I thought I hated that trait when it meant him realizing I was lying about not toilet papering the police station when I was 15.
But right now, I really fucking hate it when it comes to him determining how I feel about his only daughter.
But still, I think.
I think hard about the way people used to always laugh when I helped Zoe out of some stupid situation, like when she climbed too far up a tree and I was the one to help her down.
Zoe and Zander. One day that boy will get the hint.
And then I got the hint, and I don’t know if it was too late or she wasn’t ready, but the answer was no.
And then I spent ten years watching her date assholes. Spent ten years dating women who I always hoped would give me the thrill Zoe does, but they never did.
And then I give Thomas his answer.
“I’m not sure it does.”
Because I’m not.
If Zoe told me tomorrow that she wanted to be mine and wanted to make it official, I’m not sure I wouldn’t take her to Vegas on the next flight.
“Great, perfect,” he says, slapping me on the back. “You’ve got a week.”
And then he leaves the room, off to do God knows what, leaving me standing right where he left me, confused beyond belief.
I’m not sure how long I stand there thinking over the past and the present and a potential future before I shake my head, grab my shit, and head out.
And then I go to the only place I can think of that might help me make sense of this mess.
THREE
ANTI-HERO
-ZOE-
“This is so depressing,” I say into my phone, staring at my ceiling. Two days ago, I lost my mind and atom bombed my life.
I broke up with my boyfriend of a year, a man I’d been living with for three months, because he made me feel just . . . blah.
I quit the soul-sucking job I’d been working to climb to the top of. For four years, I dedicated nearly every moment of my life, and it ended because my best friend showed me a box from my childhood.
Who the fuck am I right now?
“Why? I’m so excited you’re back home!”
“Lune, I was literally a forty-five-minute drive from you.”
“So? Now you’re here.” I sigh. “Now you can come over for sleepovers or drink at the bar with me any day.”
She has always been the optimist of the two of us.
I wouldn’t call myself a pessimist, though. More like a realist.
The world isn’t all sunshine and rainbows and happily ever afters once reality sets in.
Why set myself up for disappointment by assuming otherwise?
“Luna, I’m lying in my bed, staring at a goddamned One Direction poster on my ceiling.” Luna chokes out a laugh.
“Is Harry hot?”
“In the photo, he is quite literally a child, so no.”
“He was hot even as a child.”
“You’re really fucked in the head, you know that?” I say, but there’s a smile on my lips.
This is the perk of being back home.
My friends are here.
Sometimes, they feel like a lifeline.
Back in the city, everyone I knew had a persona—a perfected version of themselves they felt comfortable sharing, and I can only assume the real part was hidden away the same way mine was.
But here in Springbrook Hills, I’ve known most of these people since the day I was born. None of them have a secret personality hiding.
“Whatever.”
“Being here is just . . . depressing,” I say. “It’s like I never grew up. It’s a time capsule from my childhood.”
“That’s because if your mom changed anything, you’d go apeshit on her,” Luna says with a laugh.
“I would not,” I say, my brows furrowing.
Okay, maybe I would.
Maybe that’s my problem.
Maybe that’s why I can’t find a man, why I can’t settle down, why I can’t stick with a job that I love.
Maybe I’m broken.
The neurotic Type A in me that slowly started to take over my entire being in my twenties has only gotten worse with age.
But why am I so worried about this now?
“I think I’m going through a midlife crisis,” I say, and Luna laughs, the sound carrying despite the noise of the bar. She’s setting up for the day before she heads home to spend the night with her doting husband, who is also off the clock.
Because when Tony’s not working, Luna does everything in her power to be home with him.
I try not to let the tiny tug of jealousy on my soul pinch too badly.
“You’re not having a midlife crisis, Zoe.” I roll over onto my stomach and sigh, a giant Squishmallow under my belly.
“I have all the key markers,” I say. “I quit my job with no other job in mind. I dumped my boyfriend of a year—”
“He was boring,” Luna says. “So, not your forever guy.”
She’s not wrong.
Last week, I woke up in Luna’s guest room, just a bit hung over with the smell of bacon in the air. I lay there, listening to my best friend and the love of her life giggle quietly, my mind going over the night before.
The box.
MASH.
The realization that ten-year-old Zoe would be unbearably disappointed if she saw me right now. In that bed, I decided I needed to break up with the man I’d been dating for a year and living with for three months.
Jeffery was . . . fine. He was nice. He was handsome. He didn’t need to be reminded seventeen times to lift the seat every time he took a piss.
But he wasn’t . . . life-altering.
I didn’t look at him and feel my soul change a tiny bit each time he smiled at me.
When I tried, I could picture a future for us—two-point-five kids, probably in prep school. Two yearly vacations, some kind of family aesthetically pleasing dog that would be in all of our Christmas cards.
I could picture him giving in and agreeing to go to my family’s house for holidays, rescheduling the ones with his for another day because splitting holidays would be out of the question for my mom, but I didn’t see it as a point of tension.
We would have had a good life together.
But I don’t want a good life.
I want a spectacular life.
I want to know to my bones that whoever I finally land with was meant to be mine from the day I was brought on this Earth.
I want our kids to watch us dancing in the kitchen when we think they’re not looking, smiling as we do.
I want what my parents have—surety and love and a hint of frustration, but never doubt.
I want what Luna and Tony have—history and adoration and arguments that end in spectacular make-up sex.
I want what Hannah and Hunter have—trust and loyalty and kindness and the kind of man who would create an entire summer camp for me just because I mentioned it once in passing.
I want extraordinary.
And Jeffrey was . . . ordinary.
“And now I’m back to living in my childhood freaking bedroom, questioning all of my life choices,” I say, rolling to my back again and staring at Harry and Niall and trying to ignore my best friend's words.
“You’re not having a midlife crisis, Zoe. You’re not even thirty.”