Chapter 16 – Strip away everything, tonight there’s nothing getting in our way

Shane placed her hands on the sink and watched her own reflection in the mirror. She sighed and then held her breath as long as she could. When she let it go, she felt slightly calmer. But just slightly. In fact, her heart was still dancing a rumba inside her chest. 

Meeting her girlfriend’s parents wasn’t exactly something that Shane was used to do. Hell, having a girlfriend – a real, one hundred percent real girlfriend wasn’t exactly something Shane was used to. 

She thought about Paige Sobel and shook her head, closing her eyes for a second. Paige hadn’t been much of a girlfriend, all in all. More specifically, Shane hadn’t been much of a girlfriend to Paige. And then, Molly. Everything with her had been too short to gain the definition of “relationship”. What Shane and Molly had had could be described as a fling – nothing more, nothing less. And Cherie Jaffe? Oh, Cherie Jaffe had been right, eventually: the kind of love that Shane had thought to feel, didn’t exist. 

But with Carmen Morales, everything was different and had a different color, flavor, shape. 

Carmen Morales had appeared into Shane’s life in the darkest, most obscure moment and had lit everything up like a sparkling comet. Carmen and her baggy clothes and her thick specks and her books and her shy – and yet no-bullshit – attitude. Shane had felt safe with her, right from the start. Too safe, too comfortable. That had been her mistake. With all her defenses down, Shane hadn’t even realized that falling in love with Carmen was going to be an absolute, for her. It had happened, very simply, right in the moment when Shane thought that love wasn’t even in discussion. One moment she was Shane McCutcheon, the good friend and the girl who didn’t make a good life partner, the womanizer who didn’t need to be trusted, and the next moment she was pouring her heart right into Carmen’s hands in the bathroom of a club and silently asking for her forgiveness after dumping her, out of fear and self-deprecation.

And now Shane felt as though she was happily sinking in what was a brand new phase, for her: smitten and in love, ready to be by Carmen’s side as long as Carmen would want her, ready to meet her family which, by the way, already knew everything about her. Included her three-months-long debacle.