Misadventures of a Curvy Girl (Misadventures #18)(55)

My chin quivers with the force of unshed tears. God, if only it were that easy. “You don’t understand. I’ll make their lives harder.”

Mackenna rolls her eyes again. “You won’t. But also, that’s not your choice to make. What if you did make their lives harder…and they still choose to be with you anyway? What if Ben would rather have zillions of one-star reviews and have you in his arms? What if Caleb wants you in his life no matter the cost? Give them a chance to choose you, because, spoiler alert: they will.”

I press my fingertips back into my eyelids again, but it’s too late, the tears are everywhere.

Mackenna’s voice softens. “You’re thinking right now that you don’t deserve it. That you don’t deserve to be chosen. And I’m not telling you to believe it or to feel like it.” I hear her stand up and walk over to me, putting a sisterly hand on my shoulder.

“I’m only telling you to act like it,” she says. “Fake it ’til you make it, gorgeous. Act like you deserve to be loved, and I promise, everything else will work itself out.”

And then she leaves.

I try to hiccup a goodbye or a thank-you, but I know it only comes out as incomprehensible syllables. All my choices are flickering through my mind like the world’s most depressing movie, fueling more and more tears.

Leaving the farm.

Dating a man who made me feel awful about myself. Letting my sister make me feel the same.

And possibly the most life-altering choice I made before I met Caleb and Ben: turning down the photography scholarship.

I’ve lied to so many people about why—I’ve said it was because I wanted to stay close to home, because I wanted a marketable major—but the real reason is because I went to visit the campus that spring, and everywhere on the grounds and in the halls were girls who looked like artists. They were slender and bohemian. They had long, coltish legs coming out of adorable, spaghetti-strapped rompers and hipbones that jutted above distressed jeans. I was the only fat girl in sight, and suddenly everything about me felt fraudulent. I didn’t look like I belonged there, and what if that meant I actually didn’t?

I wouldn’t have fit in—and I felt that on a literal level as well as a social level—and so I tearfully turned down the scholarship and hid myself someplace safe. Someplace invisible. Someplace where I hoped my body wouldn’t matter.

I robbed myself of my own future because I was terrified of what people would think of me in the present.

It’s only now, after talking to Mackenna, that I realize I’m about to do the same thing. I’m giving up everything I ever wanted from love because I’m scared. Because I think I don’t deserve it.

But you don’t have to believe you deserve it. You only have to act like it.

I know I’ll have to try to find Mackenna online somewhere to give her a proper thank-you. Because her words…her words have freed me from somewhere I didn’t even know I was trapped. They’ve electrified someplace deep inside, and what I feel burning at my fingertips now is not a feeling or even a belief. It’s something much, much more powerful.

It’s a decision.

I push away from the table with tears still wetting my face and go find Drew.

“I need to take the afternoon off,” I say, swiping at my eyes and in general trying to look like a professional person. “And maybe the day after that too.”

“Of course,” he says, his ginger eyebrows drawing together. “Is everything okay?”

“Not yet,” I say honestly. “But I think it might be.”

Sympathy floods his face. “Do you want me to help? I can call Caleb—”

“No.” I’m shaking my head. “Thank you, but I think I need to do this myself.”

He nods. “Okay. Take all the time you need—you’ve got plenty stored up.”

I give him a teary smile and then go back to my desk to grab my purse and my keys. I’m practically vibrating with all the new parts of me Mackenna has helped unlock, thrumming with the near-violent need to find my men and tell them—what? That I believed the worst of them? The worst of myself?

Yes. I need to be honest about why I left. But I’ll also tell them so much more.

I’ll tell them how desperately I love them and how my days at the farm were pure magic and my nights in their bed were pure heaven. I’ll tell them I don’t want any future without them, and if they’re willing to jump into this with me, then I’ll jump in too. Feet first, eyes wide open, just like I should have done at the pond.

So long as I’m with them, I’ll jump anywhere.

I’m practically running down the stairs of the building to get to my car, wondering if I should call first or just show up at the farm, and it’s when I get to the first-floor doors that I hear a sound so achingly familiar that the tears nearly start up again.

The happy, chipper yap of a dog followed by the rattle-bang of an old truck.

I push open the door to see Caleb’s truck wedged awkwardly between two electric cars plugged into charging ports, Greta-dog sticking her head out the window and barking wildly at the silver streetcar gliding by. Caleb and Ben climb out of the truck, looking like Kansas versions of Adonis, with their broad shoulders and narrow hips, and when they catch sight of me frozen in the doorway, they freeze too. They both have big bouquets of buttery yellow sunflowers in their hands.