Page 88 of The Life-Changing Magic of Falling in Love

For instance, if only I’d been a coward for longer and not this second asked Zach to go with me to Jasmine’s wedding because George would have made the perfect plus one, being that he totally gets it.

‘I thought you said your heart was fixed now?’

‘It is. Although, despite the doctor’s reassurance, there’s nothing like the weeks of anxiety attacks I’ve been experiencing to make me feel like it isn’t.’ He blows out a breath, and my gaze is drawn to the corded muscles of his neck as he throws his head back and stretches. ‘I’ve been sitting here trying to work out if everything with Anya started before the first panic attack or after. If me having one – so out of the blue – so unplanned – was too real for her. A glimpse of something she could never cope with. As if she was putting me out of my misery now, instead of if I really needed her?’

Anger bubbles up into my chest. ‘But you don’t leave someone if they get ill.’

‘Some people do though, don’t they?’

The anger sits, fizzing. ‘Well, they shouldn’t.’

‘Did someone leave you like that?’

‘No. I – no. But I hate it when a person assumes you won’t want to hear something, when actually it’s their cowardice that stops them from saying they’re unhappy about something.’

‘I guess Anya’s no coward because she definitely let me know.’

‘It hurt you though, so I’m sorry she did that to you.’

‘I don’t think I’ll ever have a heart issue again, despite how much the panic makes me think otherwise but that’s not to say I couldn’t get something else.’

‘Sure. But so could she have. I mean we don’t want to go into something expecting that but we want to know that if it does, we’ll cope with it because we love the other person, right?’

He smiles. ‘I’m beginning to think we never would have worked anyways.’

‘But why did the sight of her and that guy holding hands cause you to react the way you did, then?’

‘Male ego? Maybe the thing I’m really upset about is my job … not Anya?’

‘Wow.’

‘Quite. So why did you pee on your boss?’

Chapter Twenty-Six

FLOATS LIKE A GHOST, STINGS LIKE A JELLYFISH!

Ashleigh

I laugh. ‘You say it like I deliberately chose to.’

‘Enlighten me, then.’

‘Okay, but I need to move.’ I don’t think I should be sitting next to him as I tell him. His body heat is too Essence of Invite to Overshare.

As I get up, I promise myself I’ll only tell him the actual incident.

Not what came before.

Not what came after.

Although if I don’t at least manage some of the before and after he’ll have all these questions and what if he asks them quietly? So quietly and sympathetically that I find myself giving it all away, the whole sorry mess of it.

I walk over to the window, drag in a breath, and choose to simply start and see where it takes me. ‘I’ve only been at Sparkle ten months,’ I admit. ‘Before that—’ I press my hand against the windowpane, trying to store in my mind the coolness of the glass against my fingers. It feels fleeting, so I stretch my fingers out so that my palm presses against the glass and I can keep myself grounded.

‘Before that,’ I begin again, ‘I worked at Best Home magazine.’

‘Because you like words,’ George surmises behind me. ‘You’re a writer?’

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