LITMIR.BIZ

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There’d really been no one serious except for Timothy… Puppy love, I reminded myself. Too many years ago to count.

      “You know, I don’t think I have.” This time I stopped her from interrupting by placing a hand over her mouth. “And that’s only because they didn’t set my world on fire. My heart didn’t race, I didn’t think poetically. If I was away from them, they didn’t cross my mind. Shouldn’t real love be arresting, and stop you in your tracks, make your heart sing, your body tingle, make everything else seem unimportant? And anyway…” I took my hand from her mouth. “Why does it matter? You’ve distracted me on purpose to hear me blather on like a fool.”

      “Why does it matter? Because Kai is exactly like you! He’s not going to admit to it, and you’re pussyfooting around him, and I want to grab you two and bash your heads together.”

      I just stared at her, so she sighed and continued: “You’re both happy sneaking kisses here and there, but neither of you is brave enough to admit how you feel! He’ll leave, and you’ll pine for him. Admit, even just to me, that he does make your heart sing, your body tingle – that’s how you know what real love feels like.” She folded her arms triumphantly.

      I still wasn’t convinced. “He did say the most beautiful things just now, but it was like he was talking about another girl,” I said, slowly.

      She laughed. “Oh my God! He’s trying to let you know, it’s OK to love him! GOD, WOMAN!”

      Was I that bad at reading his signals? Sure, I’d made the leap and kissed him a few times, it was impossible not to. But love was so complicated! Could I even call it love? This whole love scenario was so much easier when it was about someone else.

      “You see, he’s having some really huge issues with his family, and I don’t want him sort of using me as a pick-me-up and then realizing it was a mistake.”

      Just when I was hoping to change the subject Micah walked in wearing his perpetual half-smirk, carrying in a parcel that had been delivered. He glanced from me to Amory and tutted, plonking himself on the seat next to me.

      “Boy talk?” he said, earnestly.

      “She’s at it again,” Amory said.

      “Oh no you don’t. Don’t think you’re talking over me again, you two.”

      They just ignored me, and continued: “So she’s kissed him again, but he’s got some family problem – I mean who doesn’t these days, but for the sake of argument, let’s roll with it – and she seems to think he thinks she’s a nice soft landing pad on which to lick his wounds, but then once healed he’ll flit off to the never-never.”

      Micah nodded, and linked his fingers, taking his time to consider it all. “But she knows him, right? She knows he’s not exactly the love ‘em and leave ‘em type? I mean, we haven’t seen him act remotely like that, have we? He’s been almost gentlemanly with his favors, like something out of a period drama.”

      “Right? It’s amazing people like her manage to procreate. At this rate they might hold hands by 2020.”

      I held up a finger. “Aha. We’ve held hands, thank you very much.”

      They continued to ignore me and instead diagnosed my love life. “So what is her problem? Commitment-phobe?” Micah asked, wrinkling his brow.

      Amory shook her head. “Even though that’s the kind of vibe she gives out. Like, stay away, I am too busy for the likes of you. Here’s me, running my business, crooning to Bonnie Tyler when I’ve had too many glasses of red wine. Here’s me buying one-thousand-thread-count sheets online again. And so they stay away. Really, she’s scared of rejection. Would rather keep her steely heart in one piece even if it means the only love in her life is an eighties ballad and some freshly washed Egyptian cotton.”

      “Guys, seriously, you’re not Oprah, OK? Not even Dr Phil. You’re so far off base it’s not even funny.”

      Micah gave me the sweetest smile, but it was sad too, like he could see something I couldn’t.

      “What is it, Micah?”

      The day stilled. He and Amory exchanged a glance and she nodded. “I have to go help Cruz,” she air-kissed me. Micah, you talk some sense into her.”

      Softly, he said, “It’s your mom, Clio. You act this way because of your mom. You don’t let any man close in case they push you away, because you grew up lonely, with a mother who was absent almost all of the time, even when she was sitting right beside you.”

      It felt like I’d been punched. It was one thing for me to recognize that, but another for my best friends to notice. “It’s not because of that,” I said, thinking I’d come to terms with all of it a long time ago. With Mom and everything that had happened. Or… maybe I’d been trying to heal everything too quickly? Sure, she’d admitted she hadn’t been there for me and that had helped, but had I really dealt with everything that had happened? All the years of feeling hurt and lonely. Was it time for me to finally open my heart up to someone again? Someone who could smash it into little tiny pieces?

       Chapter Thirty-Five

      At a quarter to midnight, headphones in, Bonnie Tyler crooned to me as only she could. Tears stung my eyes, and I swatted at them angrily. What Micah and Amory said had shaken me up, but I knew they were speaking from a place of love. Still, it hurt. Sure, I could forgive my mom as an adult, but the memory of my childhood would always be there.

      There was a light tap on the door, and I took an ear jack out. “Yes?” I called, wondering if Amory had a sixth sense when it came to me weeping away to Bonnie Tyler.

      “Up for a little midnight yoga?” Kai whispered through the crack in the door.

      I froze. Firstly, I wasn’t climbing up a snow-covered mountain, I’d be swept away in a mini avalanche, I was sure of it. Second, I was a puffy-faced mess. No, I had to avoid him at all co…

      He opened the door and walked in. Damn it!

      Surveying me and the multitude of screwed-up tissues surrounding me, he frowned. “What’s wrong?”

      I took a shuddery breath, trying to formulate a lie. An eyelash malfunction had been used already so that was out. Work issues – no, he knew too much. In the end I settled for the truth.

      “Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person on the planet who doesn’t know her own mother.” I wanted to slap myself when I realized what I’d said, and to Kai of all people, whose birth mother had died before he’d even known about her. Wasn’t he suffering the very same fate, albeit in different circumstances? “Sorry, I mean…” I tailed off.

      “Don’t apologize.” With a smile, he walked over and settled on the bed beside me. “And why has that suddenly upset you tonight?”

      I tried not to sniffle and snort because, how unattractive was that, but it was impossible. Once I started the ‘woe is me’ game it was hard to stop. “Micah and Amory were giving me a kind of pep talk, and then they mentioned that the reason I don’t really ever put myself forward…” Urgh, how to say it without mentioning Kai’s name? “Put myself out there, you know, in life, is because I’m scared of getting rejected. Which stems from the way I grew up beside my mom, but not with my mom.”

      He put an arm around me and pulled me close; leaning into his warmth, I felt calmer. “And what do you think? Is that how you feel?”

      “I guess I stopped thinking about it, because why keep reliving it? Mom was Mom, and I knew from early on things would probably never change. The thing is, I didn’t think I’d internalized it, and put up barriers. But I guess I did and just pretended I hadn’t. And for Micah to recognize that in me, well…”

      “For what it’s worth,

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