Page 37 of Indigo

I can see why this is her happy place.

“Having you home has been so lovely, Indie-girl, and you and Paisley seem to have just picked up where you left off,” she says, sipping her coffee.

I nod and release a deep breath. “Yeah. It’s incredible, really, how it feels like no time has passed since we saw each other last. With Jagger, too.”

“They’re good value, those two.”

She’s not wrong. They’re good people and I’m damn lucky that the two of them have welcomed me home with open arms. The rest of the town has, too. Well, most of them. Occasionally newcomers I haven’t formally introduced myself to yet will give me odd side glances when I pop to the grocery store or duck into Mrs Neil’s, but as a whole, everyone has been really accepting of my absence.

“And you and Pax?” she asks, turning her head and raising one eyebrow at me in question. “How are you going?”

Me and Pax…

I’d convinced myself as a teenager, madly in love, that Pax and I were soulmates. Made for each other. And honestly, I’m not totally convinced that it isn’t true. The way I felt about him, still feel about him when we’re in the same room together, it just doesn’t feel like something everyone gets to experience in their lifetime.

“He’s beautiful, truly, always has been. I know he’s trying his best to make everything perfect for me, to help me transition into being back home. We seem to have moved past everything that happened between us, even though he hasn’t been exactly forthcoming with information about his father or his childhood. I get it. Where his head was when it all went down. I do.”

“So you’re… friends?”

I laugh before taking another sip of coffee, trying to find the words to explain what we are to each other. “I don’t know what we are. He said he wanted more, and he’s always just… there. Itfeelslike we’re more. I don’t know if he’s holding back because of my relationship with Michael, or if I just haven’t made my feelings for him clear.”

“And what feelings are those?”

With a deep breath, I finally admit to her and myself how I’m feeling. “I’ve loved Pax for as long as I can remember. The type of love may have changed over the years, but now, I just want him, you know? Want to have what I pictured us having when I asked him to come to the city with me. Everything inside of me tells me to just jump into it head first and try. To tell him I’m that ready, and I don’t want him to keep holding back…”

“But?”

“But I’m scared.”

“Of?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose, close my eyes, and sigh. “Everything. I’m scared that I’ve built this connection up in my head and that if we do finally take the next step, one of us, or both, won’t feel what we thought we would. I’m scared that something will happen, and I’ll lose him all over again. I’m scared that everything will fall apart and we won’t even have the friendship we’ve managed to re-build over the past few weeks. I can’t even explain to you how much I missed him. Part of me thinks maybe we should just stay friends. Maybe that’s the safer option here.”

She remains silent as I speak, listening to every word and absorbing them. “Or,” she offers as I open my eyes and look at her, her blue eyes meeting mine. “You could be brave, and it could all work out better than you ever imagined, because both of you have grown over the past four years. You’ve learnt what you don’t want out of a relationship, what you want out of life, and he’s learnt what it feels like to live a life without you in it, and had to conquer his own battles while you’ve been gone. That boy used you as a crutch for so damn long. It was good for him to learn to face his demons alone, and I know that’s not what you want to hear, but it’s the truth.”

Is it though? Have I learnt what I really want from life? My only goal at the moment is to be happy. I don’t really have a career in mind, or a plan. I just simply want to wake up every day happier than the last and bask in that for as long as I can.

Hell, maybe that is what I want from life? Would being happy really be the worst outcome? If that’s all I accomplished? Is it okay to not want a fancy job or a house that doesn’t have paint peeling from the walls?

Because from where I’m sitting, that all sounds pretty damn good.

“Yeah.” I smile, agreeing with her statement as my mind spins with the realisation.

“It appears the two of you are still just as drawn to each other as you’ve always been, and maybe you’ve grown enough separately to make a relationship work now. You know damn well how much I love that boy, his brother too, but I would tell you if I didn’t think he was good for you, Indie-girl. You before anyone, always. But that’s not the case here. I think you should try if that’s what your heart is telling you to do.”

As I go to speak, I spot something flying around from the corner of my eye and can’t help but smile when I realise it’s a ladybug. I watch intently as it flutters about, and then, to my surprise, it lands right on to the top of the hand I'm using to hold my coffee cup.

“Must be your grandmother,” Mum says, winking at me as she looks down at the tiny insect crawling around on my skin.

I nod, shifting my mug from one hand to the other so that I can raise the insect closer to my face to inspect it.

Since I was a child, Mum has always said that when a ladybug lands on you, it’s a message from the other side, a sign that a loved one is thinking of you from wherever they are. Seeing as her parents both passed away before I was born, that’s who we thought of when we saw one.

I was never taught about religion, or forced to believe in anything just because Mum did, but as I grew older and started asking questions, she explained to me that whatshebelieved, was that we are put here on earth to learn what we can from this life, and when we pass on, our souls are reincarnated and sent off to learn more lessons, wherever that may be.

The ladybug flies from my hand, and Mum clears her throat as we both watch it disappear.

“Ready for my words of wisdom?”

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