“Do you? Do you know what it’s like to have feelings for someone and them have feelings for you, but you can’t be together because the timing in life sucks? It just …” I rolled my lips between my teeth and shook my head. “Sucks.”

“I fell in love once. And the timing was all wrong. But love doesn’t care. Your heart doesn’t understand. And the scariest part is you want to believe that someday it will work, but you don’t know. You just don’t know. Will patience be rewarded? Will God answer your prayers with the answers you want? You tell yourself that if it’s meant to be … it will be.” She pushed a long breath out of her nose and offered a weak smile. “And sometimes the answer is yes. But sometimes the answer is no. So the most you can do is find love and life in every day. The one thing I can promise you is that life rarely goes in the direction we think it will. And that’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes it’s the most amazing surprise.”

My gaze affixed to Fisher on the porch. He was the most amazing surprise.

“I want to have this conversation with my mom. There have been so many moments over the past five years that I’ve thought, ‘I need my mom.’ And now she’s here, but I can’t talk to her. And I hate it because he didn’t take advantage of me. It wasn’t like that. And I know what you said about him being a man whore, but that wasn’t who he was with me.”

Rose gave me a look like she didn’t entirely believe me. Or maybe she believed that I believed what I said, but it was just my foolish heart, my naive eighteen-year-old brain blinded by my first real crush.

“Well, I’m glad that’s not who he was with you. That at least shows he had a little respect for Rory, but it’s not enough for her to overlook the obvious. He’s twenty-eight and you’re eighteen. He should have known better. He should have had self-control.”

I shook my head. “It wasn’t all him. Despite what everyone seems to think, I do have the ability to make grown-up decisions. Maybe I’m the one who pursued him.”

Rose lifted two sharp-peaked eyebrows. “Did you?”

With frustration filling my head and rekindling my anger, I shook my head. “I … I don’t know. It just … happened.”

“I know it’s not the same, but I’m here if you want to talk more.”