Page 134 of Love is a Game

Because those things are her legacy. The things that can still grow. The things that can live on.

Besides, the evidence is here, with or without the flowers. It’s dented into the lifeforce of this old tree, into my bones, into the very fabric of who I am.

Maybe that’s why I can’t seem to leave Blue Mountain Lake. Because once I go back to the city, it’ll be another fracture, another string snapping in the chords of my heart. The final severance. Moving forward means stepping fully into a life where she no longer exists.

Strange. When my team arrived from New York and we got to work, I braced for the inevitable pang of missing my studio—the carefully curated workspace, the walls covered in inspiration, the massive cutting tables, the constant hum of creative energy.

But as we set up a makeshift workspace, something unexpected happened. A full-circle moment. Converting my childhood bedroom into a temporary, if rather haphazard, atelier stirred memories I hadn’t revisited in years. Of being a skinny kid, twirling in front of the mirror, critiquing my latest upcycled fashion experiment.

The room where I once dreamed of independence and success…now serving as the headquarters for a high-caliber design team—stitching a wedding dress for a movie star!

And it got me thinking of all the memories embedded in that house, generations of my family’s history like a time capsule. Meanwhile, I was so emotional about potentially losing my apartment. A few years of living in a space that felt like an extension of me. That I always thought of as mine. But it’s not. I only rent it.

I’m not homeless. I have an entire house. A house left to me by my family.

I’m lucky. I’m blessed.

I can’t be bitter when I have a base to start again. If I want it.

But could this really be the place? Blue Mountain Lake—the town I spent half my life desperate to escape?

Practically speaking, it might have to be. Even if I sold the house, it wouldn’t be enough to start over in New York.

Now, I stand by the tree where my mother lost her life, tilting my head up toward its sprawling canopy. A colony of ants weaves an intricate path along the bark. A lizard darts out of reach, blending into the rough trunk. Birds squabble in the uppermost branches, their calls sharp against the hush of the forest. An entire ecosystem, connected; each part dependent on the others to survive.

So, why do humans push so hard for independence? Or is that just the broken ones? The ones too afraid—or too stubborn—to lean on anyone?

But Idohave people. Like Keith said, I have lifelong connections. Him and Susan…even Nora and Harvey. Brady. Mason. By extension, Vivian and Mia.

And I have Tuck. I’vealwayshad Tuck. No matter how hard I’ve tried to push him away.

Maybe I don’t have to do this alone. Maybe it’s time to trust that things could actually work out. To stop clinging to the past like some kind of badge of honor.

Blaming my dad for my trust issues? That made sense when I was eight. Even at twelve. Fifteen. Maybe even twenty-five. But now? Mid-thirties? Do I really want to keep feeding that narrative? Keep telling myself I’m unlovable, unworthy, broken beyond repair?

It’s exhausting. It’s depressing. It’sbullshit.

And maybe it’s time to let it go.

Maybe I can’t fix everything overnight. But if I keep practicing, keep trying to rewire the ugly patterns, keep making the effort to pivot, I could get there.

Even the person I blamed the most—my dad—now has something to teach me. He was a total screw-up, and yet, somehow, he still found his way back to a family, to love.

Maybe that’s the way forward…not burying the past, but diving headfirst into every painful thing and asking what it gave me.

My parents splitting up? That’s what brought me to Blue Mountain Lake. That’s what gave me the people I call my lifelong friends.

Dad’s absence? It hurt like hell, but it also lit a fire under me. It pushed me to succeed, claw my way forward, and tap into that “dandelion attitude” Keith talked about.

And getting teased at school—why does that still sting? Whohasn’tbeen trash-talked for standing out? And what did it give me? It pushed me to make my own clothes so no one could ever mock me for wearing secondhand again. It didn’t just toughen me up—it built me. It gave me my career. And besides, I judged those girls just as much as they judged me. We were all just shitty teenagers, flailing through insecurity in different ways.

And like Misha rightly pointed out, maybe half the drama I see in other people is just me projecting my own crap. Classic main-character syndrome—assuming every weird vibe or awkward silence is somehow about me, instead of ever considering that other people might have their own stuff going on, too.

Is that it?Could it really be that simple? Just…shifting perspective?

Accepting that pain and loss and rejection aren’t just things that weigh you down—they’re also the very things that teach you how to climb. How to toughen up. How to reach higher.

But will I get there in time?

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