What If (If Only.... #2)(44)

Lucky. What a subjective word.

Miles nudges my shoulder with his own.

“Now say it like you mean it,” he says, and I laugh.

“Did you know that ten to fifteen percent of people with diagnosed aneurysms will have more than one?”

This is our thing. When Miles has to talk me off a ledge, I throw statistics at him. He’s relentless with his hope for me, but I keep a wall full of reminders that say otherwise. Tonight, though, as I spout off my anxieties, I realize my fear isn’t for me alone. It’s for him—Griffin. When I think of what I put Gran through, of how much she lost before she almost lost me—how could I set someone else up for that possibility? Wanting him feels too selfish, too soon. I owe Griffin more than that.

“I’m proud of you,” he continues, and I peel my eyes from the vision in front of us, questioning him with raised brows.

“For what?” I add.

He kisses my forehead.

“For trying out this living thing. It looks good on you, sweetie.”

I sigh. “I feel good. But for how long? How long can I keep this at bay?”

I motion back to the wall, but Miles keeps his eyes on me.

“Why do you have to?” he asks. “The guy is crazy about you. And this is only a piece of you. It doesn’t define you, not if you don’t let it.”

“Yeah, well…”

But he doesn’t give me a chance to argue. Miles pulls me in for a hug. I think about tonight, about what attracts bad-boy Jess to straight-laced Rory, and vice versa. He’s broken, and she wants to fix him. But in the end, Jess is the one to fix himself. Because he’s not fixable until he wants it.

What happens when both parties are a little bit broken, though? Griffin has to want to fix himself. I can’t do that for him. And me? No one wants fixing more than me, but part of me may be beyond repair. How do I offer that to someone else to take on, someone who hasn’t taken on himself yet?

I don’t ask Miles this because he’ll find a way to argue against me. Mr. Sunshine, the guy with the positive spin on everything, he’d try to convince me that two wrongs actually do make a right, that somehow broken plus broken can equal fixed. But I don’t want to argue. I don’t want to prove what I know is true. I want to sail as far as I can get before the boat rocks me hard enough to throw me overboard.

“So Paige, huh?” I ask, perfecting the art of subject change, and Miles releases me from our embrace. Leave it to me to call Griffin out on his talent for deflection only to use it to my advantage. Hello, pot. Meet kettle. “No more Andrew?” I add.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Andrew wanted to get serious. And, well, you know me. Paige, though. She’s funny. And smart. Do you know she’s not only a bartender? She manages the place she works at. She has a degree in restaurant management and hospitality services.”

I didn’t know that. Paige and I have the perfect neighborly relationship. She locks my door when I forget, comes over for coffee every now and then, and never asks what I do beyond work and school. Simple. Easy. And, at the same time, not at all a friendship. But it could be. Tonight it was clear Paige is a great ally to have in my corner, for more than merely swapping keys in case of emergency.

“You got all that from walking her five feet down the hall.”

He shrugs.

“She’s hot, too,” I add, and his grin turns a certain shade of naughty.

“And tastes delicious even after devouring my spicy guacamole.”

I push him away and stand up. “Ew, Miles! That’s just…I don’t need to picture you and Paige like that yet, okay?”

He stands, too, his broad shoulders shaking with laughter.

“You’re going to see him again, right?” he asks, backing out of the room.

I shrug. “We still haven’t exchanged phone numbers.”

“You’re not pulling that serendipity bullshit, are you?” he asks, and I push him out my bedroom door and toward the main door of the apartment.

“He knows where I work, and he knows I hang at the library on Monday afternoons. So no. No serendipity.”

Just hope, I think. And want. I want to see Griffin again.





Chapter Fifteen


Maggie


I give up hope at four-fifteen Monday afternoon. With my classes done, any and all studying complete, I take ten minutes to unwind, to remind myself we had no plans to meet at the library today. Just because he came looking for me last Monday doesn’t mean we have some sort of standing arrangement.

I take my sketchbook out of my bag, opening to the bowl of fruit from Griffin’s parents’ house. On the opposite page is my unfinished portrait of Griffin’s niece, Vi. My finger traces over the letters, V-I, and the same relief floods through me as it did yesterday when she asked if I would draw her, and I asked her to sign her name to the unfinished piece when I was done. I can differentiate between all of them now, Griffin’s sisters, his mother, and his niece. Despite the similarities in genetic makeup—I’ve never seen so many women look so much alike—a couple hours with this family was enough for me to distinguish, to pick up on some of their nuances once the overstimulation of such an unfamiliar environment subsided.

I tell myself it’s all part of the continued healing process, but that’s not the only reason. It was Griffin, too. Being there with him helped drown out the extra noise, the parts of a strange experience that would normally distract me. It’s these thoughts distracting me now, easing the anxiety brought on by false hope. So when the chair across from me slides out with a hasty scrape across the wood floor, I startle to see Griffin, wide-eyed and out of breath, sitting across from me.