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      Eleven

      Self-esteem take a hit? Get past the hurt and move on. Find a new activity or group to get involved in. Exercise! Walk! Look in the mirror every day, and say, “I like that person looking back at me.”

      —excerpt from The Modern Woman’s Guide to Divorce (And the Joy of Staying Single)

      Ivy flung open the bedroom door and peered down the length of the hallway. No Dillon. But a narrow sliver of light shone through his partially open door like an written invitation. She marched down the hall, intent on barging in on him before he had the chance to do the same to her.

      Rather than knock, since such gestures hadn’t been high on his list of priorities, she shoved the door open and stepped right inside.

      The first thing she noticed was the binders and loose papers strewn across the bed. The second was Dillon sitting in the middle of it all, back propped against the headboard, reading some official-looking document. He didn’t look as though he was preparing to barge in on her anytime soon.

      “Problem?” he asked, watching her expectantly.

      She just stood there, mouth hanging open, probably looking like a trout stuck on a hook. He was wearing a pair of jogging pants, a Texas A&M T-shirt, and his feet were bare.

      He really hadn’t been going anywhere. When he said he was going to his room to stay, he’d been telling her the truth. He hadn’t been planning to bug her after all.

      He set down the papers he’d been reading. “What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue?”

      She said the first thing that popped into her head, and she said it with…enthusiasm. “I am very happy with my life.”

      He shrugged, looking more than a little confused by her outburst. “Okay.”

      Now what? Now that she’d just made a complete ass out of herself. “I just wanted you to know that. Because I’m finding out that some people don’t think I am.”

      “Really. Do these people have names?”

      “That’s not important. The thing is, these people seem to think that my unresolved issues with you are holding me back somehow.”

      He folded his arms across his chest, looking intrigued now. “Oh, yeah?”

      “In case you’re wondering, they’re not. But, to shut them up, I’d like us to sit down and talk and figure out what it is that’s unresolved, and resolve it. Without arguing or fighting,” she added. “In other words, I want us to get along.”

      “There’s only one problem with that,” he said. “Your idea of getting along is when I shut my mouth and agree with everything you say.”

      The accusation stung, and she was about to snap right back at him when she realized that would only start a fight. If they were going to do this she had to be willing to listen to what he had to say, even if it was sarcastic and snotty. May be it was the only way he knew to communicate his feelings.

      “So what you’re saying to me is that you feel I don’t listen to you.”

      He narrowed his eyes at her, as though he wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. “Active listening, right?”

      The man never ceased to surprise her. “How do you know that?”

      “I did go to a few of my classes, you know. And I dated a psychiatrist a couple of years ago.”

      “Then think how easy this will be.”

      “For some reason I doubt that,” he said. “You sure you want to do this? You want to dredge up the past and try to sort it out after all this time?”

      She did and she didn’t. All she knew was that Deidre’s thinking she was unhappy was an annoyance, but hearing the same thing from Miranda had scared her a little. And though she’d denied it, deep down she couldn’t help wondering if they were right. What if they were seeing something she wasn’t? What if there was something better out there and she was missing it? What if all this time she’d just been slogging through life, not really living it?

      “We at least should try,” she said.

      “You might not like what I have to say.”

      She was well aware of that. “I’ll take my chances.”

      “Okay,” he agreed. He gathered the papers and tucked them into the binder, then gestured for her to sit.

      She perched on the edge at the foot of the bed. “So, where do we start?”

      “Since we’re new to this communicating thing, May be we should practice first. May be we should try talking about something we never fought about.”

      That subject did not exist. “Dillon, we fought about everything.”

      “Not everything.”

      “See, we’re fighting already!”

      “This is not fighting. This is discussing.”

      “Name one thing in our entire relationship that we didn’t fight about.”

      “Money,” he said.

      “Money?”

      “Money was never an issue. You СКАЧАТЬ