it can't be that bad

"Are you OK?" Jamie asked that night after Corina left with Effy's ex-boyfriend, Yuki.

"Yeah, of course." Effy shrugged.

  But Jamie didn't think so. In fact, Effy was quiet for days, afterwards. She wasn't her happy self wanting to try new things in the kitchen, or how to make an apron from a YouTube video. She looked physically ill.

By the third day, Jamie was back to asking her again about Yuki.

"Its like I know two different stories about him. One, you had a crush on him. Two, he was..I dunno..not who you thought he was."

She sighed and went to dry some dishes in their little kitchen, but he thought she might be crying.

"I wanted..things to work out, but all I got was this..this carnation on Valentines day, and he didn't have much to say." She pressed her lips tight.

"Well, can't you just.." He didn't know. "Would..would it be so bad to see him with Corina?"

Now she was really crying, as if maybe she was good at nothing.

He wrapped his arms around her from behind.

"You, have to let it go." He told her.

But she wasn't saying anything but holding a dish in a tea towel.

"Hey, if it was meant to be, then..then..I would have never found you." He whispered in her ear.. then smiled.

"I always..thought..thought..I'd faint if..if I saw him, again." She said ever so quietly. "I mean, he..he always left me..a little dizzy and I dunno..I guess I thought..I thought that was..that was the way it was suppose to be." She sighed heavily.

"I dunno what I was expecting..a fairytale." Effy finally confessed.

He took the dish from her and assured her that was what he liked about her.

"You're a romantic at heart." He smiled to her. She smiled back. "I don't guess you ever felt faint, around me?" Honestly, he didn't have to know, even if he was curious.

"Um," She almost laughed. "You just made me smile, and everything is fun with you." Still, she said she wished his mother liked her. "She probably doesn't find me, serious enough."

"Oh, you wouldn't want to be her kind of seriousness." Jamie chuckled. "I love you, just the way you are." After all, he found Effy very serious about all the right things.