Page 93 of Can We Just Be Happy Now?

“I don’t even want to know.”

“Are we turning you off from love yet?” I sigh.

Marcus laughs, his voice deep with a touch of sadness. “Just taught me to communicate better than you idiots.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re welcome.”

“Dean is miserable in Costa Rica.”

My brows push together, confused by the direction shift.

“He never found the courage to tell Maci how he felt.”

“Sophie knows how I feel.”

“She knows that you’ve loved her since you were a kid?”

“Not in those words. It’s not enough.”

“You don’t think the way you love her is enough?”

Tapping my fist against the steering wheel, I give myself more time, delaying the inevitable admission. “No. It’s not unconditional. I can’t even see her with someone else without losing my mind. I’m mad at her all the time.”

“But you still love her despite that. Isn’t that what unconditional means?”

I don’t know how to answer that. It feels toxic—all of it. Neither Sophie or I deserve it.

“What if she’s miserable without you and just sucks at dealing with it? What if her unconditional love for you keeps her stuck?”

“Some days it seems like she has moved on.”

“Or maybe her acting out is her way of coping with the fact that she doesn’t think she’s supposed to love you.”

“Our friendship was going just fine how it was.”

“Uh-huh. So, eventually you would have found someone else to be in a relationship with?” He turns my words around on me.

My mouth opens but nothing comes out. I can’t imagine feeling about anyone as strongly as I do Sophie. And it kills me thinking she’d ever feel more for someone than she does me.

“Say there is someone better for both of you. You’d still rather her not be in your life at all?”

I stay silent, visions of my life without Sophie in any capacity flashing through my mind. My chest tightens more with each thought as I picture her dissolving out of every scene in my future. Graduation. Running my business with my dad. Marriage. Kids. Ten other things in between.

“You know as well as anyone how important family is—how crucial it is to surround yourself with the right people who are always there for you.”

I nod, thinking back to the morning I opened the front door to see ten year old Troy standing there, needing a family. “What’s your point?”

“You don't let go of those people just because you're mad at them or because they slip up or because things get hard.” He chuckles, shaking his head as if he was recalling and discarding a memory. “Maybe you and Sophie never find your way back to each other romantically. But you two are important to each other. You always have been. Are you willing to give that up?”

My head falls back against the seat. “No.” I take a breath. “But how the fuck can I be friends with her when I’ll always compare anyone else to her? How can I watch her be with someone else? Marry someone else?” I open up in a way I never have with Marcus—considering we aren’t that close. Christ, this isn’t even a conversation I’ve had with Troy or Mom. But this isn’t a real estate deal with steps to walk me through the process. And I’m at a total loss.

“That I don’t know. But don’t you think it’s worth trying to figure out?”

“I wish I could figure out where it all went wrong in the first place.”

Chapter fifty-seven

SOPHIE

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