Do You Take This Man (87)

“Okay.” Over her shoulder, a framed photo of Britta and Wes hung on the wall, taken after a race. They were both sweaty and smiling ear to ear, holding up matching medals. Theirs was the only love story I had total faith in.

I’d seen the photo a hundred times, telling her I appreciated cheering from the sidelines when she invited me to run with her. They were so happy together, and they just seemed to get each other. I’d thought I had that with Lear, that maybe there was a possibility he was worth taking a chance on. “It’s a hit at work, but I think it will be okay eventually. I have to quit the weddings early, but I can live with that. I liked the weddings, but I love the law.”

“So why do you look like you’re about to cry?”

“I’m not about to cry,” I said, my eyes prickling with budding tears.

“Okay.”

“I don’t cry.” She was my best friend, so she knew that wasn’t true, especially since two teardrops trailed down my face as I said it.

“I know.” She gave me a half smile. “Tell me what’s going on. Do you need me to fly to North Carolina to kick someone’s butt?”

I laughed, wiping at my face. “Wouldn’t you just send Wes?”

“Nah, I’m way tougher than he is. Is this about the guy?”

Lear’s razor-sharp, perfectly aimed words from the wedding came back to me like ice water. “That’s done.” I gave her the highlights, ending with him calling me out as cold and heartless.

Britta listened, continuing to search my face while I spoke. “So,” she started, tucking a curl back into the scarf around her head. “You fell for him.”

“Rookie mistake . . . I knew better than that.”

She rolled her eyes and ignored my cynicism. “And let me guess. Then he didn’t call, and you didn’t call, and you both ended up resentful?” Maybe Britta is the one who should be in the courtroom.

“I can’t speak to how he feels.” Though of course I could. His voice had dripped with resentfulness. “He said I enjoyed making him feel small, that cold is my default setting.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way . . .”

“No one says that before anything nice,” I pointed out.

“They don’t.” She brushed a curl back that wasn’t there, her nervous tell. “You’re good at making people think that’s true. You only let people see the emotions you choose to show them, so the people in your life don’t always know how deeply you feel. In that way, you’re a good liar. It’s always worked for you as a defense mechanism before, I think.”

“I don’t do that.” I do that. I thought about my breakup with Case, fallings-out with former colleagues or friends who had hurt me or crossed me. I thought about my old best friend. “I don’t.” I flashed over all the moments with Lear where I had shut down the possibility of anything more, telling him he only saw what I let him see.

I sucked in a breath, wiping my face again and willing my body to get it together. This was probably hormones and lack of sleep and stress, and not missing Lear Campbell. “For a while, it seemed like I could be the real me with him. The real me I am with you guys, and it would be . . . safe.”

“Girl, I love you, but it took a long time for us to get the real you. I spent our entire freshman year trying to crack my roommate’s shell, getting held at arm’s length and coming back for more.”

“I know. It’s hard to love me,” I acknowledged. “It’s hard to like me.”

“No. You’re not hard to love at all, but you don’t make it easy for people to figure that out. Maybe Lear hasn’t quite figured it all out yet.”

“I stayed with Case for so long because he didn’t try to change me. He didn’t mind that I was laser focused on work. He didn’t mind that I didn’t care if people thought I wasn’t nice. He didn’t mind all the things about me I really love. I mean, he didn’t mind until he did, but when I was with Lear, it was different. It’s like . . . it’s like he doesn’t just tolerate or ignore those things. It wasn’t that he just didn’t mind—I thought he genuinely liked those things about me, but he didn’t.”

“You said that was a hard day for him, right? The night you invited him up?”

I nodded, because mixed with my anger and shame was definitely guilt, knowing I’d made that day harder on him instead of easier. “Probably the worst day of his entire year, so maybe he’s right and I’m insensitive.” I shook my head and wiped my eyes again. “I’m just not cut out for the relationship stuff. It’s probably good it ended when it did.”

Britta was quiet for a moment and pressed her teeth against her lower lip.

“Spit it out.”

“I say this with love,” she said.

“No one says that before anything nice, either.”

“They don’t.”

I set my tissue aside, having forced my tears back into submission.

“Maybe you need to bite the bullet and use your words. You’re good at words, and your current tactic is to avoid communicating.”

“We talked at that last wedding.”

“Sounds like you didn’t so much talk as snap at each other after not talking.”