Page 25 of If This Was a Movie

“Oh, for sure. So much more logical. Jules and I just jump in headfirst and hope we don’t break our necks.”

Harper’s lips purse, and she sighs.

“I’m just saying that you should be careful, Jules. We don’t want you to get hurt. You are the most amazing, loving, trusting person I know, and I love that. One day, though, you’re going to get hurt. You know, sometimes when you jump in without looking, the water is deep, and sometimes it’s too shallow, and you get hurt.”

I sigh. I knew Harper would be the one to worry because that’s just her nature.

“And I’m just saying, I know it’s deep, Harper. I feel it in my gut.” My phone is balanced between my shoulder and my ear as I grab a cart.

“I’m just worried about you. You love so hard and so completely, but not everyone deserves that, you know? I think—” she starts, but my mind stops processing her words when I hear a newly familiar voice speak from one aisle over.

“Come on, honey, let’s go,” a man’s voice says.

“Daddy!” a small, squeaky voice responds.

“Sloane, can you grab those crackers Sophie likes?” the man asks.

Nate. It’s Nate speaking, and a small voice calling him daddy, I think. I step closer to the end of the aisle then peer around, seeing his tall build and broad shoulders, a little girl with a curly blonde mop of hair on his hip, a pink cast on her arm, and a ballerina Ashlyn doll dangling in her hand.

My breathing stops.

Vaguely, I hear Ava and Harper in my ear, but I can’t process them or hear any words they’re saying. Not when a gorgeous blonde turns to smile at him. “Yeah, no problem. You want princess ones, sweetie?”

The girl on Nate’s hip nods, squealing something and smacking Nate in the head with the doll in her excitement. The whole precious little family laughs at the mishap, and I fight getting sick right there in the cereal aisle.

My mind starts reeling as it becomes clear: He has a family.

I was some kind of fling, an affair on New Year’s Eve.

I’m a homewrecker.

The flashbacks come pouring in: my mom crying late into the night after she thought I was long asleep, the yelling and throwing of plates at my father when she accused him of what she already knew to be true.

The visits to see my dad and his new family twice, maybe three times a year. The way I felt so completely and totally out of place no matter how wide of a kind smile I put on my face, or the way I always felt like a burden, an unsavory reminder of what my father was always trying to forget: his past.

The way my mother changed that year and decided there was no such thing as love; instead, searching for security. I had to watch countless shitty men come in and out of her life until she finally settled for Stanford and a loveless, but wealthy, marriage.

And here he is: the man I was sure was my dream man come true, someone who stepped out of the scenes of one of my favorite movies and came to life, standing with a gorgeous young daughter on his hip and laughing with an even more gorgeous woman.

Her mother, from the looks of it.

A perfect little family. I can’t have been much older than that girl when everything fell apart for my family. If I continued this thing with Nate like I was living in some kind of fairy tale, would this have been a case of history repeating itself? If I wasn’t at the store at this exact moment, would I one day be the source of some deep-rooted daddy issues in that pretty little girl?

Was it his place he took me to, or was it some crash pad? Does his perfect little family live there too? Where were they? Did he really have an affair with some stranger in a bar on New Year's Eve?

But most of all, how could I have been so stupid?

I was so lost in my delusion and seeing the best in things; being a hopeless romantic at heart, I missed all of the signs.

Oh God.

OhGod.

This is why men are only good when they’re fictional. Because in the real world, they’re always a fucking disappointment.

As I process this, he starts to turn in my direction, the little girl locking eyes with me, and suddenly, my body can move again, my legs forcing me to turn as fast as humanly possible toward the exit before Nate—and his perfect little family—can see me.

When I make it to my car, I take a deep breath, trying to steady myself before I open my phone, realizing he must have texted me between my leaving my place and making it to the store.

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