Amy shut the door behind her. “Do you have a second?” she asked.
I blinked at her. “Is everything okay?” “I just need to talk to you.”
I eyed her. “All right…”
I couldn’t imagine what she wanted to talk about. We’d barely spoken since we broke up.
She paused for a moment. “What are you doing, Jacob?” “What? What do you mean?”
“‘I’d love you even if you didn’t have a face’? Using the word
motherfucker? Moving in together?” She shook her head. “What is this?” I felt my heart rate pick up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m concerned about you,” she said. “You’re vulnerable right now. You just went through a difficult breakup and you meet this woman and she’s moving in? Already?”
I crossed my arms. “You’re marrying Jeremiah already.”
She crossed her arms too. “I’ve known Jeremiah two years longer than I’ve known you and we work together every day—”
“Briana and I also work together.”
“And in less than six months she’s living with you?” I shook my head at her. “Why do you care?”
“What if she has an ulterior motive.” “Like what?” I scoffed.
“Like getting you to donate a kidney to her brother?” The words hit me like a smack.
“Did you start dating before or after she knew what you were doing?” she asked.
I went quiet. And my silence confirmed her accusation.
“I’m just saying that you should be careful,” she said, going on. “It seems odd that she’s so in love and you two just met.”
I felt myself bristle. “Why is it so hard for you to believe that somebody might want me?” I snapped. “Just because you didn’t?”
Her mouth fell open. “It was never that I didn’t want you. You know that. It wasn’t working. We were too broken to fix—”
“You didn’t want to fix it.”
“You wouldn’t talk to me about anything! I felt like I was having a one- sided conversation for the last two and a half years—”
“You were! Thank you for finally noticing!”
She lowered her voice. “You are being so unfair. I was open to therapy. And we went into that session and you told me you didn’t want to have kids with me. You didn’t want to live with me, and you didn’t want to get married. How could we work it out when you were that unhappy? You hated me so much—”
“I never hated you. I didn’t want kids until we understood each other better. That’s not unreasonable. And why are we even talking about this? It’s over.”
She nodded. “Right. It is. But I still care what happens to you. I care if someone takes advantage of you. Do you want to wake up six months from now and realize you’ve been conned into donating an organ for someone you don’t even talk to anymore? I mean how do you know she’s even who she says she is—”
“Stop. Right now.” I stood there, breathing hard. I didn’t want to hear another word of it.
I wasn’t angry because of any of the old shit we were arguing about. I couldn’t care less at this point what had gone wrong between us or what grudges she still held or how we could have salvaged it. I was upset because she was speaking my worst fear into the universe.
I didn’t know how Briana felt—if she felt anything at all. Maybe she was just doing this for the kidney. I honestly didn’t know. And now I worried maybe Amy was seeing something that I didn’t. Maybe it was painfully obvious that Briana could never really want me, and everyone knew it but me. It made me panic and feel defensive and exposed and hopeless.
Because I was falling for her.
That was the truth of it. I was falling for her.
I was already afraid to look directly at what was happening between me and Briana for fear it would disappear. And I didn’t like Amy questioning it or discrediting it—mostly because even I didn’t know if it was anything for Briana other than the performance we’d agreed to put on.
Something clattered in the hallway. Jafar squawked. “Peekaboo, cocksucker! Bieber! Bieber!”
Amy stood there, hurt. She wasn’t looking me in the eye. Her chin quivered and I instantly felt bad for being so short with her.
I dragged a hand through my hair. “Look. None of this even matters. It’s done. And you know what? I’m glad it’s done because you’re with who you should be with.” I paused. “And so am I.”
“I know,” she said quietly. “I just…I feel responsible for you. I don’t want you to get hurt. I would hate that.” She looked back at me. “I just want you to be okay. I want you to be happy. As happy as I am.”
I gave her a small nod. “I know,” I said, my voice low. “I believe that.”
She paused for a moment. Then she seemed to decide something and she closed the space between us and gave me a hug.
“I’m sorry, Jacob,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry I hurt you.”
I let out a long breath. “I’m not hurt,” I said, hugging her back. “Not anymore.”
And it was the truth. Because I no longer cared.
I loved Amy. But I was not in love with her. I saw that now. I was completely and utterly over it. I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t resentful. This hug was as platonic as if I was hugging my sister—and I was.
It occurred to me that the universe had set something to rights when she chose Jeremiah. That maybe this was the way it was always supposed to be. Amy was always supposed to be a part of this family and a part of my life. She just wasn’t for me. And it was obvious to me who was.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” I said, tucking her under my chin. “Because I’m happy. And everything between me and Briana is real.”
Only I had no idea if that was the truth. But either way, today was the day I was going to muster the courage to find out.
