Page 52 of The Two Halves of My Heart

“So, if I choose to go, you’d be okay with it?”

“It sounds to me like you might be looking for an excuse to say no?”

“It’s just… I’m not sure… it’s complicated,” I huffed out and leaned my head back on the cushions with a sigh.

“Boys tend to do that to us. What does your heart say?”

“Heart? Oh, it’s not like that. We’re just friends.”

“Are you sure about that? I know you’ve been friends with those two forever, but I see the way they are around you. They’d do anything for you.”

“Well, it’s just Maddison now.” The sour edge to my voice broke through, and I wondered if I was ever going to get over Oliver leaving. I’d allowed him to make me despondent about everything since he left when really, I should be mad at him. Did him leaving mean I should stand still until he came back? That’s not what he told me he wanted, although I’d picked over the words he said a hundred times, there was always another way to look at them. The repetition didn’t stop me feeling stuck. Maybe this was the way to un-stick myself and move on?

“And what’s wrong with Maddison?”

Wasn’t that the question? But it shouldn’t be about picking one over the other. And if I were ever to make a choice, shouldn’t that choice be because I was in love with one of them. Totally and irrevocably, not just because my choice had been removed and left me with an aching heart in place of a burning love I couldn’t fight?

“Nothing. I just don’t know what to do for the best.”

“Well, what would the harm be to move in? Try being friends together. If things develop, then go with it. If they don’t, well, that’s fine too. And know you’ll always have a place here.” She put her arm around me, offering me comfort that I was starving for right now.

“That sounds sensible.”

“Well, that’s my job. To make the sensible decisions.”

And as she hugged me, I hoped, with everything left in my heart that I was making the right decision, to let nature take its course. To give my heart the time to make the choice it wanted and to stop fighting the direction it might take me in.

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