Page 98 of Where Happiness Begins

I know he’s right, but it also seems easy for him. Lexie and Finn were perfect for each other, and the second I saw them together, I knew there was no way they wouldn’t end up together. It’s easy, with hindsight, to see how right they were to fall for each other.

“You love him,” Finn says, not a question but a statement.

“I can’t stop.”

Finn sighs. “You know, he made some fucked-up mistakes, but I truly don’t think he had bad intentions.”

“I don’t either.” I tighten my coat around my middle. “I’m just afraid he’s in this for the wrong reasons.”

“That’s bullshit.”

I huff a laugh.

Finn takes one more step before turning to face me. “Can I ask you a question? And feel free to tell me to fuck off.”

“That sounds ominous.”

He doesn’t return my smile, which makes mine dim. With his hands in his pockets, he asks, “Do you believe you’re worthy of love? Like, truly worthy?”

I open my mouth, but no word comes out. It’s strange. Before, I would’ve said yes in a heartbeat, but I would have also been lying. I could say all the positive, self-loving things I wanted about myself, but deep down, I couldn’t imagine a world where I was loved fully,deeply. It started with friends who stopped inviting me to events or who would only speak to me as a patient and not as their peer when I got sick, and continued with Greg only wanting some of me while repressing aspects he wished didn’t exist. I would always be loved in spite of certain parts of who I was.

But now I know what true love feels like. I know what it is to show every facet of who you are because you know it will be accepted. Embraced, even. Despite it all, Carter showed me how it could feel to be cherished in my entirety. I know how he felt wasn’t a lie. He wasn’t forthright about his past, but our present was real. I know it was.

“Yeah,” I tell Finn, shoulders straightening under his gaze. “Yeah, I do.”

His lips curl up, and he drapes his arm around my neck once more and resumes walking. “Really fucking happy to hear that because that man worships the ground you walk on.”

I grin. “And how would you know that?”

“We talked, the two of us.”

I halt in my steps. “What? When?”

“When he brought those papers for me to give you. We had a little chat.”

“And you didn’t tell me this because…?”

“Didn’t want to influence you one way or another when you were so unsure of what you wanted to do about your relationship.”

I swallow. “And why now?”

“Because now I think you’ve made up your mind.”

A draft of cold wind wraps the scent of pine trees all around me. “I hate when you’re right.”

His lips quirk up. “You know I wouldn’t even have mentioned it to you if I didn’t think he deserved you, right?”

I inhale a deep breath. Somehow, this feels like the most encouraging thing he’s said. I’m afraid I’m only seeing this situation through rose-colored glasses because of the way I feel about Carter, but to know my best friend believes this too makes me even more hopeful than I was before.

And in the end, I’ll never know whether Carter’s love can be differentiated from the guilt he felt for Dad’s death, and that will never change. The only thing left to do is take a leap of faith, or risk spending the rest of my life wondering what might have been.

“What happened to ‘If you even think of putting your hands on her, I’ll make your life a living hell?’” I say in a deep voice.

He looks proud of himself. “Didn’t you enjoy the theatrics of it all?”

A chirp sounds from Finn’s pocket, and the second he opens his phone and reads his text, his face lights up like twenty high-voltage cables have boosted it.

“You two are unbearably sweet,” I joke, not even having to ask him who just texted him. Not even Aaron could make him smile like this.

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