“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing, that’s the thing. I didn’t have a chance to say a word before he had his tongue down my throat again.”
She squeaked and clapped excitedly like a little girl. “This sounds promising!”
“I don’t think he liked it.” The words left my chest with a whoosh.
“I highly doubt that was the case,” she assured me on a brow lift.
“He hasn’t touched me since, and we live in the same house.”
Her lips pursed, and she wiggled them around a bit. “Maybe he’s stone-cold confused?”
“I know I am.” I laughed and rolled my eyes. “So stone-cold confused that I feel like getting drunk and being wild.”
“Let’s do it!” She clapped enthusiastically, but I did the thumbs-down.
“I can’t. I have to limit my alcohol due to my new medications.” I rubbed my face with exhaustion. “Doesn’t matter. He can’t be with a woman like me, so if he thought it was weird kissing me, then it probably solves a lot of problems.”
“Why can’t he be with a woman like you?” she asked, sitting up until her spine was ramrod straight.
“Besides the fact that I look nothing like those women?” I asked, motioning at her phone in her pocket.
“Those pictures are nothing but distractions,” she insisted with her hands waving around frantically. “If you noticed, none of those women, or any that he’s ever dated, have looked like you. There’s a reason for that.”
“He doesn’t like the way I look?” The suggestion was logical, but she didn’t go for it.
“No, Mathias is trying to pretend that he doesn’t like the way you look.”
“Yeah,” I sighed, “that’s what he said. I didn’t believe him either.”
She grasped my upper arm and held tight to it. “Honey, you have to understand that those women were distractions for him. He needed to be distracted from his feelings for you. That doesn’t make his decisions smart, but it does make them understandable.”
“Maybe, but what I don’t have is experience, Charity,” I lamented. “I’m still a”—I paused and glanced around, unsure who I thought was going to be eavesdropping—”virgin.”
I watched as her horse and wagon came to a screeching halt. “Wait. What?”
I held out both hands before dropping them back into my lap and hanging my head. “You can’t tell anyone,” I said immediately. “I don’t want anyone to know how pathetic I am.”
“Who said you’re pathetic?” She was serious when she asked too. “I don’t remember saying you were pathetic.”
“Someone my age surely should have had sex by now. It’s not normal.”
“I suppose that depends on who you ask. How long have you been in love with Mathias?” Her eyes searched mine, and she probably knew the answer before I spoke.
“Since I was eight. The first time I met Mathias, I had this visceral response to who he was. I didn’t understand it then, but I do now, painfully and deeply so.”
“Love at first sight. It’s a real thing.”
“I think it was more a connection of commonality even though we were from completely different backgrounds, if that makes sense.”
“That you both wanted the same things, and one of you had them but one of you didn’t?”
I thought about it in those terms for a moment. “Yes, but I also knew he would always make sure I had them too. Not just that day, week, or year, but forever.”
“Soul mates are a real thing too, Honey. He’s yours and you knew he would always take care of you.”
“And he has, just not in the way I had hoped.”
