This Love

Chapter 67

SCARLETT PARKER

Sitting in the waiting room, waiting for Dr. Wright, I see a woman walk in who's probably close to my age. She looks as skeptical as I did when I first came in here, and she glances over at me like I'm a diseased person in a hospital and doesn't want to catch what I have. The funny thing is, I distinctly remember looking at another girl the same exact way. I was in denial that I needed to be here, but now I feel like this whole building belongs to me. I'm not sure when things changed.

I actually still can't quite pinpoint when I changed. When Emma told me how she's so proud of how I've grown, it's difficult for me to put myself back in the mindset I was in when I called things off with Raf and came home. I know that I was bitter that Harry was still engaged and seemingly going through with it, which needed to change, and I know that I had no intention of changing who I was. I liked who I was, but I detested my life. I just didn't know that until I started having the life I didn't realize I actually wanted. 

As soon as the woman sits down with two chairs in between us, paperwork in hand, I hear Dr. Wright's sweet voice calling my name. I stand eagerly to follow her down the short hall to her office, feeling a rush of excitement to tell her about the engagement. 

"How are you doing? It's been a while," she gestures to the loveseat for me to sit first. 

"Well, Harry and I actually got engaged," I laugh as her smile vanishes like magic, replaced by a dropped jaw as I extend my hand to show her the ring. 

"Scarlett!" She beams. "Congratulations, darling!" 

"Thank you," I keep laughing as she squeezes my fingers and shakes her head at the diamond. "It was a shock, but I'm so happy."

"Was it recently that it happened?" 

"Yeah, just a few weeks ago," I relax back against the couch. "He took me to Paris for my birthday and we spent the whole week there, and he waited until toward the end to ask me. It was really sweet because I had never seen him so nervous in my life and he said a lot of really nice things to me."

"Oh, well that's just great," she tilts her head at me with almost a sad smile. "I recall the last time you two were both here, you were having a hard time believing that he cares about you as much as he says he does, or that he was going disapprove of the 'ugly bits', as you said. Has the engagement changed that?"

"Um," I look down at the ring and adjust it with my thumb. "I think it's obviously a confirmation that he loves all of me if he wants to spend the rest of his life with me, but I guess I do still worry that I'm going to do something to mess it up. I mean, I'll be the first one to admit that I've come a really long way since the beginning of us, but there are things about me that I don't think will ever change...which could be a problem."

"Like what?"

I chuckle weakly to myself at the list in my mind. "Well, like when we were driving to his mom's house last weekend to celebrate the engagement, I went inside the petrol station to see him talking to this girl about candy, or whatever the fuck. I knew it was obviously harmless, but I still can't help myself from freaking out on him the same way I would when we were a lot younger. It just makes me livid and that's not fair because he's never done anything wrong or given me a reason to not trust him."

"So why do you think it is that you panic when you see him talking to another girl?"

"I think it's because I'm really scared he's going to be talking to one of them and they're going to be sweet and nice and pretty, and he'll think, 'Oh, maybe this would be better than what I have now'."

"So it's a bit of an insecure thing, you think?"

"Oh, completely," I scoff. "That's why I'm always so mean to whatever girl he was talking to, and I know it's petty and unattractive, so I'm worried that he'll think I'm just never going to grow up. Like, I'll still do that shit when we're a hundred years old, I don't care. I don't like seeing him with anyone else."