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“No.”
“Are you sure?”
I narrow my eyes. “Yes.”
“See? Clarity.”
“How is that clarity?”
“Because knowing what you don’t want is just as powerful as knowing what you do. Sometimes, we can’t express what it is we’re looking for, but we know what we’renotlooking for. And even if we don’t end up exactly where we want to be, it’s better to avoid ending up where wedon’t.”
I scrunch my nose. “Thanks. I’ll be back next week for another therapy session.”
She laughs.
I smile and it feels like the knot in my heart loosens just a bit.
My sister walks me through the group chat, picking out suggestion after suggestion.
Toilet papering Dare’s house is a straightnope.
So is breaking into his phone to unleash all his embarrassing photos (of which he has zero because that man does not have a bad angle).
Someone suggests kidnapping him, and Clarissa is the first to shut that down stating that kidnapping is unacceptable.
The group chat continues for a few, feral minutes. And then it stops. Like a swarm of fish converging in chaos and then dissipating into the sea without warning.
“By process of elimination,” my sister signs, “do you have a bit of clarity on what you want to do now?”
“Move on.” It’s hard to admit it and I feel a weight on my body as I sign, but it’s the truth.
“If you want to move on, then what does that mean?”
“Ending things on my terms. I need a real conversation with him.”
“About what?”
About the fact that I didn’t walk off with Henry because I like him. About the fact that I fell in love with him instead. About the fact that I miss him so much I can’t breathe.
“I don’t know,” I sign. Peering over my sister’s phone, I point at it. “Should we ask the group chat?”
* * *
Despite deciding that Idowant to talk to Dare, it takes me a few days to gather my courage. All I can think about is that cold look on his face when he tore up our contract. I never want to see him looking at me like that again.
I spend a few days moping around and putting things off.
Until I get a magazine in the mail.
It’s the issue that Dare and I posed for.
My emotions explode like hail from the sky and I spend every night looking at those pictures and bawling my eyes out.
A few days later, I wake up to toilet paper rolling around my room like tumbleweeds, the headache equivalent of a wild weekend chugging shots off male strippers, and my eyes caked with so many dried tears and mascara, I can barely blink.
That’s when I realize that running from the conversation with Dare was a half-hearted effort to appear ‘strong’ and ‘independent’ and ‘over him’. But it’s not going to work. If I keep going like this, I might just drown myself in tears and never wake up.
Nervous about seeing him on my own, I text Deej and ask her to come with me.