Page 51 of Saltwater Memories
Jade was staring at her. She spoke again, her voice soft. “I think the question is – why are you so worried that he’ll be scared off?”
“Because I’m scary!” Amanda said with a laugh. “You know that. Everyone knows that.”
“You’re not scary! You’re witty. And straightforward. But you’renotscary.”
Amanda looked down at her feet navigating the roots and rocks on the trail. How could Jade ever understand? She was as sweet as they come. She probably never scared a guy off in her entire life.
That just wasn’t how things were for Amanda. She had a lot of bad qualities. She joked about taking after her dad, but it wasn’t always funny. She could be overly harsh; she had trouble sharing her feelings.
Back when her dad started dating again, Amanda was so unnecessarily nasty to Margie – one of the nicest women on earth! All because she couldn’t face her own feelings about her mom’s passing.
Amanda still felt guilty about that. She felt guilty about a lot of things. Rupert knew these parts of her, and he was okay with them. Who else would put up with it?
Jade was a good person – she didn’t know what it was to have dark parts of her soul that needed to be hidden.
“Will wasn’t scared of you,” Jade continued. “And I think that’s despite your best effort to scare him off.”
She laughed. “Will doesn’t count.”
“Why not?”
“Because he was trying to buy my house.”
“Was that all?”
Amanda didn’t want to think about it – another thing she felt guilty about. “Who knows.”
Jade was quiet for a moment. “You know, I don’t want you to get mad at me for saying this.”
Amanda stopped walking. “What?”
“But you remember that I was divorced, right?”
“Yeah, of course. I remember.”
Jade glanced at the ring on her finger for a moment before looking back up at Amanda. “My ex-husband Brandon was…not that nice. I’m not bitter, and I don’t still hold things against him. But he just never – I don’t know, he never put me first. He never treated me well.”
“Yeah, he was an idiot. He messed up.”
Jade nodded. “I’m not saying that Rupert is as bad as my ex-husband but…the thing is, I knew that Brandon wasn’t that good to me. Deep down, I mean. I never said it out loud. But there was some part of me, and I can’t explain why, that thought it was the kind of treatment that I deserved.”
“Aw, Jade!”
She continued. “I don’t think that anymore. Things with Matthew are wonderful – like unreal. Better than I thought was possible.”
Amanda smiled. They were a great couple. “That’s lovely.”
“But I had the same feeling with Brandon. I had to walk on eggshells all the time, it was always my fault if he was in a bad mood or things weren’t quite right. I was always catering to him, and never questioning why he didn’t do much for me.” Jade cleared her throat. “The thing is, it’s true what they say – we often accept the love that we think we deserve.”
“So you’re saying that I let Rupert blow me off because I think I deserve that?”
“No. Please don’t get mad. What I mean is – think of it this way. What if Matthew was doing those same things to me – not making the commitment, keeping me waiting. What kind of advice would you give me?”
Amanda shrugged. “That’s different, you and Matthew don’t have a history like me and Rupert.”
“That’s true,” Jade replied.
They hiked in silence for a few minutes before Amanda changed the subject. Jade simply didn’t understand Rupert. Why should he stop everything he was doing to pay attention to her? All while he had this new part of his career that he was trying to get off the ground?
