Page 157 of Let's Kiss and Tell

“You didn’t offend me, Luce.” Jonah grabs my hand. “The only person you’re going to hurt is yourself if you don’t at leasttry.”

There’s a knot in my throat that I try desperately to push down. “I’ve known you for four years.” I look at Jonah. “You’ve watched me go on date after date…after date. Why are you only saying this now?”

“You wouldn’t have heard me.” Jonah’s face softens. “I think you can now.”

I remember the other night and what I said to Marsh, what he said to me. I could’ve written stories with more depth, but I chose not to. I push people away because I don’t want to be intimate. I use sex as a crutch, as a shield because it’s easier if people hate what I do instead of hating me.

I’ve pushed away the one person whosawme. Marsh saw the real Lucy, and he chose me.

“Sometimes I think something’s wrong with me,” I admit. “I wish it were as simple as me saying,Yeah, I’m afraid I’m going to get hurt.But I don’t know, it’s so many things. I don’t trust people, I don’t trust myself…I like being alone, I really believe that eventually people hurt each other…” My voice frays. That knot in my throat only gets bigger, and a tear trickles down my cheek. “I don’t think I can face Marsh. I really blew it, Jonah.”

He pulls me in closer, and I rest my head on his shoulder. “It’s okay,” he says, rubbing my back. “Maybe this needed to happen for you to realize it’s what you want.”

My insides start to feel heavy, weighing on me like an anchor of a ship. My nervous system erupts until I’m crying. Really crying. The last time I cried escapes me. I don’t cry.

“Jonah.” I sniff. “Is this what a breakup feels like?”

“A real one, yeah.”

“Fuck.” I take off my sunglasses and wipe the sheen of tears along my cheeks. “This sucks.”

“Yeah, babe, it does.” He wipes a hair from my face. “But we always move on. Because we’re resilient, right?”

I roll my eyes. “Jonah—”

“Right?” he repeats.

“Right,” I force out. I’m not sure how or when it happened, this change in mindset. At what point did I allow my heart to open up? “Does it get easier?” I ask.

Jonah lets out a laugh like I just asked the most obvious question in the world, yet it’s a question nobody knows the answer to.

“We think we become immune to it—the vulnerability to get our hearts broken—but we’re still susceptible, just like falling in love,” he says with a pang of regret that his answer couldn’t be what I want to hear.

“Great.” I swallow and then look at him. “Also, did you just make that up?”

“I sure did.”

“That’s profound,” I say, impressed. “I might use that.”

“You’re lucky I don’t write about sex and relationships, or you’d be out of a job.”

“Stay in your lane.” I laugh and then wipe my eyes again. “God,I hate this feeling.”

“At least you know you’re human.” He squeezes my hand and the corner of his mouth quirks. “How lucky are you?”

The next day at work I’m almost numb but at the same time on the verge of tears over everything. It’s like I’ve opened a water valve that can no longer be shut off. In a staff meeting, someone shared that while on a trip to Ojai they found an owl stuck on a fence. While they saved it and brought it to an animal hospital, the story completely wrecked me and I then needed to step outside.

I don’t make progress on any of my stories and make up an excuse to go home early. I sit in bed eating Taco Bell for the rest of the night, and then one night becomes two nights, then three, until I’ve decided to take an entire week off work.

30

Lucy

Santa Clarita is only forty-five minutes or so away from Los Angeles. It could be less if you’re lucky—but you’re rarely lucky. The suburban city possesses everything appealing about Southern California: The palm trees, year-round summer weather, and there’s curb appeal that Los Angeles couldn’t even dream of. Roads are paved, lawns are watered, and they even have free parking lots. There’s nothing particularly wrong with Santa Clarita, but there’s always something less appealing about living where you grew up.

“Mom?” I open the front door to my childhood home. The tall windows bring in the afternoon sunshine, and I see a sprinkler on in the backyard. Various framed photos of me from my graduation sit along the fireplace mantle. “Dad?”

As I kick my shoes off, my dad comes out of the kitchen with a travel mug and his keys in hand.