Page 81 of Loving Jemima
“But the last thing you want to hear about is how happy someone else is when you’re wallowing in your own misery?” said Mo sympathetically.
“Something like that,” sighed Ellie.
Mo leaned back in their chair. “You know you’ve got to change, Ellie. You know that whatever else you take away from this you’ve got to start getting out of your comfort zone, you’ve got to start grabbing life instead of just waiting for it to grab you.”
“I know, I know,” said Ellie, closing her eyes and leaning her head on the back of her chair. “I get that. I get that I had a taste of something I didn’t know I wanted and… well, found I wanted it, I suppose.”
“Except after what happened it might be easier to put the blinkers on and pretend that you never wanted it in the first place, that you shouldn’t have risked anything in the first place.”
“That was my initial reaction,” Ellie admitted. “But there has to be a balance, doesn’t there? I mean, I like to live life by the rules, and I should. I shouldn’t have gone out with Jem, I shouldn’t have let anything happen. Apart from anything else she’s the boss’s daughter. But then risk nothing, win nothing, right?”
“Right,” agreed Mo.
“So maybe there’s a mid point somewhere there where I break out of my comfort zone and meet new people who aren’t filthy rich and important to my job. You know, just a normal person.”
“Think you’d be happy with just a normal person?” Mo grinned. “I’m not sure I can see that. I think you might be on hold for someone special.”
Ellie groaned. “Lame. But fine. I get it. I get that I was supposed to learn a lesson here. I need to change, I’m just not sure how to change yet. Maybe I need to take a little time.”
“No thoughts of calling Jem?” asked Mo, raising an eyebrow.
“She dumped me by text.”
“Yeah, not the best. But then… she did have her own issues going on.”
“Not issues I need to be part of, I’m afraid. I knew better going into this thing. I would never force anyone to come out, but I also don’t want to be part of the drama and the secrecy. I’ve spent a long time being comfortable with who and what I am, I can’t go backward.”
Mo smiled a little. “I get that. I really do. But I also get that we’re not all perfect, El. It’s a struggle to be yourself, it always is. Do you think that there aren’t streets I avoid because I look the way I do? Even though I know that I should be proud and brave and strong, sometimes I just want to be… safe, I suppose.”
Ellie wanted to hug them. “You are proud and brave and strong, Mo. I can’t think of anyone who knows how to be themselves more than you.”
“And if I find that hard, how hard do you think someone like Jem finds it?”
She nodded. “Okay, okay. I get your point. But it’s moot. Jem is no longer around. I have learned the valuable lesson that I was supposed to learn. And…”
“And what?”
“I’ll join a dating app?”
“It’s a start, I suppose,” Mo said. “Just make sure you run potentials past Carys and me because we don’t want any weirdos in our little family.”
“That’s going to limit my options,” said Ellie dryly.
“Well, we’ve got enough to handle with you.”
“I’m perfectly normal.”
“Ah, yes,” said Mo. “But you’re planning on changing, remember? Breaking out of your comfort zone? Who knows what that might lead to.”
TALKING ABOUT CHANGE was all very well, actually doing it was something else entirely. Ellie was lying on the couch, Constable on her stomach, flicking through the dating app she’d downloaded.
It wasn’t that there weren’t any attractive women on it, it was just that… She sighed. It was just that none of them looked like Jemima. It seemed that the harder she tried to forget her, the more she thought about her, which really wasn’t the point of this project.
“Choose three women,” she said to herself.
Constable started to purr at the sound of her voice. And then both his eyes sprung open and he started to quiver. Ellie just had time to recognize something was wrong when the front door opened.
Holy shit. She’d forgotten to lock it. It was such a habit to leave it open that she hadn’t locked it when she came home.