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The look on Miles’s face told me I knew exactly what he meant, but for some reason, I wanted to deny what he was implying. ‘By for once, you mean you didn’t have to wingman him before, because he always gets the girl on his own, right?’

Miles shook his head. ‘By for once, I mean there has never been anyone else. Until you came along.’

And there it went, my last out.

My last chance of wanting to find a reason to validate my decision of not wanting to go out with Colton other than the fact that he’s a star athlete.

I didn’t have time to ponder over that new thought, when the alarm from my phone sounded off, alerting me that my next class was starting in ten minutes.

‘I gotta go. My class is starting soon.’ Putting my forgotten book in my backpack, I quickly got up and hooked the strap to my shoulder.

I tried to think of what to say before I took off, but Miles came to my rescue. ‘Are you coming to the game this Saturday?’

Right. Their home game.

This was the game I had promised Colton I would be attending, just minutes before things went wrong. I still had more to think about before I could decide on whether I should go to the game. Since I couldn’t give Miles a definite answer, I finally decided to settle on ‘Maybe.’

‘Well, I’ll see you there if you are. And if not, then I’ll see you around.’

I gave him a nod. ‘See you around.’

I quickened my pace and exited the coffee shop, arriving at my class with a couple of minutes to spare before it started. I made it right on time, when the lecturer entered the hall just as I got settled into my seat.

Thankfully, the class was one that I was interested in, offering me a welcome distraction from my conversation that had happened with Miles.

I knew I had a lot to think about, and I couldn’t ignore it forever, but if I could postpone the inescapable for a couple more hours, then you bet that was exactly what I would be doing.

I was back in my apartment a few minutes before 6 p.m. It was Nina’s turn to cook dinner tonight, and after a full day of classes, my brain was too drained to do anything academic. So, reviewing my lecture notes was not on my to-do list that night.

I browsed through Netflix to see if there was anything I could watch to pass the time, but nothing seemed interesting to me.

I let out a frustrated groan.

With nothing left to distract me, it was time to face the inevitable music.

I knew there was no going around it, but I also needed someone to vent this out to.

Nina wouldn’t be back for at least another hour, and I had texted Eliza while I was on my way back to the apartment to check if she was free for a phone call.

Unfortunately, she had a meeting to attend, followed by a dinner with her co-workers.

There was one final option. My thumb was already hovering over the call button as I hesitated on whether I should press it or not.

Taking a deep breath as I gathered my courage, I pressed it and put it on speaker.

The call line rang three times before it got picked up.

‘Hello?’ My mom’s gentle voice came out from the other side.

‘Hey, Mom,’ I answered.

While Eliza and I had a scheduled phone call for each week, my catchups with my mom come at the most spontaneous times: whether it be when she was driving home from work, or when I was getting ready to leave the apartment for class.

My parents made sure that the divorce would be an easy transition for us, and they did—never failing to remind us they would always be there for us, no matter what.

The hardest part of the divorce, personally, was not having the whole family under the same roof any more, and understanding that I would have to live with one parent at a time. It also meant I had to choose which parent I would rather stay with for the most part.

But I hadn’t wanted to choose. I loved both my parents equally.

So I didn’t. I let Eliza decide for me.

Wherever she would go, I would follow, especially since our time together was on the clock with her going off to college soon.

Eliza ended up picking our Mom to stay with during the weekdays and my Dad for the weekends.

Even so, our father made an effort to see us during the weekdays too, by having dinner with us a couple of times a week.

During the early years of the divorce, I focused on spending time with Eliza as much as possible before she left and started a new chapter of her life.

It wasn’t until she left that I truly started bettering my relationship with my parents individually.

With me staying at Mom’s most of the time, she got to hear everything about my high school experience—which included all the friendship drama, way too much homework and, of course, me reaching the age where I had started to go on dates.

Eliza might have gotten details through our phone calls as I recounted my dates, but it was my mom who had the first-hand experience of seeing me go there, and hearing how it went right away once I got home.

It was nerve-wracking the first time in high school, but it eventually got less awkward over time. Though I couldn’t help but feel nervous to tell her about Colton and my reservations about him.

‘How have you been, sweetheart?’ I heard my mom ask.

‘Good,’ I answered her. I started playing with the rings on my finger that I hadn’t taken off, just so I could have something to do with my hands to get rid of my nervousness.

‘Is everything okay?’

I let out a quiet exhale. ‘Yeah, everything’s fine.’ After a beat, I added, ‘A guy asked me out.’

‘That’s great!’ Mom replied with a note of enthusiasm in her tone. ‘So, when is the date? Are you excited?’

‘Actually,’ I started. ‘I haven’t said yes yet.’

‘Oh. Why not, honey? Do you not like him?’

‘It’s the opposite actually,’ I said. ‘I really, really, really like him.’

‘Then, what’s the matter?’

I stayed quiet for a while, trying to muster up enough courage in myself to finally voice it out. I wanted to let it all out, all that had been hanging over my head all that time, but never wanted to admit it out loud.

‘Clara?’ My mom’s concerned voice filled the living room.

‘I’m scared, Mom.’ And there it was. The real reason. The very thing that Colton accused me of.

Because what Colton said was true.

I was scared. I always have been.

I was scared of opening up my heart to someone else.

I was scared of giving someone a chance—a real chance, not the one that I convinced myself into thinking is one.

Even though I had been on dates since I was a high school senior, they never went past the first one, because every single time, a strike count was ready at the back of my mind.

It would go off each time I found something—any random excuse that assured me we won’t match well—which could fill up all three counts, to justify my decision of not going on a second date with the same guy.

But then Colton came along, and everything changed.

Maybe it was because we never went on an actual date before. But I don’t think that was it. I think, deep down, I knew that if we did go on one, I would just want more dates with him, and the strike counts wouldn’t matter any more.

Heck, all semester long, as I fell deeper into my crush for him, I had been waiting for him to slip up, for any kind of reason that will slowly diminish my feelings towards him over time.

But every time I tried to find one—why he decided to take the ASL class, his late reply to my text the day before—it backfired.

Instead, my crush on him grew bigger and bigger.

The curse wasn’t real, I was aware of that. Of course. I knew that this curse was just a fabrication and a coping mechanism for me to keep my guard up—specifically against those whom I could see myself easily falling for, someone like Colton.

But it had never applied to anyone else before, not when the rose-coloured glasses of their allure were snatched off immediately once I actually got to know them.

And I didn’t expect it to apply then.

I kept waiting for the same effect to happen to Colton, something to wake me from this daydream, but it never came.

And after trying so hard to search for other reasons as to why him and I couldn’t step out of the friendship territory—and failing miserably each time I thought there was one—the only thing I could cling to was the curse. My only lifeline.

And now, if you took that curse away, I had nothing left. No more excuses. Everything was leading me in Colton’s direction and to agree to his date offer, to explore this thing between us.

Yet, I couldn’t find it in me to say yes.

‘Oh, honey.’ I heard my mom say. ‘What exactly are you scared of?’

‘I don’t know exactly,’ I started. ‘I think I’m scared of what happens afterward. Like, what if the date goes well? And what if I want to go on a second date? I have never been on second dates before.’

No one knew about my strike counts, but I was pretty sure Mom had caught on to it, since I never went on second dates with the same guy and relayed to her the details of why we wouldn’t work together.

‘Then, you go on the second date. And if that goes well too, you go on a third one,’ my mom explained fondly, as if I was a curious child asking about the simplest of things.

‘And what happens after that?’ I asked her.

‘Well, that’s for you to decide,’ she replied. ‘It’s okay to be scared. There’s nothing wrong with guarding yourself against getting hurt. Your heart is a precious thing, it deserves to be protected. Allowing your heart to fall in love can be a scary thing, and it’s okay to feel that way.’

‘Then how do I get over it? This fear?’

‘You don’t,’ Mom answered. ‘At least not right away. You just have to take it one step at a time each day. But the first move is to actually take that leap of faith with someone. If you’re lucky enough to find that person, hopefully, that leap will look a little less scary than it did before.’

Listening to her words reminded me of Eliza’s advice—how similar they were, and how well they complimented one another.

Both Mom and Eliza had found someone that was worth taking the leap for, but were they ever scared to take that jump?

I couldn’t really ask Eliza about it—at least not right now, but I could ask my mom.

I must’ve been stuck in my head for a while, when I heard my mom’s voice snapping me back to reality. ‘Clara?’

‘What about you and Dad?’ I blurted out, deciding to just voice out my thoughts. ‘Were you scared of falling in love with him?’

Silence stretched out for a moment. I couldn’t help but feel slightly awkward by asking her such a question, for we had never really talked about such things before. Just as I was about to brush off the topic, Mom’s voice stopped me.

‘I wasn’t actually,’ she started. ‘Scared to fall in love with him, I mean. But that might have to do with the fact that we were high schoolers when we started dating, and that it was a different time,’ she chuckled.

‘But what I will say is, your dad made it easy for me to fall in love with him, or at least made it easy for me to see myself doing so. While the relationship didn’t end the way I had hoped, I will always cherish what we had and what we do have, because it brought me you and Eliza.

You’ll always be the world’s greatest gift to me. ’

I could feel my eyes start to tear up at her words. ‘You’re gonna make me cry.’

‘Well, I didn’t expect us to have such a sentimental conversation today.

’ I heard her laugh, but the scratch in her voice told me she was shedding a few tears.

‘I might not know who the guy is, but if he’s got you to admit this to yourself, then maybe he deserves a shot.

And if things don’t work out between you two, then that’s okay too.

But just make sure you don’t let that fear hold you back from giving the right person a chance. ’

I let her words hang in the quietness of my apartment, as I took each one of them to heart.

‘Thanks for the advice, Mom,’ I finally said, breaking the silence.

‘You’re welcome,’ she answered. ‘Anyway, I actually have to get ready for dinner. But will you be all right?’ Her voice got quiet towards the end, with the concern evident in her voice.

‘I’ll be fine,’ I told her. And it was true, I still had a lot to think about after our conversation, but I would be fine. ‘Enjoy dinner!’

She bid me goodbye, and we ended the call.

The soft sounds of cars on the street below accompanied me in the comfort of the living room as I reconvened everything my mom had just laid out for me.

The way I saw it, there were only two ways to go, when it came to me and Colton. To either let my fear hold me back from taking that step—to take that leap of faith with him, or embrace it, along with all its uncertainty.

And I thought I did want to take the leap; I had been for a while. All semester long, I had received nudges from the people around me: Nina, my sister, and heck, even Miles.

Now, all that was left for me, was to take that final step.

But after everything that had happened between us, Colton might not want anything to do with me. We could possibly just remain friends and be civil enough, while still being partners for ASL class for the rest of the semester.

Either way, I had to let him know what I felt about him, and be vulnerable with him just as he had been with me.

No more hiding.

If overcoming this fear meant taking it one step at a time, then that moment would start off with sending one simple text.

With my phone still in my hands, I opened my text chain with Colton and typed out my message.

Clara:

Hey. Can we talk?