Page 13 of No Shelf Control
We can tell each other that and build each other up all day long. Sometimes, it takes hearing it from someone you admire for the lesson to really sink in. And, despite all his obvious flaws, I think River might be good at helping ensure they really hear and take that lesson to heart because he writes women they identify with.
Iwantthat freedom for them, so they don't have to feel like they're drowning in their own lives.
No one deserves to feel like a forgotten side character, but too many women do. They're so busy holding everyone else's lives together that they don't give themselves permission to live their own lives, or they feel guilty for having something that's just for them. They read romance and fantasize, but they're not very good at making those fantasies a reality if it means they might inconvenience someone else.
You can't set yourself on fire to keep everyone else warm…but as women, that's precisely what we're expected to do. And theminute we stop doing that, we're guilted for it. So many women are drowning under the weight, and they do it silently because it's what's expected.
Theydeserveto hear that having dreams and goals and working toward them, regardless of what anyone else has to say, isn't selfish.
Olive nods, chewing thoughtfully. "Have you told him that?"
"The infuriating man won't let me," I growl. "As soon as I bring up Book Club, he says no, and then we start arguing about something stupid, and I never get around to the why."
"You are good at arguing."
"I know, right?"
She grins at me, her blue eyes shining. "You want my advice?"
"Depends," I say dubiously. "You were just planning to change your name and move to Europe."
"I had reasons, Jazz!" she cries.
"Fine. What's your advice?"
"You're allowed to like him."
I gape at her with my burger halfway to my mouth. "What kind of advice is that?"
"The kind you need to hear," she says with a shrug. "You have this weird thing where you like to pretend your heroes aren't real people, so they can't ever disappoint you. Now you've met one of your heroes and realized he's a real person. And you'd rather dislike him from the get-go than give him a chance and be disappointed later."
"I do not do that," I protest, shocked that she has me pegged so well.
"You do, and in this day and age, no one blames you for it. It feels unsafe to have a hero when they're being exposed every damn day for being vile. But you're allowed to separate the human being behind the work from the work, especially when the human being is someone who has you so worked up thatyou're camping out on his porch. If you want to date him, date him. If you want to hate him, hate him. But if his books meant something to you, that doesn't have to change."
"It will, though," I whisper. "It always does."
Once you realize that your heroes are real people with real flaws, it always ends in disappointment. It's hard to idolize someone once you realize they've been cheating on your mom your entire life, or to hang on to memories you thought were special when you realize that all those trips were really just your dad using you as cover to meet up with his mistress.
Yeah…that was my childhood. Maybe realizing my dad was a cheating asshole gave me a warped view of heroes, but it's not like I'm that far off base. People disappoint you. But when you never let a hero become a real person to you, they don't get that opportunity. You get to keep on loving what you love because it exists in a vacuum that no one can take away from you, taint, or spoil.
River is already on shaky ground. If I get to know anything else about him—if I date him—I'll never be able to go back to pretending that he's a middle-aged college professor. I'll have to deal with the real man. And the real man is already shaping up to be far more complicated than I know what to do with.
"Maybe it'll change for the better." Olive pops another fry into her mouth and then stands, dusting off her shorts. "You'll never know if you refuse to give whatever this is a chance."
"I…" Whatever I was going to say dies on my lips when a police cruiser pulls up at the end of the driveway. I narrow my eyes on the vehicle. I know he did not actually…
A young police officer steps out of the car, turning to look at me. Unfortunately, he does not look like the kind of big, strong guy I want to cuff me. He's kind of scrawny, with big ears and a pornstache. "Which one of you is Jasmine Knudsen?"
Oh, fuck. He did.
"Oh, shit," Olive whispers, her eyes comically wide.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Lilah is going to kill me.
I shove my burger back into the bag and rise to my feet. There's no way I'm letting Olive go to jail for this. "That's me. She's just here to deliver food."
