I took a long sip of coffee. I smiled to myself because I realized it was the first time my mother had ever made me a cup of coffee. Usually, it was just iced tea or lemonade. Somehow, in the few months I’d been away, I’d transformed into an adult in her eyes, someone she could relax on the sofa with and confide in over coffee.

“I don’t know,” I confessed. “I thought I’d figured it all out, Mom. Everything with Roman… for the first time in my life, it felt so—”

“Right?”

I nodded. “I know we’ve only known each other for a short while, but it just felt exactly right. Not easy or comfortable, like it was with Tyler, but like I’d been waiting for him, and suddenly, there he was.”

“But not anymore?” she asked, warmth in her tone.

“No, that’s the problem. It would be much simpler if I didn’t feel this way… if I could just walk away and never look back. Even though I’m mad and hurt, I still want to run back to him. Why is that?”

“The heart can’t toss aside what it wants just because you’re hurting.”

I shook my head. “You don’t know what he did. You don’t understand.”

And so I made her understand.

I told her everything. From the very beginning.

I didn’t leave anything out—well, maybe the steamy bits. We’d shared enough of that for a lifetime. But the feelings I had for him, the guilt I felt for having feeling for my boss, Tyler’s betrayal… the blissful month that had followed with Roman.

And the day that had ended it all.

She listened patiently, asking questions and nodding her head at the appropriate times. When I’d finished, she took her time in formulating a response. I watched her hands reach for her lukewarm coffee, tenderly wrapping her hands around the worn cup, as she found the words that would no doubt make all the pain go away.

That was why I was here. To make the pain go away.

Moms did that after all. It was their superpower.

“What are you most mad about?”

I looked at her, dumbfounded. That wasn’t supposed to be her response. She was supposed to open her mouth and spout words of wisdom and superior knowledge, making me all better in a single sentence.

Instead, I got this?

“What am I most mad about? Everything,” I answered angrily.

“No, you’ve got to be mad about something specific, or you wouldn’t be here, asking me to figure it out for you. You’d be back in New York, fixing it all by yourself.”

I opened my mouth to retaliate and found no words.

Nada.

“So, answer me. Are you mad at Roman for deceiving you? At Tyler for betraying you? Or at yourself for getting into this situation?”