in every guy that I’d ever expressed an interest in. During my Felix Morrison obsession, she’d reminded me more often than was necessary that he was a fictional character and that I’d never date him.
Ha. I’d showed her. Well, sort of. Since we weren’t technically dating.
But she seemed to always find the flaws in guys that I had crushes on. To discourage me. Did that have something to do with my dad? Did she think she was protecting me from feeling the same kind of heartbreak she had? I wondered if her bringing up what was wrong with guys I liked played into my phobia issues at all. And why hadn’t this ever occurred to me before?
My phone beeped, and there was a message from Shelby.
And while there was no way to parse out her tone, I felt in my gut like something was wrong. Maybe because the text was so short, with no greeting, no flowers or emojis. I knew that she needed me.
But before I could tell my mother that I had to go, she hugged me and said she was off to have a small get-together with her professor and a few of her classmates. She kissed my forehead. “Love you, kiddo!”
“I love you, too. And you did a really good job tonight.” Then I practically sprinted out to my van.
Fortunately the campus wasn’t too far from my apartment, so it didn’t take me long to get home. When I burst through the door, I expected to find . . . I didn’t know what I expected. It certainly wasn’t Shelby sitting on the couch watching a Noah Douglas movie and eating chocolate chip cookie dough.
“Hey.” She didn’t make eye contact with me.
I closed the door and said hi back. I shrugged my jacket off, leaving it on the back of one of the kitchen chairs. “Is everything okay?”
“I just wanted a girls’ night.”
That wasn’t it. I heard the pain and sadness in her voice. But whatever was wrong with her, she didn’t seem quite ready to tell me yet. I’d just wait until she was. I grabbed a spoon from the kitchen and sat down on the couch next to her. In this movie Noah played a medieval knight avenging the murder of his wife and child. We watched the movie for about an hour until it got to the scene where Noah’s character was about to kiss the princess he’d fallen in love with during his quest.
Shelby paused the movie just as the kiss started and put her spoon and the tub of dough on the coffee table and announced, “I’m going to break up with Allan.”
She immediately burst into sobs while I put my arms around her. “What? Why? Did something happen? Did he do something? I’ll kill him if he cheated on you. I’m not even kidding.”
“No,” she said in a muffled voice. “Tonight Allan’s mother told him that if he married me, she would never speak to him again.”
Why would that make Shelby want to break up with Allan? “So? That sounds like a good deal to me. You get Allan and you don’t have to deal with Harmony.”
“But how can I do that? I don’t want him to have to choose. I don’t want to come between him and his family.”
“You’re going to be his family,” I told her. “That witch should be thrilled she’s getting you as a daughter-in-law. I wish I had a brother so that you could marry him and we’d always be related.”
Her crying started to subside, and I asked, “What does Allan say?”
“He said he loves me, he chooses me. But I don’t want him to have to give up his family.” Her voice wobbled and broke, like she was going to start sobbing again.
“So he wants to be with you and you’re going to run away? That doesn’t seem right. It’s not your fault Harmony’s a psycho. And I’m sorry you’re going through this, but I think pushing the man you love away is probably the worst thing you can do. And take that from someone who is slowly learning that avoiding things isn’t the answer. If you love him, which you do, and he loves you, which he does, and you want a life together, then that’s what you should do.”
“You’re right. But this is going to cause him so much pain. And I don’t want to be the reason he’s in all that pain.” She reached for the extra roll of toilet paper