Page 105 of Don't Be in Love

“Gosh, I’m sorry,” I laughed, wiping a tear and standing up, returning to my chair. “I don’t even know why I’m crying, it’s just a card.”

“Nothing to apologize for.” She shook her head. “Are you close with your aunt?”

“No,” I responded with honesty for the first time in years without second guessing it. “We haven’t spoken since I started university four years ago. I—uh—I moved in with her when my mother left. My aunt wasn’t thrilled to be straddled with a kid.”

“Is that what she told you?”

“She may as well have. We barely spoke when I lived with her.”

“How old was she when you moved in?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Wow, young.” She tapped her nails against her mug. “Well, if I know anything in the seventy-nine years I’ve been around, it’s that being in your twenties is arguably the most difficult time of your life. Everything you do in that decade forms what’s to come. And it feels as if you’re never doing the right thing or making the right decision. That’s not to say how your aunt acted was right. I don’t know her. But I wonder if that at all had to do with her silence. I know that I made more than enough mistakes at twenty-five.”

I pressed at the corner of my eyes, trying to push down the puffiness. In three years, I’d be the same age my aunt was when she took me in. I couldn’t imagine that burden. I took a big gulp of the bitter tea to halt my tear ducts.

She continued, “The mistakes I regret the most are the ones I didn’t allow to happen. You have to make decisions with purpose, knowing that they may not be around forever. Whether that mistake could be not asking your aunt about the past or letting that handsome friend slip from your life.”

Another tear escaped, running down the angle in my cheek. I inhaled.

I wanted to ask her about her mistakes, her regrets, but that seemed too soon, even if she was witnessing me having an unexpected breakdown over family trauma.

So instead, I asked, “Maureen, do you like to read? Or at least drink wine and eat cheese?”

35

Don’t Wait Until You Regret It — Adelaide

As 8 p.m. appeared on the clock, Maureen (and Kurt) retired to their apartment with a promise to return for January’s book club in two weeks.

Darkness and exhaustion swept me. I switched off the lamps peppering the flat before ending up back in my room.

I stopped at the door and looked at my bed with aversion. My pillows and duvet were rustled from how I left them this morning. Unmade and unkempt. But the dreams that rested between the dips in the mattress caused by restless turning were what stopped me.

Would it be ridiculous to sleep on the couch just to avoid another dream? Shake up the night routine and hopefully jumble the dreams?

“I’m going insane,” I muttered.

My phone buzzed in my pajama pants pocket. I pulled it out and found James’s name on the screen.

“Hi James,” I smiled. “Merry Christmas.”

“It’sHappyChristmas. If you’re going to live in London, you have to learn the lingo.” I could hear the buttery-sweet smile in his voice too. “But Merry Christmas to you too.”

“Apologies,mate,” I responded. “How’s Italy?” I kicked off my slippers, switched off my light, and slithered into my bed.The darkness through the balcony door dragged against the walls. I was sure it was still snowing, but I couldn’t see it.

I rolled on my side and put the phone on speaker, watching the young family across the street move through their apartment window. It was painted a butterscotch yellow in the dark.

“Beautiful as always, and still warmer than London, that’s for sure. I’ll miss not having to pack on so many layers.” There was aclinkof wine glasses and a murmur of voices behind him.

“I know it’s only been ten days since our final but I’m starting to miss you,” I said

“Hop in a cab, I’ll find you a flight to Rome this instant.”

I laughed. “Sure, let me grab a cab with the pajamas on my back and the retainer in my mouth.”

He paused. “You’re kidding.”