Life's Too Short (The Friend Zone #3)(75)

After presents and lunch, Dad offered to take Vanessa ice fishing with him. I opted to stay back and spend some time with Mom and Grandma. Grandma went to take a nap about thirty minutes in, and Mom and I moved to the four-season porch on the back of the house overlooking the pond. It had a little fireplace in it, and we were on the couch. We could see Richard and Vanessa like two little dark specks out on the white frozen tundra.

“She’s exceptional,” Mom said, putting her teacup down on the coffee table. “And she’s perfect for you. I never liked Rachel.”

I laughed. “You only met her once.”

“She couldn’t look me in the eye!”

Well, I guess that made sense.

“Thank you for coming,” Mom said. “It meant the world to me.” She nodded to the pond. “And to him.”

I gazed out the window at Vanessa and Dad.

Vanessa was right. I needed to forgive.

I didn’t realize the weight I’d been carrying around on my back all these years until it was gone.

It seemed so pointless now, all the time I’d hated him. I felt like if I’d ever given him another chance, I would have realized that I never really did.

I’d gotten something back today that I’d lost a long time ago. Maybe it was him—or maybe it was just the place I used to keep my feelings about him. Either way, there was room inside of me for other things now. Better things.

And I was looking forward to them.

“I’m glad you’re happy, Mom. You’ve got a nice life here. I can see why you wanted to make the move.”

She smiled. “I am happy. I really am.” Then she seemed to remember something. “Vanessa says she wants to talk to me about joining a club she and Kristen are in?”

I started choking on my coffee. “Don’t join.” I cough-laughed. “Trust me. You’ll learn more about me and Josh than you’ll ever care to know.”

Mom smiled. She nudged my arm. “I like her. You know, I think it’s destiny that you met this girl.”

And then I had to laugh, because I think it was the first time in my life that I actually believed that. But what other explanation could there be?

If I hadn’t met Rachel, I wouldn’t have gone to Vanessa’s apartment that morning. If Becky had taken the studio when it was available or if Vanessa had moved into a different building—or even into a different unit—we wouldn’t have met. I’d have never known her or Grace.

It had to be destiny. Stars aligning. Some master plan.

I wasn’t ready to have Becky drop my horoscope into my email every morning, but I was open to considering that there might be more to all this than I’d given it credit.

Mom nodded at the baby sleeping in her swing. “I have to be honest, I never thought you’d be like this.” She shook her head. “And to be with someone like Vanessa, even knowing that she might be sick?” She smiled at me. “You’ve grown into a good man, Adrian. I’m so proud of you.”

I wrinkled my forehead at her. “What do you mean? She’s not sick.”

“No, I know.” She waved me off. “But with the ALS always being a possibility for her. God, Richard and I must have watched half her videos after you told us you were bringing her. She is so brave.”

I stared at her. “What are you talking about? ALS is random.”

She scrunched up her eyebrows. “Well, yes, most of the time. But it runs in her family. She has a fifty-fifty chance of getting it.”

I felt the color drain from my face. What?

“You saw this on her channel?” I asked, trying to keep my voice level.

“She talks about it in almost every video she does.” She waved me off again. “But you knew that.”

I blinked at her for a long moment.

“I have to go change the baby,” I said, getting up, trying to keep calm. I grabbed Grace and made a beeline for my room.

As soon as I got there, I locked the door and pulled out my laptop. I googled “Vanessa Price First Video” and hit Search. When I saw the one I was looking for, dated three years ago, I played it, my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

A younger Vanessa came onto the screen. “Hi,” she said, waving at the camera. “My name is Vanessa Price.”

She held up a glass with something dark sloshing around in it.

“My sister died yesterday. I just poured myself a glass of Sambuca and decided that it was too gross to drink straight so I poured some grape juice in it, which only managed to make it worse. And I sat there staring at this and I asked myself, ‘Vanessa, do you really want to be the kind of person who deals with loss by drinking shitty cocktails?’ And I decided no. I don’t want to take the edge off my sister’s tragic and untimely death with disgusting alcoholic beverages because, one, she wouldn’t want that. And secondly, I don’t want that either. You see, I might be dying too. And dying changes things. I’ll get to all that in a minute.

“If I know my days might be numbered, I want to savor each day. I want to enjoy every single thing I eat and drink, and all the people I meet, and every last second on this Earth. I want to laugh. I want to explore. I want to live my life, what’s left of my life, like a butterfly in the wind and go where the world takes me. I definitely don’t want to sit around in my dead-end job and wait for the next installment from the creepy old guy in Monett, Missouri, who met me in an online support group once and now sends me handwritten love letters in cursive.” She leaned into the camera. “Let me just tell you, as someone who might have a fatal health condition, there’s still nothing more terrifying than a handwritten letter in cursive. Especially when it’s accompanied by a Ziploc bag of his slightly-moist-for-some-reason homemade beef jerky. Trust me on this.