Page 44 of Tripped By Love

Cassidy

SOMEBODY LIKE YOU

“I'm lettin’ go of all my lonely yesterdays

I've forgiven myself for the mistakes I’ve made.”

Performed by Keith Urban

Written by Shanks / Urban

While Marco was gone, Jonas steppedup next to me in the kitchen, asking what he could do to help. When I gave him some vegetables to slice, he didn’t bat an eye and used decent knife skills that had me curious about where he’d learned them.

“Do you cook a lot with Maliyah?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Off and on, but she said it was Life Skills 101 to know how to make a meal for yourself. She’s big on eating at home versus eating out.”

“It’s better for you.”

“Even if we were eating at your restaurant?” he asked.

I chuckled. “Well, my restaurant isn’t your norm.”

We worked in silence for a few minutes. The only noise was Chevelle making car sounds as he dragged one along the rug by the washing machine, waiting for Hippo to come out of his bath.

“Thank you,” I said, and he stopped cutting for a moment to look at me, cheeks turning red.

“Aw. This is nothing.”

“I don’t mean for cutting the squash, although that is very nice as well. I mean for stepping in back there on the porch.” I’d already said the words?hugged him?but I wanted him to understand just how big of a deal it was to have someone willing to stand up for someone else.

His face flamed even more. “No means no. Leave means leave. I won’t ever stand by and let someone be manhandled.”

“I think Maliyah would be very proud of you. I know Marco was.”

He rubbed at his cheek with the back of his hand as if trying to brush away his embarrassment. He went back to cutting.

“Marco says you’re not his girlfriend.” He shot me a look under his lashes.

My heart stutter-stopped. “That’s right. I’m not.”

“But he likes you, and you like him, right? So, what’s stopping you from like…being together?”

My hand froze above the ramekin I was using to create the mini-lasagnas. Could everyone see us this clearly? The emotions and desire that wafted through us and around us like the winds were pushing us together? Or did it take an outsider, someone less used to seeing us, to realize it?

“Sometimes…liking each other isn’t enough. Sometimes, it would just complicate things more than they should be.”

I continued layering the chickpea noodles, homemade sauce, and vegetables.

Jonas sighed. “Relationshipsarecomplicated. But I wonder if I’d had the guts to tell Mel how I felt before she started seeing that shit-for-brains, Artie, if we’d be together now. If she’d be…safer.” His voice was full of teenage agony?lovesick?but there was also remorse.

I stopped and looked at him. “Being with someone just to protect them isn’t a good reason to be in a relationship, Jonas. That’s a sure-fire way for one or both of you to get hurt.”

He glanced up at me. “Love’s about sacrifice, right? You gotta be willing to give everything for the ones who matter most.”

It was so deep and wrong and right all at the same time for someone so young to have voiced that it took me a while to respond. “If the sacrifice leaves one of you less…if the relationship is tilted and one-sided, it’ll never work in the long run. Either the person sacrificing for the other will eventually be bitter about always giving, or the person being sacrificed for will feel like a burden. They’d feel guilty and doubt whether it was love holding them together or duty.”

The washer buzzed, and I turned to go flip Hippo and the towels into the dryer and found Marco’s dark eyes taking me in. We hadn’t heard him return, but that didn’t surprise me. Marco was stealthy when he wanted to be, and he knew my house well enough to miss the creaky boards on the steps and in the kitchen.