I try my best to live in the moment. I take pictures of Paige on the zip line. Jane sends a few more texts. It’s a very tentative, polite conversation, but it’s good. If we’re going to be next-door neighbors for any length of time after this, we have to be able to chat.

My heart aches and aches.

He went too far, too fast. That’s the truth of the matter. Mateo Garza isn’t in love with me. A trip to Paris isn’t falling in love. Sleeping together isn’t falling in love. Knowing a person down to their core—that’s love. And Mateo has no idea who I am.

Bullshit, says the voice in the back of my mind. He might be the only one who knows you.

He’s the one who sat on the couch with me during Joe’s interview. He’s the one who saw me. He’s seen the sacrifices I’ve made and the things I’ve dealt with. He’s seen everything. Mateo has been there when no one else was.

When Paige was missing in Disneyland, he knew what I needed.

So what if he doesn’t know all the thousand incidental things that I haven’t had time to tell him? Maybe he doesn’t know what my favorite color is or what my all-time favorite restaurant is. What does that matter in comparison to the rest?

“Look, Mom. Mom. Mom!” Paige swings by again, one hand waving in the air. I wave back at her. Snap pictures. Worry.

What if it’s not him? What if Mateo isn’t the one who has this all wrong? What if I’m the one who has a distorted view of our situation?

What if I can’t love him the way that he loves me?

Like it or not, part of me is always going to be affected by my experiences with Rhys. I might always back away when I feel threatened. He would have to understand that. He would have to understand that it’s not him personally. It’s not his love that scared the shit out of me.

It’s my own.

The realization brings me up short. Paige shouts for me again, but I hardly see her as she speeds past me.

It’s not Mateo who scares me. It’s not even his confession of love.

It’s me.

All this writing and all this thinking I’ve done, and I didn’t see it. I didn’t see what I was hiding from.

I don’t trust myself. I don’t trust these feelings I’m having for Mateo because I don’t believe, deep down, that I know what the hell I’m doing when it comes to men. Beau wasn’t right for me, as much as I loved him. Rhys was dangerously wrong.

Mateo feels right.