The bookstore is sitting in front of me, but I’m not going in. I’m sitting in my car, just looking at the building like it’s a monolith. Inside this store is where my life took an unexpected turn, and I’m still riding down the unknown road it took me on. I don’t know where I’m headed, but I know that I need to get out of my car and walk through those doors. The book club starts in fifteen minutes.

Last time, I had to pop a pill before I went inside, but that was the old Lia. The new Lia does a quick Headspace meditation session in the car instead of drugging herself up. I plug in my headphones, open up the app, and let Andy’s voice carry me away for a few minutes. Many deep breaths later I open my eyes, and I feel centered. I’m ready to go in. I honestly don’t know what I’m so nervous about. Maybe it’s because I haven’t actually seen him in so long.

When I walk in the front door, I take a big, deep breath. The smell of books calms my nerves some, it’s still one of my favorite smells in the world. I actually haven’t been back here since the first book club session. Tonight’s another one, even though I know they’re not still reading It any more. I finished it myself over the past couple of weeks. The book was giant, but I decided to just read a little at a time, each night before bed, and eventually I got through all thousand pages of that giant book. I’ll have to tell Brandon when I see him.

I decided to come here because it’s book club night, and I know he’ll be here. I’m a few minutes early, so I check out the book club area. The seats are out in a circle, but there are only one or two people there getting a head start on next week’s assignment. I watch them for a second, thinking about the last time that I was in those chairs, and then I decide to explore a little bit before the session actually starts. I haven’t seen Brandon yet. I hope he’s here tonight and that I can surprise him.

Of all places in the store, I end up in the mental health section. It must be subconscious. I didn’t plan on coming back here, it’s like my feet just carried me here. I’m standing right by the table where all the new paperbacks are. It’s funny—as I read the titles I realize that Brandon’s sent me a bunch of them as part of his daily presents, but only the good ones. I start rifling through them, looking at the ones that I don’t already have—scouring through all the titles as I wait to see him.

It’s just as I read the blurb of the paperback in front of me that I hear his deep voice. “That’s a good one,” Brandon says. “I think some of what they say is a little self-helpish, but there’s some good information in that. Can I help you with anything?”

“I don’t know,” I say, not turning around just yet. “Do you work here?”

“Only part time. I run the book club here. I’m the president.”

“The president?” I ask, pretending to be really excited. “That sounds really important. Is that an elected office?”

“No,” he jokes. “I just kind of got it because no one else wanted it, actually. But it’s still really fun.”

“You know I’ve only known one other book club president in my life. He was cool.”

“We’re usually a pretty cool bunch of people. Not to mention really sexy and good looking.”

“Nah,” I say. “This guy was ugly. Looked like a troll. And really bad breath, too. He was kind of hideous actually. That’s why I dropped out of his group.”

“Oh yeah, what were they reading?”

“Do you know Stephen King?”

“I’m familiar, yes.”

“Have you ever heard of the book It? We were reading that. I didn’t finish it in the club, but I finished it on my own just this past week.”

“Oh, yeah? How did you like it?” he asks.

I turn around for the first time, ending our little game and looking Brandon in the eyes for the first time in two months. He looks good. Really good. I set my eyes on his. I’d forgotten that tone of gray mixed with blue. They’re haunting eyes, even more so when he’s sad, but right now he’s smiling, and his face is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. “Amazing,” I tell him, not really talking about the book at this point. “It was amazing.”

“Well I’m glad to hear that. I love it, too. I love it so much.”

I drop the facade. I didn’t know how it would feel to see him—whether I’d be happy or sad, whether I’d feel the same about him as I did a few months ago, or if everything would have fizzled away to nothing. Nothing’s fizzled at all. If anything, I feel even stronger towards him. “You look so good.”

“I’m nothing compared to you,” he tells me. It’s not a line, he means it. He really means it. I’ve missed the intensity of his gaze—of the way he looks at me like I’m the only woman who he’s ever seen. I need that look back. “I’m really happy you came here tonight.”

“I almost didn’t. I wasn’t sure that it was the right thing to do.”

“And now?”

“Now I know that it was.” He smiles at me. He’s trying to restrain his enthusiasm. I know he wants to pick me up and parade me around the store, but he has his duties to attend to. “Do you wanna go somewhere after book club? Like a diner or something?”

“Are you asking me out, Ms.?”

“I am. I’m a modern woman. Meet me there afterwards? I’m going to browse some books in the meantime.”

“I will.”

I shop for about thirty minutes and buy a couple of new fiction books that I’ve heard good things about. After that I sit in my car, listening to music and reading a little of each book. When I know book club is over I head over to the diner across the block. I know he’ll be over before too long.

When he comes in he scans the room. He looks around frantically until he sees me, and then he gives me that smile again before coming over to me. “How was book club?” I ask.

“Terrible. I felt like a high school teacher. No one did the reading this week, and they all tried to hide it, as if I can assign them detention or something. It was strange. Why sign up for a book club if you’re not going to read the book?”

“Fair question,” I say. “People behave in all sorts of weird ways, you know?”

“So I’ve heard.” The waitress comes over and we each get a coffee. I’m not in the mood to eat anything, and apparently neither is he. I just need to talk to him. “It’s great seeing you, Talia. I wasn’t sure that I ever would again.”

“Really? You thought I wouldn’t contact you again?”

“It was probably just my fear, my insecurity about us, but you of all people know how real those feelings can be.”

“I certainly do. I’d never do that to you. Even if it was over between us, I’d tell you.”

“Is it?” he asks. “Over between us? Is that how we end? Two months of self-discovery and a blow off at a local diner?”

He looks so sad, but he’s trying not to. All it would take is a single word of ‘yes’ right now to shatter his heart and leave him broken. But I can’t be with him for that reason—I can’t be his girlfriend to save him pain, or to pity him. No. If I’m going to be with him it has to be pure. It has to be for the right reasons.

“It’s not over between us at all, Brandon. Are you kidding? How could I? I never doubted us. I doubted myself. I had to make sure that I was me—the real me—before committing to everyone else. It’s not over. I think it’s just beginning, actually.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure. You can ask me anything you want.”

“Can I kiss you right now, or is that breaking the rules?”

I smile. I’ve missed his lips so much. “I’ll be angry with you if you don’t. And the rules have changed. We have a new set of them now, and that includes kissing me at all times.”

“All times? So, like now?”

“Especially like now, Brandon.”

He comes over to my side of the booth and kisses me. My body ignites at the touch of his lips, and in one moment the relief of two months of their absence comes swelling over me. When we break apart I feel empty, and I wonder what I was ever thinking sending him away. He goes back to his side and reaches across the table to grab my hand. “I love you, Talia. I always have.”

Those words penetrate my tough exterior, and they shoot right into my very soul. On some level, I’ve been waiting to hear them for a long time, and when I do something interesting happens inside of me—I feel good. I don’t worry about reciprocation, or pressure to feel a way that I don’t, or panic that those words mean something I’m very afraid of. When he tells me that he loves me it feels right, like the words had been missing from the conversation between us, and there was only one thing left for me to say.

“I love you, too, Brandon. I love you, too.”

I don’t know what the future is going to bring for Brandon and me. This isn’t happily ever after, this is the possibility of happily ever after, and that’s just fine with me. I’m tired of guarantees, because my guarantees were always bad ones. I want to keep getting better, and I want to discover how far the new versions of Brandon and I can go. I can see us together in fifty years, our grandchildren visiting us at our upstate vacation house. It’s an easy image, and an even easier thing to want so bad. I hope that we get there. I believe that we will.

In a way, Brandon and I have had two different relationships. The first time he fell in love with not-really-me, with the Lia I pretended to be. And in many ways, I fell for a broken man who was afraid to tell me about the demons he was struggling with. But something crazy happened along the way. At some point, we met each other for a second time—the real versions of ourselves. I think we really met for the first time tonight, and I’m excited to see where the future is going to take us. More than the certainty of our future, one thing means even more to me.

Brandon loves me. He loves the me that I became. He loves Talia.

I think I’m starting to love me also. I never thought I’d say those words out loud.