Jessa James - Kiss Me Again

“You work too hard, and you don’t ever see anyone but me. For God’s sake Lucy, you’re only twenty-two! You need a life. You can’t keep living like a hermit! We are supposed to be out there having fun, meeting guys, getting swept off our feet!”

I growled at her and she laughed again. “Alison, I don’t have time for fun or casual encounters, let alone a crappy app which will just waste more of my time. I don’t have enough clients as it is, and if I don’t keep hustling I will never make this business pay.”

Alison threw up her hands at me in despair.

“I need to do this Ali. I love my interior decorating work, but it cost me a lot of money to take my exams, and you know I’m still trying to finish my postgrad work off – which means more fees, and more materials for my portfolio work. I am really struggling to make ends meet as it is. If I take any time out right now I will lose everything I have worked so hard for,” I said and sighed.

“Honey, I know just how hard you work. I see you every night hunched over those books and magazines, sketching and making up mood boards for your classes and your clients, but look at you.” She got up from our battered couch and dragged me to the mirror in the hallway. “Look, you are skin and bones, and have bags under your eyes that a new mom of quintuplets would be proud of.”

I tried not to look because deep down I knew she was right. I’d been avoiding reflective surfaces for months now. I wasn’t taking care of myself and it showed. My once lustrous and curly auburn hair was tied back in a greasy ponytail. I hadn’t been able to afford to get it cut in over six months. And my clothes were hanging off me. I so rarely found the time during the day to eat at all, let alone make a healthy choice if I did, and my skin looked pale and gray from all the time I spent trapped indoors.

“Okay, so I’m a bit of a fixer-upper, but couldn’t you have at least let me get fixed before you signed me up to a dating app?”

“Just take a little look through. You can’t keep mooning over the past and letting it get in the way of your future, Luce.”

She had never dared to be so blatant before. There had been hints, sure, but she had never come out and said it like that. She was talking about Cole of course. Just one of the taboo subjects around me, and I hated her for making me think about him, about any of that stuff from back then.

Gorgeous Cole Kent who had made high school bearable, who hadn’t left my side when my mom died of cancer, who had been the cutest and sweetest boy I never got to kiss more than once. My best friend, my rock, and the guy everyone else would have to live up to and never could – right up until he became my stepbrother and my entire world crumbled into dust.

Alison kissed me on the forehead and pulled on her coat. “Think about it Luce, maybe it’s time to let go of the past and at least have some fun in the present. And don’t yell at me again,” she said hurriedly as she saw me about to try and defend myself. “I know what happened back then, and I know how much it hurt you. But, you can’t let it fester any longer. For God’s sake, get some help, go out on a date or two, and build a life that makes you happy so you can really leave it in the past if that is truly where you want your family to belong. Stop dragging it all around with you like a giant ball and chain all the time. Not for me, but for yourself. You don’t deserve to be so damned unhappy all the time.”

Her words penetrated my weak defenses. God, I hated it when she was right.

She opened the door, and looked at me tenderly. “I love you Luce, and you deserve better than you are letting yourself have. I’ve got to go to work, but think about what I’ve said while I’m gone, please?”

I nodded, but knew that this conversation would be shoved down into the file marked ‘Just Don’t Go There’ in my head, at least not yet.

I slunk back into the living room, and crashed heavily onto the couch. Thoughts about Cole started to escape the confines of the locked box where I had imprisoned my entire past. I tried to banish them back into the black hole, but the harder I tried the more they just kept bursting like bubbles in front of my tired eyes.

He had been one of those guys who was just simply perfect. Though deep down inside beat the heart of an all-out geek, he was also a bit of a jock, a swimmer. He had sun-kissed skin all year round from being in the pool every day, his back a perfect V of muscular perfection. His washboard abs made everybody drool.

All the girls were hot for him, including me, despite his reputation for being super smart and an IT wiz. But, he was also the kindest and sweetest boy alive and my very best friend. God dammit, I missed him so much more than I ever wanted to admit.

Mom, Dad, and I had been so close. I think when you are an only child – especially one your parents described as a miracle baby following years of struggling to conceive – your relationship with them is much more intense. My mom was the best, and she always had time for me. She encouraged me to develop my love of art and crafts, let me help when she decorated the house, and made me believe that anything was possible if you wanted it badly enough. Dad, a carpenter by trade, taught me how to use hammers and drills, and inspired me to use up any spare wood lying around in the garage to create whatever I wanted.

Our home was full of laughter, and love. Oh, how I longed to go back to that time, when everything was simple and uncomplicated… and when I had Cole.

But then the cancer came.

It permeated every minute of each day, as we watched Mom grow weaker and more unwell. And then she was gone, and I didn’t know what to do anymore. I was a shell, held carefully together by Cole’s tenderness, but then he was taken away from me too.

All because of my dad and Stephanie, Cole’s Mom.

Dad was just as lost as I was, and if it hadn’t been for Aunty Steph – who was not really an aunt, she was my Mom’s best friend – I think he would have disappeared wholly into his grief, too. And soon, everything changed; too much and too quick, and there was no way back.

Ali was right about that. I had to stop letting it take me over; it was in the past and I needed to find a way to make it stay there. Therapy would probably be the best bet, but dating suddenly seemed an easier option and cheaper at that.

I picked up my cell and clicked on the “Wooed and Won” app Alison had downloaded onto it. I grinned when I saw she had chosen a great picture of me, thank god. It was the one from my graduation from the Rhode Island School of Design. I looked so happy and proud. It was everything I had ever dreamed of, and I had worked so very hard for it – but as I looked closely at the snapshot, my grin faded, and I realized there was a haunted look in my eyes. I remembered seeing my fellow students with their families all around them that day, and having had a tiny pang of regret that my own would never know that I had achieved my dreams. I had convinced myself that it was their loss, but even now I was beginning to think it just might be mine.

I shook my head free of the memories and flicked the screen nonchalantly, scrolling past the list of names and pictures. I had been so right, and almost exited the app in disgust. Most were either complete sleaze balls or absolute nerds. A plethora of heavy-framed glasses and Lotharios with hairy chests and medallions gazed back at me. I laughed. What was that about in this day and age?

This was no way to meet the love of your life, like picking out a dress from a catalogue. The analogy made me smile. I so often tried to buy clothes online or from a catalogue because I hated to shop, but I sent most of them back because they just didn’t fit, or weren’t as nice as they’d looked in the pictures. It would appear that online dating would be much the same – yet if these guys looked any worse in the flesh, or were even more boring than their profiles suggested, yikes!