The List: One Year, One Adventure ✔️

Chapter 5: Come Up For Air

Dean

We ended up at some public house brewery several blocks away, Venice had wanted food but I just wanted a drink. When the brunette who was waiting on us came back a fourth time in ten minutes asking if I needed anything else, Venise just gave me a vicious stare.

"Isn't this combination what got you in trouble last night?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"This combination gets me into trouble every night, but what can I say? Don't they say old habits are hard to break?"

For a second she looked at me like she pitied me. "Really? That's the best you can come up with, old habits don't need to stay a constant if you don't want them?"

"Would it have been easier had I said you can't teach an old dog new tricks?" I questioned, but she was correct, habits were something that could be changed, if you really wanted them to. The question was, did I want things to change?

She busted out laughing and then a second later looked at me with the most serious face I've ever seen on her. "I highly doubt you're incapable of learning new tricks. I think the problem is that you like the easy."

"Hey, not all the girls I sleep with are easy!" I defended the quality of the women I slept with.

"I wasn't commenting on the quality, I was stating a point of view about how you operate. You're a gorgeous guy, who's amazingly brilliant and highly successful, and I'm not sure that I've ever met someone who wasn't swept up by you or how you carry yourself."

"I beg to differ, I can name one."

"Hey! Leave my Pats out of this. He doesn't hate you, he's just intimidated by you. People who hold onto insecurities have a difficult time accepting people who are so sure of themselves. I can also see how you're trying to change the subject, because you don't like the things I'm about to say to you, but, the truth is that some people are intimidated by the fear of being average, especially when compared to someone like you," she countered.

"Um, V? Did you just try to advise me while using Taylor Swift quotes?" I asked as I gave her a cheeky grin.

"Of course, but if you're uncomfortable I can always switch to Minaj song lyrics." She giggled, before taking a sip of her drink.

I shook my head and swirled the liquid in my glass. I looked up and Brunette McGee was back for a fifth time, so I threw her a bone and ordered some food. When the food finally arrived, we ate in silence for a while until I could sense that Venise was going to get straight to the point.

"This wasn't the deal." She popped a pickle out from her double patty burger and shoved it in her mouth while she wiggled a fry in the other hand. "You realize that Ari needs us. She needs this trip and if we're ever going to convince her that her decision is wrong, you can't be adding your six years of pent up love into the equation."

"I'm not in love with her," I quickly snapped.

"Save it for someone you can lie to, pretty boy. You're so in love with her that you're ready to discuss colors for your wedding and adopt a puppy."

I was not going to disagree with her. If there was anything that Venise was, it was perceptive and bitterly honest.

"Ari's dying Dean. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not in a year if this trip pans out the way we want, but eventually she will and you have to ask yourself this..." her voice trailed off and I could see the tears in her eyes, "Are you ready to let her go if you have to?"

There was no hesitation when I answered, "No. Absolutely not." My eyes were firm and she knew it.

"Then that's your current problem, because someday you will have to let her go. You can't pine for her behind the wall of your apartment and hope that someday she'll come around, that someday she'll realize that what she's missing from her life has been there all along. What's missing from her life is a sense of self. She's never lived and you can't expect someone to attach themselves to you, to put their faith in you to be their rock when they don't know if they can stand on their own. This trip has always been about showing Ari she can stand on her own. When she realizes that she's capable of being more than her disease, then there's an opportunity for you to build something breathtaking with her. That something will be so amazing, that when the time comes if you are forced to say goodbye to her, it will be so completely full of life and memories that it will always be there for you and her death won't completely end you."