“I want to see the new case files.”

My heels clack along the tile floors of our office, my staff in various stages of work. Justin is on the phone, arranging flights for one of our families. Gina was arranging marketing material and coordinating some press for a couple of events we would be attending.

And I was trying to fulfill the wishes of every child who applied to our nonprofit. I made it back to my desk, after one of my employees handed me four files, and laid them out in front of me. One was a little girl with Lupus, who wanted to travel to the American Girl Store in New York City. Another boy, a teenager with stage three leukemia, wished to go backstage at a Walk the Moon concert. And so on. The wishes never stopped, and neither did these terrible illnesses that I wished I could stop.

I wish there was more time, for them. But if there couldn’t be, I would create more time for myself. To grant each dream, to give them some sort of semblance of normalcy.

By the time I looked up, it was an hour and a half later. And lunchtime, which I often skipped.

As if reading my mind, Farrah walked in with takeout bags. “You know, if you don’t eat, you’ll just be useless at your job.”

I wipe a hand across my brow, my stomach grumbling. “That’s not true. One day I just drank about three pots of coffee, and I arranged for seven wishes.”

“I think that’s called being cracked out. Please, take a few minutes and eat.” She doesn’t give me a choice, just starts laying sushi containers out on top of the files on my desk.

“So, you haven’t wanted to go to the bar lately, huh?”

Her voice has an edge of already knowing something, and I feel like I’m walking into a trap.

It’s been two weeks since Paxton’s misleading setup in the park, and since then I haven’t been out to a happy hour with Farrah. Instead, the man who hadn’t ever called me back in college, was calling and texting me almost every second of the day. It was like he was overcompensating for all the times he’d done me wrong … and I couldn’t say that I didn’t enjoy it.

“I just haven’t felt up to going out recently,” I lie through my teeth.

No one knows about Paxton yet, not that we were together in college and not that we’re … dating, I guess, now. Technically, it’s only been two dates. One in the park and another dinner last week. He’d walked me to my car, I’d insisted on driving separately, and he hadn’t kissed me. It was both maddening and cute that he wanted me to approve it.

“Try again.” She shoves a piece of spicy tuna roll in her mouth.

“Excuse me?” I start to sweat.

Farrah shoots me a look like I’ve been caught red handed. “You’re blushing more. You look at your phone every ten seconds during the day. And I haven’t heard one of your ‘I’m better off alone’ speeches in a while. You’re dating someone, I just know it.”

But did she know who? It didn’t seem like it, so I pondered how to answer. I kind of wanted to talk to someone about it, and since I couldn’t call Chels because she would slaughter me, Farrah was my next best choice.

“You caught me.” I held my chopsticks up.

She laughed and pointed her finger at me. “I knew it! You’re so getting laid!”

I looked down, shaking my head. “Actually, I’m so not.”

Farrah gives me a pointed look, her eyes slanting. “Please explain.”

Sighing, I fill her in without telling her it’s Paxton. “I’m seeing this guy that … I have a past with. It’s super complicated, and I mean with a capital C. It’s like when you knot your favorite necklace into a thousand tangles and know you want to wear it, but can’t seem to figure out how.”

Farrah nods. “I fucking hate when that happens.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what is happening. And I like him, really like him … but, I feel like it’s too good to be true.”

Her face lights up and her mouth forms a big O. “Since I’ve known you, since I’ve been working here from the day you hired me five years ago, you’ve only had history with one guy. Are you dating Zachary?!”

I chuckle, because if only she knew how much I wished I could be completely happy dating my ex-fiancé. “No, it’s not him.”

Her face grows solemn. “So this is him, then?”

Panic seizes me, because maybe she does know that I’m seeing Pax. “Who?”

“The guy who fucked you up so royally that you’re no longer a whole person.”

It was blunt, so hard in its delivery that it was like a gunshot to my heart. Was I that broken, that deeply broken, that it showed in my every day interactions?

“How …?” I was so shocked she’d said that, that I almost couldn’t form words.

She sighed, setting down the piece of sushi she was about to eat. That was Farrah though, bluntly honest to form, so matter of fact that sometimes it was icy.

“Demi, besides Zachary, which I could see was doomed from the start, you’ve never dated one guy in the five years I’ve known you. I never said anything, because I wouldn’t want to be bothered about my past or love life and so I don’t do it to others, but you were fucking damaged. You couldn’t talk to a guy without a frown on your face by the end, and your trust issues extend into friendships as well. Did you know it took almost two years for you to actually accept an invite to drinks with me?”

I hadn’t, and that was sad. “I need to do this.”

Resuming her eating, she stuffed a roll in her mouth. “I know you do. If it allows you closure, I’m all for it. If you fall in love, if this is really your one, then you fucking deserve it. Like I said, I’ve never felt your aura be this happy.”

I choked on a piece of salmon at her use of such a homeopathic kind of diagnosis. “I wasn’t aware you could read auras.”

She nodded vigorously. “Oh yes, and yours is deep orange right now. That relates to the reproductive organs and emotions … means you’re having vigorous energy and creativity now with a dash of adventure and courage.”

I stare at her, dumbfounded. “I’m not even going to ask where you learned that.”

“Good idea. Now, would you stop bragging about your love life and let me get back to work.” Farrah rolls her eyes like she didn’t just ambush my office and force me to open up.

I laugh, throwing a file across my desk. “Let’s try to make this wish happen.”