Page 70 of Just Ten Seconds

Tracey rests her hands in a praying position. “Not in the romantic sense. In the living word. In life. Love what you do. Love where you are and who you’re with. You have so much hurt in your heart that you need to learn to remember to love yourself.”

“Myself?” I ask, dumbfounded.

“You can be happy, Mara. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you will be able to live in peace,” Tracey says.

I stare down at my fingers that are entwined on my lap.

Lauren nods. “Everyone deserves happiness. Even if it’s the size of a pea.”

I smile at the metaphors. “That doesn’t seem like a lot of happiness.”

“It’s better than believing you deserve nothing,” Kevin agrees.

I roll my fingers into the size of pea. I’d like to think I’m at least that happy. If anything, I would give myself a tangerine size of happiness. Still, I see what they mean.

“Just add a pea size of happiness a day and see what happens,” Tracey challenges and then goes around the room, asking everyone for one thing that made them happy this week.

My hands are full of packages as I walk around downtown Warwick, gathering props for the show.

This week, I had the cast swimming around the room like they were fish, getting into the physical essence of playing their roles. By the end of the week, everyone was ready with their lines almost memorized and walking around the stage like they were underneath the water.

I’m currently checking out at the fabric store with an exorbitant amount of navy-blue tulle and some awesome pairs of roller-skate shoes for Ariel to zip around the stage with. I would get a pair for Flounder, but with her cast, I don’t think we should chance it.

I’m pushing open the door to the fabric store when the weight of it is suddenly pulled open.

“Here, let me get that.”

I’d know that voice anywhere. I look over to Dean holding the door for me.

“Thanks.” I shuffle through the door with my bags in hand. “I got a little carried away with the tulle.”

“You dropped this.” He kneels down and picks up a plastic bag of felt.

“Scales for Ariel,” I explain. “It’s cheaper to make the costumes, and my landlady is a fantastic seamstress.” I juggle the brown paper bag as four plastic ones hang loosely from my hands.

“Give me those.” Dean reaches out for the brown bag and also takes two of the plastic ones from me. “There’s more than just fabric in these bags,” he teases.

“Roller sneakers, a red top hat for Sebastian, and these super-cool tiaras for the six mer-sisters. They’re gonna look great!”

Dean puts his body in front of mine as we head toward the street. “Careful there. We don’t want you hurting that pretty little smile of yours.”

I blush as we walk to my car on the other side of the street. My keys are dangling out of my back pocket, so I turn around and ask Dean to grab them.

“What’s with us and making each other dig through the other’s pockets?” he says as he unlocks my trunk.

“Clearly, we have no personal boundaries. Perhaps we should work on that.”

“Boundaries are overrated.”

Dean puts the bags in his hands in the trunk and then takes the rest from me. He’s so damn chivalrous. When he closes the hood, we are left standing outside in the November sunshine, staring at each other, not knowing what to say to the other.

“I was wondering if—”

“Dean, I—”

We both laugh at talking over each other.

“You go first,” I say with a smile.