Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 97466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
I briefly considered arguing with her, but then I imagined how nice it would be to sleep in my own bed. Plus, she was right. Something about Chuckie reminded me of myself at his age. He had so much drive and belief in the possibility of the future. He only saw life getting brighter and richer. If he had someone to help him get where he was going, the sky was the limit. Helping him reach his dreams was, as ever, more fun than running from my own.
“Okay. Let’s go home,” I said, settling back into the comfortable seat.
“Good. Besides,” she added, glancing down at my phone. “Your mother is insisting you attend your sister’s wedding shower. Did you forget to tell me about a Flower Family event for your calendar, Oscar?”
“No,” I said, crossing my arms and staring out into the wet night before glaring back at her. “I told them I couldn’t make it. We’re going to be in Brazil for the Samba Capital thing.”
She shot me a big smile. “Looks like London isn’t the only trip I’m cutting short.”
I stared back out at the blurry headlights catching in the raindrops sliding down the car window.
“Great,” I muttered.
The last thing I needed was another damned wedding event. And the fact my mother was holding my feet to the fire made it even worse. She knew I’d rather throw myself into shark-infested waters than disappoint her.
I sighed. Attending Hyacinth’s wedding shower, where all million of my stepsiblings would no doubt be their usual, ebullient selves, was more similar to shark-infested waters than I cared to admit.
At least with the sharks, you were allowed to run away as quickly as possible without anyone judging you for it.
12
HUGH
Even two months after Cape Cod, I still got the urge to text Oscar.
Sometimes, I went as far as pulling up our old text thread. Once or twice, when something amazing or terrible or hilarious happened, I’d begin typing out a message before realizing what I was doing. Even when I’d changed his name in my contacts from “Oscar Overton” to “Do NOT Text Under Any Circumstance,” the urge hadn’t entirely gone away. In fact, avoiding him seemed to only get harder as time went on.
But it was necessary, I told myself. So necessary.
It had been difficult enough after spending two days and nights steeped in the sight and scent and feel of him, after watching that beautiful beach wedding surrounded by a bunch of his loved-up friends, after letting myself hope, to have him pull his disappearing act.
Far, far worse, though, had been the realization I’d come to while sitting in gridlocked Cape traffic on my way home with only my own thoughts for company: I wasn’t just angry at Oscar. I wasn’t just hurt. I was bereft. I was heartbroken. Because I was no longer poised on the edge of the friendship cliff. Sometime over that incredible weekend, I’d fallen hard.
And I’d fallen alone.
In the weeks that followed, it was really tempting to revert to my old post-breakup habits—to throw myself onto the sofa and binge-watch something romantic until I actually merged into the furniture—but something told me this time, there was no love story on Earth schmoopy enough to distract me from my pain. I was in love with a man who didn’t believe in love at all anymore, and even Shonda Rimes couldn’t save me.
So instead, I kept going as best I could. I honestly couldn’t remember much of what I did in those first days and weeks because for a long while, I marked my time by what I deliberately didn’t do. I didn’t stop working on my social media accounts or cancel any wedding contracts, even when capturing happy couples in love made my own heart ache. I didn’t stop dating, although looking back, I couldn’t recall the name or face of a single guy I went out with, and I’m sure they all found me as lively and emotionally available as a charcoal briquette. And I didn’t contact Oscar even once… no matter how many times each day I thought about him.
If it hadn’t been obvious by his abrupt departure, I’d have known by the tone of his nonapology in our last text conversation—blasé and dismissive, every inch the playboy billionaire—that Oscar had sensed my growing feelings or his own and had retrenched behind his protective hedgehog spikes.
I hated that for him, but I really hated it for me because although being without Oscar’s friendship killed me, in order to smother the fire I felt for him, I knew I had to cut off its supply of fuel entirely.
No more chatty texts. No more fashion consults. No more date postmortems. No more Frank pics.
No more torturing myself by falling harder every single day for a man who couldn’t—more like wouldn’t—commit.