Page 82 of Goode Vibrations

“Um. Sex?”

She laughed. “No, honey. Well, yes. But not the act of sex. I think you’ve discovered that you can do that with anyone, and generally speaking, it’s all pretty much the same, right? A little better this way or that way, with this one or that one, all factors being equal. But generally, sex is sex.”

“Yeah, I’ll agree to that.”

“The difference is inmeaning, Poppy.” She held my gaze. “In letting it be love.”

I choked on a lump in my throat. “We’re not there yet, Mom.”

“What’s stopping you?”

“I’ve known him, like, not even a month.”

“Does it feel that way?”

“No. It feels like I’ve always known him.”

“Does he respect you?”

“Yes.”

“Does he take care of you?”

“Yes.” It was becoming more and more difficult to get the words out.

“He’s willing to shelve sex for you, for your relationship, and that says a lot. Has he shown you his heart, though?”

I nodded. “He has. He was the first to open up, actually.” I ducked my head. “We went separate ways, but he went back and looked for me. Covered hundreds of miles over a whole day, looking for me. I guess it was fate that brought us together, because he’d given up. He was eating at a truck stop diner at midnight, one a.m., and the truck driver I’d hitched a ride with dropped me off at that diner. And that was when things really sort of…started.”

“Wow,” Mom breathed. “That’s really cool, honey. That means something.”

“I know.”

“So what’s stopping it from being love?” She shook me, both hands on my bicep. “You can’t let it pass you by, Popsicle. It’s scary, it takes a lot of courage to take something from merely meaningful and emotional and let it be love.”

“What does love even mean, Mom? Saying it? Reed told me he loved me. It meant nothing.”

“If Errol said it, would it mean something?”

“I’d probably freak out if he did.”

“You’re right that merely saying it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Would you believe him? Did you believe Reed?”

I chewed on that one. “I knew Reed was just saying it because he thought I wanted to hear it, that it would…get him something from me, I guess. What, I don’t know. But no, I didn’t believe him.”

“And Errol?”

“I don’t want him to say it.” I leaned forward and put my face in my hands. “I want him to show me. I need to feel it.”

“In order to feel it, you have to be open to it.”

“Yeah.”

“So, are you?”

“I don’t know.” I sighed. “Love. Can you be in love with someone you’ve known less than a month?”

“Love is not dependent on time. Love is about your heart recognizing something in the other person. Something that makes it impossible to live without them. You just…recognize it. Know it. Deep down, you know. The hard part is making that into a life together. That’s the hard part, Poppy. Just loving someone, being in love, doesn’t make it easy to live with them all the time. It doesn’t mean having a healthy relationship is easy. It’s not. It takes work. But you can love someone instantly. I think I was in love with Lucas from the moment I saw him. Before he lost weight, before he got all muscular and sexy as he is now. I loved the man I saw inside him, probably even before he knew that man was in there. My heart saw something in who he was, and wouldn’t let go. And that was instantaneous. What took longer was for my mind and my body and the messed-up chaos from Darren and our marriage and him dying and guilt and desire and all that…for all that, for him to fix his life and his bullshit so it was possible for us to even…match, I guess. For his life to fit into the shape of mine, you might say. Our lives don’t always fit right away. It takes adjustment.”