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No calls or texts from him. I’m exhausted, yet completely awake. Liquor and caffeine have no effect on me, and sheer panic keeps me going. This is officially the longest day of my life. And I was in labor for thirty-one hours. This day is longer. Today was a miniseries. I stood up to our parents. I cried. I had sex. I fell for a man who might be everything I’ve ever wanted. And I forgot to fucking tell him.

I can’t clean anymore. I finished all the roast beef and threw out the remaining dill dip his mother made, bowl and all. Then I might have dug the bowl out of the trash as we rounded hour three and smashed it out back on the walkway. Then I felt like a lunatic, cleaned it all up, and ordered a new bowl that looks like it on Amazon. He can give it to her as a late Christmas gift. Or maybe he’s not coming back, and I’ll get a text telling me he can’t be with me, and it’s for the best. That his sister talked some sense into him. And essentially, she found another way to take a man from me.

I am a lot. I come with baggage. And the fact that I want to see where this goes after thirty-some-odd hours makes me a lunatic.

I’m pretty good at keeping it contained, but today it exploded all the fuck over the place. I’d run, too. This is his out. I’m going to waste away in this kitchen sitting and waiting for him. Well, until the twenty-sixth. The cats watch me like I’m a show, as I pace and plead with them to tell me if they know what is happening. And if he leaves me, does that mean I have to feed the cats? I don’t know how to do that. And to be honest, I don’t think I have the stomach for whatever that gelatinous goop is.

What if his mother told him about when I peed my pants when I was nine and he’s so turned off he can’t get past it? What if he sees all of this as a teenage fantasy and not an adult possibility when he has a different perspective? What if I’m just a wish fulfillment and now he’s done? Not sure my ego could take that.

My love life hangs in the balance of a real estate agent and her acerbic elderly backup muscle. I’m trying to keep busy. I changed his sheets and dusted the baseboards. I even talked to Other Cat for a while. Tuxedo Cat and I really don’t care for each other’s company. I’m pretty sure it knows I don’t know how to feed it.

I poured myself more bourbon and texted Meg for a cookie recipe. When I don’t know what to do with my hands, I bake. I just finished a load of laundry. I took a long soak in Epsom salts and loaded up on Advil. Then I put on his T-shirt and my favorite pair of workout pants. The ones that turn my ass into a magic ass. I’ve never failed to get laid or hit on while wearing them. They’re that good. I’m hoping their enchantment holds out tonight.

It’s after eleven, almost midnight. My divorce took less time than this command performance.

Christmas carols are blaring, and I’m singing “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” at the top of my lungs. I can’t sing, but I like it. Ethan’s forever embarrassed I can’t hit a note to save my life.

I have to keep moving. Move past this anxiety. Do anything to push the evil thoughts down. The unworthy, unlovable, complicated woman thoughts. I need to shut up my head. It’s eating me up that someone else has this much control over my life and heart. Oh Jesus, I need to know if he’s totally sacked out at a hotel. And then, soon, he’ll text me a plane ticket for tomorrow. I’m just a girl he used to know. Oh God, now I sound like that terribly overplayed song from, like, a decade ago.

They’ll convince him I’m not worth the trouble. I’m too many moving parts. I talk too much. Do I talk too little? I’m loud. I’m quick to temper. That’s not good. Shit. Or Ethan. He’s going to be set on finding someone more in the middle. Mother and sister approved.

More bourbon might help. I have butter and flour everywhere. I turned on the mixer too high and it got all over me and the kitchen. He’s going to kill me. He’s neat as a pin, and I’m, well, kind of a mess right now. I’m marginally tidy. What the hell am I doing? I need to clean all of this up. I scrape down the bowl while dancing a bit, still blaring Christmas tunes, but now it’s Run-DMC. As I gesture while singing the line ‘chilling and cooling just like a snowman,’ I turn to find a towel, and he’s standing in the archway to the kitchen—staring. I jump a bit in surprise, flinging batter off my spatula onto the cabinets.

I didn’t hear him come in, and I don’t know how long he’s been there. But he absolutely heard me singing. He’s grinning but not beaming. I tap the top of Google and shut off the music. Which is now also covered in batter. His eyes are soulful, and I’m pretty sure stoned. Did he smoke up to break my heart? This is it. I’m totally doomed. I pushed way too fast and too far. Again, I’m too aggressive and pushy. I need to know what box to put these emotions in. Where to place Liam in my life. That’s the rational side of me and how I function. But with him, I’m good old impetuous Jillien. The one who gets lectured about leaping before looking.

He’s retreating. He has every reason to. There’s no rational reason to choose me when I didn’t even tell him I’m a choice. I’d pick him because he makes me impulsive. A behavior I’ve worked hard to curb in my adulthood. But right now I’m pure and straightforward, factory-settings Jillien. I’m a computer rebooted to a restore point far in my past. The Jillien Thompson setting, not the Jillien Meier one.

Shit. He’s not moving. I’m not moving. We’re just staring at each other.

He speaks first. “You have flour on your cheek.” I rub it off with the back of my wrist. I don’t know where we are. Then, finally, he speaks again plainly, giving nothing away, “What are you doing? It’s late. I thought you’d be asleep.”

“Making cookies. Are you kidding about sleeping?”

“You’re making cookies at midnight?”

“We need Christmas cookies, and I bake when I get nervous.”

“Come here.”

I hesitate. I don’t know if he will tell me bad things or good things. He removes his coat and throws it on a chair in the study but doesn’t take one step into the kitchen. I don’t want to make breaking up with me easier by allowing him to hold me. I’ll stand firm. And it’s not really breaking up. It’s more like backing off. We can back off from each other. Because the idea that we’re a couple, together long enough to ‘break up,’ is absurd. Two days and my whole head is screwed up over this man. All of this is fucking absurd. Oh God, I’m an idiot who literally planned on something from one stupid fucking kiss.

“Please come here, Bella. There are things to say.”

“What happened?” I steel myself for the worst version. Well, not the worst. The worst would be if Lisa showed up with a plane ticket.

“Come over here, my nervous girl.” I slowly approach him. He seems steady and sure. “I don’t want to go back to being a memory.”

I leap at him. I exhale. He holds me tightly. He means there’s no going back. He’s all in. Oh my God, I’m so happy.

“Do you want to be with me for real?” I’m unleashed. I went to the super scary place.

“Yes,” he says tentatively. He’s been hurt. Fuck, I’ve been hurt.

Words rush out. “I want you. None of this makes rational sense, and it’s way more complicated than anything we can imagine. But what if we could figure it out?”

“No. I’m only sure of you. I am super fucked-up in the head about it, but I’m all the fuck in on this.” After his declaration, my mind is buzzing with answers instead of questions.

He pulls out his measured lawyer tone but kisses me on the top of my head. “There’s a lot to consider. Distance, what the hell this is, and Ethan.”