Page 70 of Accidental Blind Date
Libby looks at the spoonful she’s holding and smiles before putting it in her mouth.
“What?” I ask. I’m amused.
“Nothing. You just talk about them a lot.”
I open my mouth to protest but we both know that I can’t. “I guess I do.”
“How did you hide it for so long? Now that I know you’re a dad and what you’ve been through, you wear it on your face all the time.”
“Really?” I ask.
“It shows,” she nods.
I think about that, leaning back and staring off for a moment. “I guess it’s not that I don’t want people to know I am a dad. It’s not that I want to be a bachelor. I really don’t. It’s just…our life was ripped in half, you know? It was sudden and traumatic and crumbled the foundation of our family. And now…I want to protect them. Letting people in doesn’t always protect them.”
Libby purses her lips with a nod. “You’re a good dad,” she says finally.
“I try,” I say.
“You know if you had told me ten years ago that I'd be divorced now, no kids, I would have called you crazy.”
“What did you want?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“When you were younger. Where did you see yourself?”
“I mean, I always wanted to run my parents bookstore. And when I met Shane he was promising, and a smooth talker and he made me feel like he wanted me. And I wanted to be wanted, you know?”
“Who doesn’t?” I softly agree.
“I didn’t see it at the time,” she goes on, pushing a strawberry around on her plate. “He wanted me to change. He wanted to be able to make me into what I thought he should be. Not who I was.”
I frown. “And what is it? That he wanted you to be?”
“Skinny. Understated. He wanted me to blend into a crowd while making him the center of attention. In short, he was a narcissist.”
“And an idiot,” I add.
“We tried to have kids and…it never happened. He blamed my weight. The fact that I’m a fourteen and not a two.”
“Those are just numbers. You’re not a number, Libby.”
She smiles but it's a sad smile. “Yeah well, on the subject of numbers…I am pretty sure it was his sperm count that was the problem. Of course he wouldn’t admit that.”
“Of course not. Well let me tell you something. Your ex is a jackass.”
“He was the wrong guy, and it was the wrong time,” she says as if it’s rehearsed. Something she has had to say on repeat, probably to herself.
“The right guy will be there at the right time. And he’ll know how lucky he is too.”
After dinner we go for a walk near the water. It’s chilly and I offer her my jacket. It looks a little offset– a navy-blue suit coat and the most banger, green gown I have ever laid eyes on. But it works. And I like the way it looks on her. The way I look on her.
Suddenly she turns to me. “Do you want to come back to my place?” she asks.
It’s not what I am expecting in that moment. But it is what I want. More than anything.
Chapter 24
