Page 41 of I Choose You

He folds his hands together. “First off, there’s a big difference. You not wanting to go there is an effort to protect yourself. The opposite means it’s an impossible endeavor, which is not how this sounds at all.” A reassuring smile appears on his lips. I wish I could wipe it off because he always makes too much sense. If he’s this good a friend, I can only imagine how good a lawyer he is.

His voice of reason penetrates through layers of overthinking. “Second…you think it won’t end well because it’s the only thing you tell yourself. Have you allowed yourself to think, and even wonder, what it would be like if you both gave it a chance? Have you considered the good that could come from giving yourself to someone rather than putting all your energy toward not?”

When I go to say something, nothing comes out. I haven’t considered that option. My heart wouldn’t survive if I put myself out there and Mason—or the miles between us—crushed it. It would split open the hole he created years ago that I have managed to ignore but have yet to fill in.

I never want to associate Mason with the darkness beneath the spackling. With the man who was meant to be there for me but chose to create a life and a new family with another woman.

“Your lack of response tells me you haven’t.” He leans back in his chair, stretching his legs out. “Where do you see yourself in a few years?”

I sigh and say, “In the same place I’m at now, only Luke is off marrying Layla—whose wedding I am definitely boycotting after last night—and Mason is off living his life in the Lonestar State where there’s great live music and bustling culture and pretty women.”

“Sounds like you don’t exactly love that idea.”

He collects the trash on the table, shoving it into the paper takeout bag. It’s set on the floor by our feet before he leans his elbows on the table, gaze set on me. “Now that you’ve realized you don’t love the future, tell me how you would like to see it.”

My teeth nibble into the dry skin on my bottom lip. I pick at my fingernails underneath the table, contemplating. I know what I want so badly it gives me a side stitch thinking about it.

“More than anything, I don’t want Mason to move.” My gaze snaps down to my fingers. “But there’s not a solution to that problem. I also know that it’s my problem, no one else’s.”

He nods in agreement. “What else?”

I blow out a breath, my cheeks filling like balloons. I decide to let him in on a piece of my past. “My parents divorced when I was young. My dad had an affair with a woman he met on a work trip. For years he flew back and forth to Chicago without my mother even knowing another woman had claimed his heart. The entire time she thought they were soulmates.” I swallow down the lump forming in my throat. “Then, the two of them—my father and his girlfriend—decided to make a family of their own as if I never even existed. After the divorce, he moved to Illinois. He saw me once before he left, then never returned. Never even sent a birthday card.” I pause, the emotion making my chest tighten like a severe case of reflux.

He frowns. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“If commitment worked, divorce rates wouldn’t be skyrocketing. I’m not an idiot. I know I can’t go on like this forever, but…”

Oh, God.

Here it is.

The ultimate hazard.

“These…feelings I have for Mason could ruin me.” Just like my father destroyed me when he left without so much as a goodbye. What if I gave in and one day Mason decided to say, screw it, I don’t want you anymore?

“What do you mean?”

“What if Mason decided to leave eventually?”

Realization dawns. “That’s possible with any relationship, but you have to remember that these are two different situations.”

I nod, finally lifting my hands to the top of the table. The weight that previously held me down isn’t as heavy. Owen’s optimistic attitude surely doesn’t hurt. He listens and helps me take other things into account, but it’s all the same to me. Anyone can leave without a moment’s notice.

I’ll be sad to see him go back to Pittsburgh.

“You want my advice?”

I give him a somber grin, pressing my lips together. “I think we both know that’s why we’re here.”

“It sounds like change scares the hell out of you—and for good reason—but change isn’t perfect. A lot of times, we think the end is chaotic, but it’s actually only the middle of it, Mackenzie. If it’s disordered and terrifying, it’s only because you didn’t get to the good part yet. It means you’re still moving through it, not that you made it through, and that’s what the outcome is. And the only way to prevent someone’s sudden departure is to be open. Communicate with your partner, and the chance of that pain returning from when you were a girl is slim to none.”

My eyebrows pinch together in thought. His explanation is fascinating and makes the worries wade in and out. Unexpectedly, I feel stupid for having them because maybe Owen is right. I’m in the middle of all these changes going on around me, and yes, that’s a scary place to be when you can’t see what the end looks like, but it needs to be better than what this is. It needs to be pretty and composed and organized.

Maybe that’s what I need to consider—that this is only the middle, and there’s something to look forward to after all.

19

Mackenzie

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