.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I work from my flat for the rest of the afternoon, turning off my phone off and stashing it under my bed to keep from checking to see if there’s any reply from Rory.
It’s a childish game, I know, but the antics can’t be helped. I’m in love and I’ve finally admitted that to myself and the other person, and I won’t be held responsible for the way it’s making me crazy.
Although the thing with loving Rory is that it actually makes melesscrazy. Even as my mind and heart are agitated, my soul breathes with peace when I think about him. He centers me and cuts through all the noise and clutter to make way only for what’s real and good and true.
But I can’t let myself dwell on how wonderful he is. How all the other times I’ve been “in love” were just vacuous emotional highs, disparate sequences of Instagrammable moments that never had the strength or substance to hold up. No, I can’t linger on any of thatbecause at any moment I’ll be getting a voicemail or text from Rory saying how much he values me as a friend.
Unless …
There’s a little voice wondering if, just maybe, he might say something different. That he actually does have feelings for me, and that’s why it didn’t work out with Emily. The odds are slim, but knowing there’s some kind of chance makes it impossible to focus on anything else. At sixPM, I retrieve my phone and turn it back on.
When I finally get myself to look, a flurry of email notifications fill the screen, but no new texts or missed calls.
The implications of the silence sink in.
He’s definitely read the card by now. The woman in the school office assured me that she’d deliver it right away. If Rory had good news to share, if the feelings were reciprocated, he’d have gotten back to me immediately. He would have called me and said, with endearing awkwardness, that he liked my card. He would’ve asked if we could get dinner or gelato. But as that hasn’t materialized, he’s clearly just trying to plan out how to let me down easily.
The weight of it all presses in on me, and I feel dreadfully delicate. Reckless too. I never should’ve made that childish deal with Mala, never should’ve written those words in ink that I can’t take back.
I should’ve given him more time before springing the “L” word on him so abruptly. I should’ve considered that he’s not someone who likes to be surprised and dropped some hints along the way to help him get accustomed to the idea of being with me.
Still, if he were really the right guy for me, telling him too soon or in the wrong way wouldn’t be able to mess it up. He must just not be my person after all.
Pacing my flat, I go into a cleaning frenzy, putting the vacuum on full force to block out the inner dialogue that keeps reprimanding my boldness, then applauding it in the next moment, then cursing it once more.
Once the flat is sparkling clean (a very disorienting state), I draw a hot bath and stay in there for a long time, overloading the tub with salts and bubbles. In the background, I have on a relationship podcast calledPerks of Being Single. The women cohosts are in their thirties, and I’m hoping they’ll instill some gratitude or inspiration, but they just annoy me instead. All their self-proclaimed benefits of being single are man-bashing reasons like “The only way not to get cheated on is to not be in a relationship,” and “Men don’t remember anything we say anyway, so now we save ourselves the trouble of having to talk to a brick wall.”
Turning off the podcast, I recline in the tub in silence with just the routine creaking of Marlow House to keep me company. I don’t want to become jaded. Therearegood guys out there. Rory’s one of them, even if he doesn’t love me back.
When I finally get out of the tub, I pat myself dry and pull on my sweatpants pajamas. Instead of lying down on the couch and watchingMarried at First Sight, I attempt a more mature form of coping in the form of lighting soy candles and dabbing my wrists with lavender-scented essential oils. Spreading the tartan blanket on the clean floorboards, I sit in a cross-legged posture in the dark. Palms turned open on my kneecaps, I breathe in and out, attempting a meditative chant because this seems like the sort of thing that a well-balanced woman who has her life together would do.
Jaw clenched in a masculine posture that I’ve learned to associate with toughness, I repeat a mantra to myself about how I don’t need anyone else.
Though I can’t help but entertain the idea that maybe there’s nothing inherently wrong in needing other people. Maybe codependence is actually an essential part of being human. And we just have to make sure that the people we depend on are the ones who are good for us.
