Page 153 of The Last Good Man

And it’s not only that.

He hasn’t figured his life out. And there is more to two people than how good they are in bed.

Our lives are so different that he’d feel suffocated in my rigid, often pretentious world.

People would take a jab at him. And knowing him, he’d retaliate and get in trouble.

We can only make it work if we are ready to make big, and I mean huge, adjustments.

I can’t even think of something that would make our life paths overlap, let alone do it.

That’s the reality of it.

And then there’sa different reality.

Despite shooing him off, I’m still obsessed with him.

Despite not letting him have me, I’m still lusting after him.

Despite pulling away from him and taking control of my life, I still feel like a loser.

But my mind is made up, and I’ll follow the necessary steps to get where I’m supposed to get.

Wherever that may be.

And it won’t be with him.

“So…” I say, pushing to my feet and holding my dress up. “What do you think?”

Sunk in thought, she shoots me a blank stare.

“I don’t know. It’s working, I guess.”

“Right.”

I drop it on the discarded clothes, convinced I’ll never find something to wear.

MELODY

“Where are you, darling? I can’t see you,” Emile says with an unmistakable accent, pivoting and pushing his gaze over the crowd.

The place is packed. I didn’t expect so many people at an art exhibition.

I spot Emile, yet he is lost in a sea of guests, moving his eyes over me without noticing me.

I’m not surprised.

I no longer look how he remembers me.

Having a few hours left after Alice had gone home, Ifelt likedoing something significantly different.

Maybe Jax is right, and I’m experiencing an existential crisis. I hadn’t planned to getrealwith Alice and share intimate stuff about my fears of being time-pressured, yet it happened.

I haven’t even told my mother about these things, or Aretha, who is supposed to hear all this.

When Alice left, I spent another half an hour looking for something to wear. And then I realized I had looked for somethingappropriate. Somethingthat made sense for the man I was supposed to meet and the place I was supposed to visit.

When I changed my thinking and decided to wear something that I liked, Ieasily selected the dress I wear tonight.And it’s the same dress I wore last night.

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