"I just don't get it," Trisha battered on.

"That's because you hate your job," I grunted as I pried open one of the cardboard boxes now populating my childhood room. It sat atop a stack of other boxes precariously piled one on top of the other. When the masking tape finally gave way to my clawing, the entire thing shifted and then swayed. I instantly dropped into a squat and hugged the tower to stop its moving.

"You weren't over the moon about yours either," her voice lectured through my cell phone's speaker. "You said it was killing your love of reading, remember?"

"Only-sometimes-" I panted, suddenly unsure how to extricate myself from my current position without being crushed by boxes of books and clothing. I could just see the news headline now: Prince's Girlfriend Killed by Own Hosiery and Other Mundane Belongings.

I could feel Trisha's eye roll from 300 kilometers away. "But I loved working in general," I managed to grunt as I shifted my shoulders to readjust the looming weight. "And I liked the hustle of my job. Besides, I've always worked, and I've got no intention of not working."

She snorted. "And yet you're unemployed!"

"Hey!" I exclaimed defensively as I looked around the room for something that could help me. "That's only temporary!"

"Till you get a position at the local library? Or worse teaching literature at the local school?"

"What's so wrong with either of those?" I asked, experimentally lifting one finger from the strained cardboard, then another.

"Nothing's wrong with them," she huffed. "They're just not you!"

"They could be," I grimaced as I lifted a whole palm away.

"They couldn't be," Trisha declared rather passionately for someone who had never before this expressed any sort of passion for teaching or librarianship.

"And why not?"

"Because you'd be bloody miserable!"

I jumped at her sudden shouting and-seeing the middle box give to the right-scrambled up onto my bed just as the tower toppled onto the worn wood floor. On impact, several hardcover books spilled out, their pages splaying and their spines colliding with one another.

I sighed heavily as I flopped down on my bed, my back sinking into the old mattress. It had been three days since I'd taken the train home from London with my bags and boxes in tow.

Trisha had offered to make the trip with me and help me transport my things, but I'd quietly told her 'no.' I felt pathetic enough moving back in with my mum-I was a grown ass woman after all. I didn't want any witnesses to amplify my feelings of shame and embarrassment. And I think Trisha understood that because she didn't push me on it.

What she apparently couldn't understand was why I had left in the first place. We'd been going back and forth for ages, and still, she couldn't seem to wrap her head around it.

"Organizing the bookshelves and 'Mummy & Me' reading circles?" Her voice cried incredulously. "Lecturing horny adolescents about classic literature, knowing none of them has bothered to read any of your assignments? It'd be soul-sucking!"

I drew a deep breath and held it.

Mum at least had been delighted to see me on the platform, and I did my best to try to muster a grin to match hers. We went straight home, and she immediately set about preparing dinner while I began to schlep the boxes into my room.

My room was exactly the same as it had been when I left it-flower wallpaper, twin bed with a creaky brass bedframe, a small window looking out into the garden. The room would have been spacious and filled with light had it not been for the looming bookshelves mounted on all four walls-and now the towers of boxes and I had shoved in among the furniture.

The first night back was the worst. I doubt I slept more than two hours total. I was exhausted from moving, and yet my brain couldn't seem to turn off without the familiar sounds of London... or of Tom's voice. I had debated calling him all evening, but, as I begrudgingly climbed into bed, decided against it.

I had left after all. And while Tom had promised he'd wait for me, it hardly seemed fair to string him along when I had no real plan for coming back anytime soon. I would let him decide if he wanted to call.

Apparently, he hadn't.

Trisha, on the other hand, had. Frequently.

"Oh for Christ's sake, Ems!" She cried. "You don't even like kids!"

"I like some kids!"

"You'd be miserable and you know it."

I would be and I did, but like any reasonable grown person, I refused to admit it.

"Well the unemployed don't always have the luxury of choice," I said instead.

"But you do! He offered you a place to live and to support you-"

"Oh come on, be reasonable!" I exclaimed, quickly losing the ability to keep my growing exasperation at bay.

"I am! You're the one being a stubborn-"

"I like, Trish! I really like him." My voice faltered over my words, but if Trisha noticed she graciously didn't mention it.

"Then what's the bloody problem?" She demanded, admittedly less graciously.

"Moving in together could risk what we have!"

She sighed heavily, as if having to draw on her patience while managing a willful child. "I know I gave you grief but you weren't that awful of a roommate, Ems. If that's your only concern-"

"I wouldn't have the same freedom as I have now," I cut in, chafing slightly at her condescension.

"You live with your mother," Trisha pointed out rather brutally. "You're not exactly living the high life of luxury."

My eyes flicked to their reflection in the standing mirror now crammed in the corner. In the afternoon light they appeared a dull-brown, but mostly they just looked tired as if their shine had been spent and their reserves emptied. I suppose in a way they had.

"I'd be dependent on him," I admitted quietly.

"So?" Trisha countered. "If he wants to take care of you then bloody let him!"

My eyes widened as my reflection shook her head adamantly. "He would be in total control over everything!"

"You really think Tom would ever hold money over you?" She asked, though by her tone she clearly didn't believe the charge.

"It doesn't matter what I think! All that matters is that he would have all the power in the relationship. We wouldn't be partners anymore!"

My voice pitched as the words flew off my tongue.

Trisha uncharacteristically waited until I had finished speaking.

"He's not Patrick," she whispered as I drew a ragged breath

"I know that!" I cried, releasing a series of shaky sobs.

"So stop punishing him for what that prick did and let the poor guy make his own bloody mistakes and then punish him for those!"

"I'm not..." I wiped my eyes and looked out the window into my mother's cheery garden. "I'm not punishing him."

"But you're not giving him a chance either." Trisha sighed and the microphone muffled slightly as she readjusted her hold on the phone. "Ems, you know I love you, yeah?"

"Yeah," I sniffed. "I love you, too."

"So you know what I'm about to say is said with love."

I groaned. "Trish-"

"Ever since Patrick you've been a lot more... careful. I thought it was your dad, but it wasn't, was it?"

I didn't say anything, so she continued.

"Look I didn't ask you questions when you showed up on my doorstep in the middle of the night and I won't ask you them now, but... whatever the hell happened between the two of you, Tom had nothing to do with it."

Tears flooded my cheeks as I blinked away the memories of that night. "Why are you pushing me on this?"

"Because I can see how happy you are when you're with Tom. I've never seen you smile so wide as you do when you two are together. You seem so much... lighter with him in your life. I know it hasn't been an easy start for you two, so why not give yourselves a break and just... try it out? It's not like you've got a whole lot to lose."

"Is that more cloaked teasing about me being unemployed and living with my mum?" I attempted to joke through my still-flowing tears.

"Yes, but remember said with love. Doesn't that make it better?"

I snorted.

We were silent for a few minutes until Trisha asked: "Has Tom ever done anything to raise any red flags?"

"No," I sighed.

"Has he done anything to not earn your trust?"

I grimaced. "Well, he did lie about his family."

"Fair," she conceded. "But other than that?"

I leaned back against the rickety headboard and replayed various moments in my head: reading the Italian menu to me, surprising me in Hay and sitting through that atrocious lecture, standing up against Marcus...

"I suppose not-"

"So why not give the bloke a shot?"

"Because it's bloody terrifying!" I exclaimed.

Trisha laughed. "Welcome to living, Emma."

"Easy for you to say," I muttered, pulling my knees into my chest.

"No, it isn't," she retorted quietly. "It's hard for me, too, you know. To let people in, to be vulnerable."

"How do you do it?" I whispered. "When you know it could hurt in the end?"

"I'm an optimist... You know what scares me even more than letting someone in?"

"Tell me," I breathed.

"Building walls no one can get through."

"Sounds safe."

"Sounds lonely," she insisted.

I chewed on my lower lip considering my next question. "What if it doesn't work?"

"Then it doesn't work and you move back in with your mum and you'll figure it out-but at least you'll have tried, Emma. You won't be wondering 'what if?'"

I shook my head. "This is insane."

"Maybe," Trisha conceded. "But are you willing to risk it?"