Page 23 of A Moment for Us
“Okay.”
“It’s that it’s stupid, Josh. We’re going to have to explain this to your brothers or sister. I don’t . . . I don’t want to have to hear about how dumb I am.”
“Why would we have to tell them anything, but more importantly, why do you think you’re dumb?”
“Because . . . every single person who has accused me of sleeping with you has told me so. And maybe they’re right. Maybe I am and deluding myself into thinking I’m okay with just a random hookup.”
“We’re not random, Delia.”
She huffs and keeps going. “It’s not like I’ve done a good job at being over you. I mean, I am. I’m over you. If you didn’t know.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“But that doesn’t change the fact that, for a very long time, I was not over you.”
I purse my lips and nod slowly. “But you are now?”
“Yeah. In the sense that I’m not secretly writingMrs. Delia Parkersonin my diary anymore. We’re friends who just happen to fuck, right?”
“Yes, we’re friends, Delia. Plus, we’re not doing anything wrong.”
“Oh, I know that. I’m a thirty-two-year-old, grown-ass woman. I’m not looking for love—not from you, at least. I get it.”
I try not to be offended by that last part, but I am. “Nope. Not from me.”
She lets out a laugh. “Don’t even. You know you don’t love me, and you won’t.”
She’s wrong. It’s not that I won’t or don’t love her. It’s that loving her doesn’t change my feelings toward relationships. I can love her and also keep that part of me at a distance.
“It’s not because of you.”
“It’s you,” Delia says without pause. “I don’t understand it, but it’s fine.”
I wish, for just one moment, I could lay it all out there. To share the pain and the heartache of my past, but it won’t change things. It won’t heal me. Some days, I don’t understand why I can’t just let go of the past, but I can’t. The one thing I do know is that I will never, ever love someone just so they can be taken from me again.
No fucking way.
It’s better for everyone involved if we keep things like this.
“It’s not fine.”
She rubs her temple and steps back. “Maybe it’s not, but it’s reality.”
“Yeah, it is.”
Delia’s eyes turn watery, but she forces a smile. “I’m sorry. I am being emotional, and you don’t deserve it. I think seeing Stella so happy today just made me a little off. Why don’t you come in and measure so we can actually do the floors?”
I enter the cabin, and Delia heads off to another room. I grab my tape measure and get to work, writing down everything so that my brothers and I can order the material and get this done for her.
When I’m finished, I walk toward the bedroom and find her half-dressed. “Hey.”
She turns, pulling the shirt over her head so I can no longer stare at her perfect breasts.
“Hey. You done?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
