Page 106 of Happiness for Beginners

But she didn’t let it go. She had a way of speaking the truth that was as exhausting as it was inspiring. “Something happened to you. You’re different.”

“A lot of things happened to me,” I said. “I almost got killed about ten times.”

“I mean, something good happened to you.”

I nodded. “Good things and bad things, both.”

“Tell me the good things,” she said, turning back to pull her salmon out of the oven.

I was good at good things by now. It was easy. “I saw beauty I’d never even imagined. I faced impossible challenges and survived. I let people surprise me. I lived through a snowstorm. I made a real friend. I revised the framework of my life.”

She nodded in approval. “Lots of good things.”

“And something else,” I said. “I saw Nathan.”

She had moved on to tossing a salad, but she stopped, turned, and looked at me.

“Or—I almost saw him,” I said. “I remembered him, at least. I remembered him more clearly than I have in years.”

“Well,” GiGi said, her expression an exact mixture of happy and sad, “that is something.”

I told her all about it. I wasn’t trying to avoid talking about Jake by telling her about sensing Nathan in Painted Meadow, but it occurred to me over dinner, as she asked me all about the trip, that it might do the trick. Seeing Nathan could, potentially, explain whatever she was intuiting about my aura. That was plausible, at least. I’d found a way, at last, to mend the hole he’d left in my life. A healing moment like that could certainly change a girl.

GiGi filled our wineglasses and said, then, in a way that sounded like we were bringing our conversation to a close, “I thought this camping thing was literally the worst idea you’ve ever had. But it looks like you really made something of it.”

“I tried to.” I nodded, thinking we were done.

I didn’t want her to read my heart like a map. I didn’t even want to read it myself. I was just about to launch a new topic when she beat me to it. “And? So? Tell me about Jake.”

I made a poker face as I lifted my wineglass. “Jake’s good,” I said.

She tilted her head. “Did he irritate the hell out of you on the trip?”

“No,” I said, shrugging. “He was very helpful.”

“Did he follow you like a puppy?”

I hadn’t realized she was quite so clear on our dynamic. “I asked him to keep his distance,” I said.

“And he managed it?”

I nodded. “He managed it very well.”

“I’m glad,” she said. “Maybe he’s gotten over you.”

Something about those words made me look down. I stabbed at my salad.

GiGi stopped chewing. And right then, she knew. She set down her fork and stared at me until I looked up. “Well?” she asked.

“‘Well’ what?”

“Did you fall in love with him?”

I coughed a little. “Was I supposed to fall in love with him?”

She shrugged. “Why not?”

“He’s a teenager.”

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