“Are you serious right now?”
“As seriously as a heart attack.”
Her eyes flashed with momentary emotion, and for a second it almost looked as if she were going to cry? Did I say something wrong? It didn’t take long for that look to evaporate from her eyes and she gave me a lopsided smile.
“Why do I feel as if this is the best and worst idea in the whole wide world?”
“Uh, because it is the best and worst idea in the whole wide world.” I leaned in toward her. “Say yes?”
She nuzzled on her bottom lip, hesitating as she fell into deep thought. She released a weighted breath and shrugged. “All right…yes. I’m in.”
“Hell yeah! This is going to be fun. I do have a few questions for you, though. To help me figure out the best direction to take this challenge.”
“Like?”
“Do you care what others think of you?”
“Absolutely.”
“Are you a people pleaser?”
“I aim to please.”
“Do you ever say no when asked to do something?”
“Oh gosh no. I like people to like me.”
I shook my head. “What if I told you that people don’t actually like you, but they like what you do for them?”
Her eyes flashed with an intense vulnerability. “Well, that would make me very sad.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I think people only do like me because of what I do for them. And if I don’t do things for them, then they probably wouldn’t like me very much. Which means…I’d be lonely.”
“Red…that’s ridiculous. You are the most likeable person on this whole planet. But people take advantage of that because you are too good. So, I’m going to teach you to set boundaries.”
She wiggled her body around. “That makes me uncomfortable.”
“Good. It should. We aren’t here to be comfortable; we are here to grow. And believe me when I say, once you fall in love with yourself, the right people will come who expect nothing from you at all.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.” I tossed a few fries into my mouth. “I think for research perhaps we need to look into why you ended up with someone like Jason to begin with.”
“That’s easy…I loved his parents so much and the feeling of family, that I lied to myself about who he really was.”
“Why did you lie to yourself, though? I don’t get it.”
She tilted her head, seemingly baffled by my confusion. “Because the lie felt more comforting than the truth, and if I didn’t have that lie, then I’d be alone.”
“What’s so scary about being alone?”
“Everything,” she confessed. “Everything’s scary about being alone.”
That made me sad for her, because I knew what loneliness felt like. Maybe not as deeply as her, because I was pretty content with my loneliness. Sometimes I’d have women come into my life for random flings, but I’d learned to enjoy my own company.
“I’d rather be alone by myself than lonely with someone else,” I told her. She smiled, but it felt so sad. I reached across to her and took her hands into mine. “Red, by the end of this, you’re going to be stronger than you ever thought. You’re going to wake up and feel full without the need of another soul, but it will take some time. I’ll be right here beside you, too. You’re going to be confident, and strong, and not take anyone’s bullshit even if their lies feel a bit comforting. You’re going to learn quickly that it’s so much better to sit in moments of ugly truths than swim in beautiful lies.”
28
Aaliyah
“There is no way in hell I’m putting that on,” I said, standing in the living room with my hands on my hips. It had only been twenty-four hours since Connor had become my life coach, and he had already lost his freaking mind.
“Oh, yes the hell you are.”
There he was, standing in the middle of his home, wearing a banana outfit. He was grinning ear to ear like a dork as he held my costume in his hand—a plum.
“You’re insane.”
“Yes,” he agreed, then he held the costume out toward me. “Now get dressed.”
“No way. I refuse to become a plum.”
“If you’re interested, I have a peach costume in my bedroom,” he offered with his devilish smirk.
“Where did you even get these?”
“Amazon Prime, same day shipping.”
Thanks a lot, Jeff Bezos.
He began shaking his banana around as he came toward me. “Come on, Red. You had no problem exploring New York with me two years ago in costumes.”
“That’s because it was Halloween night! Everyone was in costumes.”
“Since when do we care what everyone’s doing?”
“Uh, since forever?”
He walked toward me, with his banana end poking me in the side. “Which is exactly why we are going to do this. We are going to step outside of the mode and do what no one else is doing. We are going to make fools of ourselves, because the more comfortable we become with being uncomfortable, the more comfortable we will end up.”
I blinked a few times. “Nothing about what you said made any sense.”
“All I’m saying is, we are going to have a fun day being weird and exploring town dressed as sexually charged fruits, because we don’t care what other people think of us. Life is too short to not have fun and dress up like fruit on random Saturday nights.”
“You’re so weird.”
“Yes.” He held the costume out toward me. “Now, go get dressed.” I parted my lips to argue some more, but he placed his finger against my lips, shushing me. “You promised you would let me coach you. Now, come on. Let’s get this going.”
Reluctantly, I put on the plum outfit, and came out feeling like a complete fool. I was round, plump,
