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  While he saw this as a beautiful quality, it was something I often wanted to rip out of myself. Good emotion or bad, it hugged my core and shook it. But from what he was saying, he didn’t even realize that I felt that way.

  “Carter…this all just means that you feel in love with the grief I felt over being in love with someone else.” I tried to be as gentle as possible, even though he already knew this. “That complicates things.”

  “What love isn’t complicated?” But he wasn’t really asking. Because there wasn’t really an answer. Love is the most and least complicated thing in the world—it raises the most questions and provides the most possible answers to each one. “It’s hard not to care about someone who shows you herself, as raw as possible. When you were writing, what you were singing was who you are, not who you wanted to be. I saw you. I see you. And I know you see me.”

  “I’ve seen people before.” I carefully avoided the L word, but then I realized I shouldn’t. Carter was being honest with me, and if he wanted raw I would give him raw. “You’re right. I do love hard, and that makes the fallout hard. I don’t know if I’ve fully landed from the last one yet. I’ve tried to tell myself that by just not being near him, not letting myself think about the fresh juice he’d squeeze for breakfast or Walking Dead marathons or Sunday mornings together, that it would just go away. But you said you know me, so then you know that I couldn’t do it. He was funny, and he thought I was funny. His touch burned in such a good way and his hands covered my whole face when he kissed me. I hated the playlist he made for his wake up alarm, but I loved knowing it would loop Good Vibrations by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch because he never could let me wake up right away. He’d make me grilled cheese when I was hung over and ask me to come watch F.R.I.E.N.D.S when he was in a bad mood. It feels like so much of who I am. How is anyone ever able to do that all over again when it doesn’t work out?”

  We sat silently. I didn’t know if I’d offended him, but he didn’t look mad. Wow, Josie. You are really something. A guy tells you he loves you—a guy millions of girls, including you, at one point, would kill for to get him to love them—and you launch into the details about how you loved another guy. A guy that doesn’t want you anymore. A guy that shouldn’t matter but always somehow does. Carter interrupted my mental beat down.

  “Josie, I would never expect you to not have a past…to not have loved. I love that you have loved. And more importantly, that you’ve been loved. It takes the pressure off in some ways because I know I can do better than all that. I can be a better man for you.” He smiled at me. That smile, those words. I wanted to reach down to see if I still had knees. “But everything you just said was past tense. He’s past tense. I love you now.”

  “But how do I know it’s really over?” I whispered, looking into my hands, embarrassed. I was essentially asking him how I was supposed to know whether or not I still loved Isaac.

  “I don’t know if anything is ever really, truly, dead-and-gone over. But I think in some way it’s when you’re more in love with your memories than the person in front of you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  A Few Minutes Later

  Carter and I decided to stop staring at each other awkwardly, since we clearly didn’t know what to say anymore. So I went inside, alone, to think about where I wanted to go from here. He assured me he would be okay either way; he wanted to keep working together either way. But I couldn’t imagine that going well at all. Like…while I’m singing about past or future guys, he’s singing about…me? Music starts off as your story but then it becomes everyone’s. Taylor Swift knows that better than anyone else, and that’s why, annoying as it might be at times, her songs rock. Cause they don’t just hit close to home, you’re already living there.

  Skylar was still up – a glass of wine in her lap, last Tuesday’s The Mindy Project on the TV. She seemed so wrapped up, and I thought she might not have noticed me walk in. But a commercial popped on and instead of fast forwarding, Skylar patted the couch next to her.

  “Have you seen this one? Mindy really gets it, you know?” She raised her eyebrows, looking at me and registering the panic on my face. “Wait, what happened? Why are you here? We thought you’d be at Carter’s tonight.” She turned to face me, muting the TV. Trevor came down the stairs, claiming he’d been wakened by Skylar’s loud voice. Truthfully, he had probably been online shopping, heard me come in, and sensed there was a juicy reason why.

  Everything just fell out of my mouth. They listened patiently, they didn’t interrupt. I had half expected Trevor to slap me for not immediately accepting all Carter had tried to give me…but they both nodded in understanding, smoothed my hair, and patted my leg.

  My two California surrogate moms.

  “I knew by the way he said, ‘You’re beautiful,’ that the shit was gonna hit the fan.” Trevor shook his head. “No one says ‘you are beautiful,’ they always say you look beautiful. He had been waiting to say that for a long time.”

  “So…what is it really? That’s stopping you?” Skylar asked when I was finished. “Because we can see that you like him. You spend all your time with him. You talk about him when you’re not with him. You definitely don’t think of him as just a friend, that’s obvious enough.”

  “Isaac isn’t here. Being with him isn’t going to happen,” Trevor lightly. “Not right now. I think even you know that.”

  “I do. Of course I do,” I said mostly to myself. “And I don’t even want to be with Isaac. Not this Isaac. After all that’s happened, all we’ve let happen to us. I know he’s not the person I want him to be. I know that, and Carter’s right, I’m in love with what we were not who he is. It doesn’t change it that I’m in love with something.”

  “You’re not, though,” Trevor observed. “You’re just holding on to it and telling yourself you are, so you can keep feeling hurt by it.”

  That sounded a little too familiar.

  “So, you just don’t want to get into it all again,” Skylar resolved for me. It was true. I didn’t want to put myself in a position where I could ever feel that wrecked again. But that was so cowardly. I wasn’t that person—I wanted to be loved, I wanted to feel happy, I wanted to love someone else.

  I wanted to try again.

  Didn’t I?

  “Some things are just better kept in your mind. They can’t go missing that way. Maybe he’s better as the one that got away.” I bit my bottom lip, instantly aware of the bruise that would definitely be there tomorrow.

  “You couldn’t possibly know that he would get away,” Skylar didn’t hesitate to answer. “I’m not saying you should date Carter or that you should never see him again. This is your life and you have to live with your decisions whatever they may be, so you might as well make them for yourself. But being in love is never the wrong choice because it’s not a choice. Either it’s your forever or it gets you to what will come next. It’s always a step in the right direction.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Seven Months In

  I let Carter take me on a date. This time, I was fully aware it was happening, and I didn’t fight him on any of it. I let myself enjoy it. I didn’t go to the place where I overthink, and I didn’t have to force myself to under-think. I just took it as it came.

  And it was a really great date.

  So Carter started taking me out a lot, and I relaxed into him. Like your favorite pair of jeans you’ve had for years, where there are now holes in all the wrong places instead of a trendy knee rip. Those jeans have been through a lot with you! Your first day of high school, the first time you got drunk at a football game, the time you stained them with ketchup at the diner when Billy McCoolGuy was sitting across from you, meeting your college roommates (who would eventually try to steal them), and going to Hogans for the first Thanksgiving break where you could legally drink (even though you’d been there in those jeans a million times pre legalization). But you have to finally face reality when you’re at the mall and your
jeans rip so badly that they turn into a loincloth. So you buy your next pair, thinking they’ll never measure up to THOSE JEANS—but the more you wear them, the softer they get, the more comfortable they feel, and the greater you think your ass looks in them. You even forget about the other jeans until you’re stalking yourself on Facebook, see a picture of yourself in them, and reminisce for a second about how skinny you were and why did you ever think you were fat, you would kill to be as skinny as you were when you thought you were fat.

  The new jeans have become the jeans.

  Three months later, Carter was becoming the jeans. I felt so good every day. I wasn’t anxious and crazy, waiting for something or someone to come along and fuck with my good vibes. It was a relationship that just felt cozy—I felt safe. We had two songs on the radio now, and whenever we did interviews or were asked questions by paparazzi, I’d blush and giggle when Carter introduced me as his girlfriend. We got photographed holding hands, and the tabloids were using my real name now—which apparently only happens when they think you’re enough of an item to do some pre-print research on you. It was a relationship with both the most and the least pressure on it. The world wanted everything from me—when were we getting married, when were we breaking up, when were we cheating?

  He wanted nothing from me other than to eat breakfast with him in the morning.

  My friends and family were over the goddamn moon about it for lots of reasons. One, he was Carter Coleman, the object of all of our affections at one time or another…or he had been in a boy band with the object of our affections at one time because we couldn’t all have liked the same guy. It’s against like the code of feminism. Two, he wasn’t Isaac, which made everyone happy.

  “Just because a guy is good to you at night doesn’t mean he’ll be good to you in the morning,” my mother pointed out to me after telling me in detail how thrilled she was that I was finally leaving him in the past.

  “Thank you, Mom. Thank you so much. I will remember that…mostly because no one has made enough soap yet for me to be able to wash my brain out.”

  Then there was the night he took me out for my birthday.

  I turned twenty- three, which was slightly panic-inducing because, as we all know, no one likes you when you’re twenty-three. But he took me to a steak house that barely lets Kim Kardashian in, it’s so new. I also loved the fact I basically had to order a steak because who orders a salad at a steak house. And ya girl loves her some steak, which Carter knew. He brushed the tops of my ring and pinky fingers with his own as he talked to me throughout dinner, so lightly it was barely noticeable, and I almost doubted that he knew he was even doing it.

  The restaurant was right next to a little outdoor plaza where people were late night shopping and getting dessert. We walked around after eating, and there were a few fire pits going, set up haphazardly around the walkways. It was late and dark, so it was a little chilly (even though the New Englander in me hates me for saying that because the 50s there are considered tropical in the winter). Carter stood behind me with his arms tight to my sides. His hands covered my hands in my pockets, his chin rested on my head, my face was warm from the fire. If this was the last moment I ever got in my life, I would be okay with that.

  We went back to his house, and I thought that was it. I thought I’d get ravished, as any girl should on her birthday. But when we got inside, his table was set for two with a bouquet of peonies and a bottle of champagne, bathed in just candlelight and moonlight. Carter led me to the table. I was laughing softly out of disbelief and a little bit of awkwardness at this whole night. A man in a chef’s jacket came out of the kitchen to place a tall glass in front of each of us and wish me a happy birthday.

  “You really did enough, Carter. What is all this?”

  “I thought for dessert we’d do champagne.” He gestured to the bottle in the center of the table. “And strawberries—but in milkshake form, since they’re your favorite.”

  “You had a chef come in to make me a milkshake?”

  “C’mon, that’s ridiculous,” Carter stepped around me to pull my chair out. I couldn’t see his smile, but I knew it was practically jumping off of his face. “He prepped a bunch of stuff for me to make breakfast in the morning, too. And of course there will be mimosas. Do I know my girl or what?” When he turned around, there was the smile. It leapt from his mouth to mine, and I reached up to kiss him.

  I coulda, shoulda, woulda fainted at that exact moment, but the milkshake was calling my name. It was the most magical birthday I’d ever had—and my twenty-first birthday was on a Manhattan rooftop with sparklers in the champagne, confetti in the air, and the Empire State Building in the background of every picture. I thought that would be pretty tough to beat. But all of this plus a surprise brunch in the morning? Everyone who knows me at all knows that a drunk brunch is the purest and fastest way to my heart.

  Then, of course, I was ravished. And I did some ravishing myself, and despite the fact that I should’ve felt like a bloated cow after all the eating, I had never felt more beautiful. So I went a little nuts. Guys, just a heads up (pun kinda intended). Making a girl feel sexy is the best way to get the best sex of your life, so what’s good for her is good for you.

  When I woke up the next morning, still flushed and naked from the night, the world still dark, as if it wanted to let me believe the best night of my life hadn’t ended yet, I rolled over to see Carter asleep. Our faces were just inches from each other, his lips a little open, and his breath mingled with mine to the point where I didn’t know whose air I was breathing. I knew it then, but in a way that told me I had already known for a while.

  “Fuck,” I whispered into my hair, which was spread out on the pillow.

  His eyes fluttered open at my voice, blinking heavily and slowly as if keeping himself partially in a dream. I smiled, not having meant to wake him but happy to have him looking at me.

  “I love you,” I said. I could’ve just been saying what was on TV or what color the sky was. Matter-of-fact, obvious, simple.

  He pulled me in and kissed me. We made breakfast together and drank champagne from the bottle, and I fell in love all day.

  ***

  So then I asked Carter for something, and it could’ve been the bravest thing I’d ever decided to do or the dumbest.

  “Do you want to come home with me?” I threw it out casually one day while we were working on a new song that felt like it was going nowhere.

  “You want to stay at your place tonight?” He strummed mindlessly.

  “No…home to Connecticut.”

  The music stopped. He smirked at me.

  “My mom’s been begging me to come home…and they can’t all get out here at the same time with their schedules,” I continued. “I was thinking we could go for a long weekend or something.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  “It’s a pretty lame place, but my friends are all still around, so it can be okay…”

  “I can’t wait,” Carter said, seemingly genuinely eager about the prospect. “I can’t wait to finally meet your friends, and see your house, get the whole Josie Morris experience.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “Do You Think About Me Now And Then?”

  To say Molly and Ellie were excited was a bigger understatement than calling Jennifer Lopez’s ass big. I wish I could say that it was all about me, but I had a sneaking suspicion they were just really thrilled that being my friend was finally going to pay off in a major way. When a person moves to California, the inevitable parting words from most people you know are, “Don’t forget the little people when you’re a big star!” Well…I was not a big star. I was dating a big star who had made me a small star. They were really just into the big star part.

  “We’re going to get to hang out with Carter Coleman?” Ellie shrieked into her phone when I FaceTimed them to deliver the news.

  “I’ll…you know, be there too. But yeah. Yes, you will.” I poked fun because I knew my friends wer
e happy that we would be together again. And I also knew how it felt when the coolness of it all had not yet worn off (kind of).

  “Obviously I can’t wait to snuggle the hell out of you, Jos.” Molly rolled over on Ellie’s bed, into the frame. “I just would prefer it if Carter was snuggled between us at the time.”

  I just laughed at my goofy, beautiful, perfect best friends and felt bubbles rise up inside me like I was a shaken bottle of Dom Perignon (and no, I would never just compare myself to a fucking diet Coke bottle or something because I have self worth). If I was heading to a place where it just wasn’t even a possibility that Aaron Paul was going to be in front of me in line for locally grown coffee, at least I knew I would be drinking cheaper, watered down Connecticut coffee out of the chipped mugs Molly had painted for her mom in kindergarten with my favorite people in the world.

  “But really, how’s it going with Carter? Has he started displaying the classic boy qualities that eventually turn us against the whole lot of them for a brief moment?” Ellie questioned.

  “Until we get so dizzyingly horny that we have to go back on our blood pacts to swear off all men,” Molly pointed out. As only Molly would.

  I thought about how to best tell them that no, Carter was an unanticipated curve away from all of that. He was a boy in all the right ways—laughed at stupid YouTube things, sometimes forgot I was there when basketball was on, smelled like soap and sweat and, somehow, woodwork though I’d never seen him build anything, and he was definitely a man in all the better ways.

  ***

  “He always remembers to put the seat down. He thinks I’m funny. And he tells me I’m beautiful every morning like he’s never said it to me before.”

  I was talking to my sister on the phone about our flight details a few days later, a week away from our trip. Becca missed me probably more than anyone else because she was left alone to deal with our mother’s craziness and our brother’s quietness, both of which drove her insane. She had been more than thrilled to offer to pick us up at the airport, which wasn’t a surprise since all I had really heard from her since Carter and I had started dating was how she had “known all along” and “felt it coming” as soon as she’d met him. Which is why I had been more than thrilled to tell her that, thanks anyway, Molly and Ellie had asked to get us. My sister liked to feel that she knew me so well that she knew what would happen in my life before I did. The family prophet. I let her predict and envision the different phases of my life, and I even let her feel mystically fulfilled when she thought she had been right. Because it was nice to have someone that wanted to know you inside and out, and it was nicer to feel that the future was out of my hands anyway.