Back in a Spell (The Witches of Thistle Grove, #3)(5)
I hadn’t told anyone, not even Jessa, the damning details of what Sydney had said to me. The dramatic way things had unfolded, everyone hated her enough as it was, which was fine by me. But what if I went beyond the broad strokes, and it turned out they agreed with her? This fragile eggshell version of me couldn’t roll with a punch like that.
I’d shatter into a sticky mess of shards, and not even Sassy Sue would be able to glue me back together again.
“I just don’t understand how things could’ve gone so wrong,” I said instead, a half-truth that at least skimmed the surface of the awfulness iceberg floating just beneath. “And I’m . . . honestly, Jess, I’m a little scared that I’m the problem. That if I try again, with someone new, the same exact thing will happen. But I don’t think I know how to fix myself. Or whether I even really want to.”
“First off, you are brilliant and generous and considerate, and certainly in no need of some kind of elaborate personality overhaul—let’s take things down a notch,” Jessa said, admirably restraining herself from launching into a full-bore Sydney takedown, though I could see the mutiny brewing on her face. Even though I’d thrown them together at every opportunity, hoping they’d eventually come around to each other, there had never been much love lost between my ex-partner and my best friend. “Second, your ex-fiancée was an obnoxious, self-centered, whimsical bitch with tremendously overblown notions of her own worth. So let us never again refer to that shitty manic pixie gallery girl as the ‘love of your life,’ ’kay?”
And boom, there came the drag.
I burst out laughing, marveling at how deftly she’d turned a generally positive word into an insult with such bite to it. Sydney had been almost methodically quirky, but even still, I’d been charmed by her. Her appeal had never struck me as manufactured. “Whoa, buddy, tell me what you really think. And she was a curator, technically.”
“Let it be known that I do not give a solitary, last-of-its-kind fuck about Sydney Zha-KLEEN’s former job title,” Jessa declared, giving the French pronunciation an even prissier twist. “The one thoughtful thing she did for you was clear out in the aftermath, and let you have this town to yourself. At least we don’t have to look upon her precious wee Amélie face ever again.”
“To small mercies,” I agreed, clinking my glass against hers—though, obviously, I’d thought Sydney was beautiful, and still occasionally stalked her social media when I felt low enough to want to inflict on myself the stiletto-twist pain of seeing her be happy. “Full disclosure, I had no idea you loathed her whole Francophile thing so much.”
“Eh, didn’t seem like a helpful take at the time,” Jessa replied with a shrug. “But boy, am I stoked to talk about it now! Feels downright cleansing, like it’s clearing out all those years of pent-up shade. Gotta be good for the skin.”
“Makes one of us, then.” I bit down on the inside of my cheek to stave off the inevitable tears. “Because talking about her just makes me feel hopeless. Like I already had my shot at my dream life, everything the way I wanted it, the way it was supposed to be. And I screwed it up, just by being myself.”
“Oh, sweetie,” Jessa exhaled, pert face scrunching up with almost painful sympathy. “So that’s why there haven’t been any second dates.”
I’d been cautiously trying to put myself back out there the past few months, at both Jessa’s and Sassy Sue’s urging. But even the handful of first dates I’d been on made me queasily anxious, and the prospect of a second date flung me into full-blown panic. I ruthlessly overanalyzed myself at every turn, as if each prospective partner might be scrutinizing my every choice and mannerism with Sydney’s witheringly critical gaze. The pressure felt buckling, enormous, as though what drink I chose and whether I agreed to taste the other person’s tapas could derail my whole future with them before it even began.
So I’d decided, hey, maybe better to just tap out before I proceeded to lose my entire mind.
“That’s why,” I admitted with a whooshing sigh, taking another slug of my wine. “I can’t relax enough to even think about letting someone get to know me. The pressure is just . . . untenable.”
Jessa rocked her head from side to side, the endearingly Machiavellian expression she always slipped into when thinking stealing over her face.
“What if,” she said, lifting her eyebrows, “we took the pressure off? Picked someone so unlikely, so obviously not a realistic prospect for you, that you could just chill a little, have fun with it? Go on a date or three, possibly even enjoy a solid bang, as God knows you need one in the direst of ways. Have a shallow-end-of-the-pool experience, you know? Just doggy-paddle around a little bit before you go full-on snorkeling.”
I knit my brow, trying to parse this tortured metaphor. “So, you want me to pick someone I’m not into? How is that supposed to help?”
“No, duh, of course they still have to be a smoke show. I’m thinking someone super hot, but relatively low investment.” She snaked her hand across the table, palm up, and wiggled her fingers at me. “Hand over your phone, and I’ll show you what I mean.”
“I don’t know, Jess,” I said slowly, balking. “This feels like a very ill-advised experiment. Or worse, a reality dating show with seriously low production value. Which, as you know, is the opposite of my bag.”