Page 36 of A Certain Step
Willa fought back tears. “These feelings I have… it’s just,” she hesitated, unsure how to continue and bring the most painful part of her reality into words. The part she always felt was too petty and silly to experience this much agony over.
“It’s just what?” Marie commenced.
“It’s just foolish to feel so lonely because you aren’t someone’s number one choice romantically. It brings all these other emotions to the surface because I’ve never been someone’s first choice. I’ve never been the first phone call. All my friends have their people. I’ve always been so fortunate to have many close friends, but I am never the first person on the list, coming only after various other people. And again, Iget it.This is life. It feels childish to care. It feels selfish. I should be content in my singleness and my freedom. I just…I—that’s why I give men like Alden a chance, hoping that I might be their first choice in everything. Their person. Their partner.”
Marie looked at Willa with the very warmth that always comforted her during these sessions.
“This is the first time you’ve expressed this without bouncing around the words, Willa. I’m proud of you. It’s a big step to admit and see what’s so clearly bothering you. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a romantic relationship. It’s a perfectly natural desire.”
Tears prickled Willa’s eyes and fell as quickly as they made their presence known. “But it hurts, and I want it to stop. And the worst part is that I…I think caring could be more harmful than helpful.”
“Well, if you didn’t care, then you wouldn’t be you. It’s not uncommon to be aware of this type of loneliness, especially when you’re surrounded by people who are coupled. It’s also not wrong, but it’s something that we can work around. What’s making you think that caring causes more damage than good?”
Willa sighed, pushing the pain down and willing herself to open up. “Because I might’ve found the person who’s most important to me, and I’m scared I’ll ruin everything because I’m developing feelings for him.”
“Ethan?”
Willa confirmed wordlessly.
“When did this start?”
Willa placed her elbows on the desk and drew her fingers back to her face. “Very recently. I realized a while back that I felt close to him in a way that’s so sizably different than with anyone else. I feel safe with him, entirely comfortable in every way, and I know he cares about me in the same way. But what if I only feel that way because I’m lonely and because I desperately want someone or something who’s all mine? What if I’m projecting my desires and seeing something that isn’t actually there?”
“Anytime you’ve spoken about Ethan to me, you’ve made him sound like an absolute gentleman, even in the early days when you weren’t as close. Do you think he feels the same way?”
Willa shook her head. “I don’t know. We do a lot of things together. We check in oneach other constantly, but even if he had the same romantic feelings, I…I wouldn’t want to date him. I wouldn’t want to risk it.”
“Why is that?” Marie asked.
Willa huffed a sharp inhale. Every single one of her worst-case scenarios, playing on a loop like a song stuck on replay. “Because I’m terrified beyond comprehension to lose him. I can’t—I can’t imagine my life without him. And the thought of losing him in any capacity shatters my heart into pieces. I can’t even think about the day when we complete our run of the show and what will happen then. But the idea of dating him when we’re as close as we are and then something ruining it would hurt far more than anything else. I just know it.”
Small tears weren’t merely falling; Willa was openly crying, everything inside of her tight and heavy. “Ethan is…Well, he’s Ethan. He’s my best friend. He’s my choice in everything. If he weren’t the one beside me yesterday when everything happened, he would’ve been the one I’d have wanted to run to. He’s the one I’m looking for in a crowded room, the one I’m sitting next to and gravitating toward. I know now that it will devastate me when he finds someone—when I have to watch him fall in love with someone who isn’t me. But I’d rather have him as my friend than lose him fully because we screwed up something perfect. I don’t know if I’m his choice, but it scares me in every way because he’s mine.”
“But what if it lasts? What if he feels the same way, and you two make it? You’re good at taking risks, Willa. It got you where you are today.”
Willa looked down for a beat, her eyes stinging, her heart in shambles. “I know, but it’s Ethan,” she managed to mumble.
“Do you believe that you have to choose yourself every day? That this is something we’ve worked on for a while now together?”
Willa nodded.
“Have you been keeping up with it?”
She thought about it for a beat. She hadn’t, not intentionally, at least.
“I think I’ve gotten better at it, but I haven’t been deliberate about it.”
Marie smiled at the response. “I believe you have your answer there. You do a lot of things with careful intentions; you’ve expressed as much to me time and again, but you don’t choose yourself. And sometimes, choosing yourself means taking those chances that terrify the daylights out of you.”
“I just don’t want to be in the same situation again, reeling from another breakup that didn’t work out and losing my best friend in the process.”
“None of us ever want to lose those we love. But if it happens, we have coping mechanisms for a reason. You’ve gone through many hurdles and heartbreaks in your life. You’d get through that, too,” she took a beat. “You cannot control his feelings if they aren’t there, but if they are, it could also work out.”
Willa took in her words, trying to fuse them into the loud corridors in her mind that were bustling with hard-to-ignore screams.
Their session was coming to an end with five minutes left on the clock. Willa couldn’t say anything; she didn’t know how to respond, what to add—she needed to think.
“I wish I had the answer to whether it’d work out or not,” she said aloud, more so to the air than to Marie.
