If I Never Met You

by Mhairi McFarlane

sometimes the fact they were great sent me spinning off even harder in the opposite direction.”

“They are messing up. This is their inadequacy. Don’t put it on yourself.

“If you ever believe that, you’ll be completely unstoppable. I kind of hope you don’t.”

Those who said family mattered above all else were wrong. People you love, who love you back, matter above all.

Jamie turned around and hugged Laurie to him. It felt like he absorbed her anxiety, defused it.

Why had she been in denial about her dad for so long, and accommodated so much?

No matter how many times she explained it, Dan didn’t get it.

Jamie got it. She could hear his voice in her head now, clear as a bell.

She valued him, his perspective on things. She felt like he valued her.

Jamie If you’re a mistake you’re the greatest one ever made. I’m really proud to know you. xx

this is a warm friendship. He cares. And you’re vulnerable, and

The clear difference that Megan offered, compared to her: uncomplicated adoration. Dan was running the show and being made to feel in charge and manly.

Dan saying resentfully: “You’re so bloody clever, you are.”

“I’m more OK than I’ve been in a long while, and I have no idea how or why.”

“I told you when you started to believe in yourself, you’d be unstoppable.”

Laurie thought about how she’d go home alone, but wasn’t really lonely anymore.

Or if she was, it was only in passing, not as a constant state. Her powers were returning.

now she got to choose a future for herself. It was exhilarating.

“Sometimes I think your opinion of me is as bad as everyone else’s at this company.”

The moment her fingers closed around his, she felt a jolt of something, an aliveness where she was acutely conscious of every point of contact between their bodies.

Laurie had been in proximity to Jamie numerous times, yet there was something in this moment, this sustained embrace,

how would she know he had genuinely wanted to kiss her? Did she want someone to pretend to want to kiss her, however well he did it?

I only wanted to be some kind of friend

he was looking back at her with a completely intent, lovestruck expression she knew she’d try to hold on to in her mind’s eye

What would success feel like to you? She could finally answer that: self-respect. It felt like not caring anymore.

“I didn’t think I’d ever be this person,” Megan said eventually. “Neither did I,” Laurie said. “And I didn’t have a choice about it.”

She felt a wash of confusion, yearning, and rivalry.

Laurie wouldn’t do this, she refused to do this. She wouldn’t break her own heart in the style of a raving idiot.

she had no cause to criticize him for being who he was, and she was glad of that. She wanted to keep liking him.

“Single,” Laurie said. It now felt natural to say it. Even positive.

“Singlehood. I’m quite nervous about the idea of being with someone new.”

“Thank God it was only me who saw, I guess. And I don’t matter.” “Well. Neither do I.”

“What does that mean?” “I don’t know.”

“Lovely house,” he said, glancing around. “Thank you, I’m still paying for it,” Laurie said, smiling. “Maybe in more than one way.”

I am scared about what he’s going to say.

You know when you want to do something totally out of character? The fact I’d never kiss someone like that or do something like that. That was why. It was spontaneous stupidity. That was all.”

She saw that look again in Jamie’s eyes. That look of starstruck fondness she wanted to see so much and didn’t trust.

“When we were dancing together, it felt like two people who are much more than friends.” He paused. “It’s the closest I’ve felt to anyone in my entire life.” That, in a nutshell, was what Laurie felt.

“When the song finished, you gave me this look, this look like we were . . . actually in bed together, or something, this total intimacy that I felt too,

“I don’t want to pretend anymore. I want to be together. Somewhere along the line this stopped being a pretense for me.”

meant everything I said. I felt what I felt before I knew what I felt, you know what I mean?”

I thought because I’d never experienced it, it didn’t exist. It’s not being out of your mind. It’s being in it, it’s complete certainty.

When I’m with you, I know I’m where I belong. I want this to be real, Laurie. I want you to be mine. I want to be yours.”

“I think you feel the same way, but you won’t trust it, or me, because of who I was when you met me.”

I’d risk anything for what I felt between us tonight.”

“I’ve only recently mended myself. I don’t feel so brave,”

I’ll be brave for both of us. Kiss me. Afterward you can tell me that there’s not enough here worth taking a chance on,...

when his lips met hers, he was right: Laurie forgot every single objection she had.

finally gave in to longing she had no idea she could still feel—no, that she could ever feel; this was something a few leagues above her and Dan’s most intense early years.

“I can only make you a promise.”