Chapter 25 #2
“And I guess it wouldn’t help if I asked you not to do it anymore?”
Colin’s sigh sounds desperately tired. “I don’t think it’s that easy.”
“Has anyone had a look at it?”
He shakes his head.
“Colin, you should at least see my dad . . .”
“I know how deep I can—” He breaks off. “This here is all superficial, OK?”
“Here?” I repeat. “So there are other places?”
He shuts his eyes.
“Colin,” I plead.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
I don’t know if I can bring myself to accept that. But then I remember Colin in my bed and my floods of tears after that nightmare. When I said the exact same thing, not expecting him to accept it, but he did, so now I have to do the same.
“OK.” I bite my bottom lip gently. “On one condition.”
He groans. “Olive . . .”
“No, seriously. I want you to tell me if you do it again. And if it’s bad, for you to come with me to see my dad. Or Ms. Vail. You choose.”
“How generous of you,” he says, but I’m not in the mood for his sarcasm.
“Promise me,” I insist.
Colin glares at me, but in the end, he nods. “You’re so annoying, Olive Garden,” he says quietly.
I glare back, then take a step toward him. “Get tae fuck, Fantino,” I whisper, then wrap my arms around him.
Colin
I slept in her room again when we got back from dinner, and everything about that is wrong—I can’t bring myself to be honest with her, and I find myself constantly going over how she’d react if she knew the truth, and all the while, her head is resting on my chest.
She doesn’t dream this time, luckily for me, but I still feel stressed. I’m a traitor, but it’s surprisingly easy to forget that as I get drawn back into the everyday life of classes, study hour, duties, and midnight parties.
More than that, it feels good with Olive.
I don’t know if we’re a couple, I only know that we’re close.
Her friends seem to suspect something, even though we’re not exactly all over each other in front of them.
Probably the mere fact that we no longer keep snapping at each other at every opportunity is enough.
But I don’t care what they think or don’t think.
I’m fine with everything so long as I don’t have to spend every second remembering I’m keeping a secret from her.
I know this isn’t going to turn out well in the long term, though, so as the days pass, my plan takes shape.
I hardly dare believe it, but Olive has actually seen Ms. Vail.
And not to tell her that I’m self-harming.
To talk to her about herself. At first, I wondered why she’d changed her mind, but I get it really.
The shit with her parents has rocked her, and I’m so proud that she’s decided to accept help.
It shows, yet again, that she’s way stronger than me.
We don’t talk about it much because I sense that her chats with the psychologist are exhausting and churn her up, but I hope they’re helping.
I’m not surprised that things are tense with her dad, but at least I can listen to her, and she can talk about him to me without crying now.
I don’t want that to stop, which it would if I confessed everything to her at this point.
I have to give us a bit of time—or that’s what I tell myself, even as I know I’m only making things worse for when she finally does find out about it.
But it’s so fucking hard to hurt someone when they’re the last person in the world you want to hurt.
Mom says I have to come home to New York for the half-term break, which is soon.
Not because she misses me, obviously, but because it’s her annual charity gala, and the whole family has to put in a unified front for the look of things.
Oh, joy. But when I try to refuse, she threatens yet again to cut off the fucking trust fund.
So I’m pretty pissed, but this could be my chance.
Half-term in New York, and while Ava Fantino spends the morning after her crappy fundraiser scouring the papers for flattering headlines about the event, I’ll have all the time in the world to make my way to the NYPD and finally confess.
A couple of guys from my old class told me who’s investigating and that they haven’t made any progress. Well, that’s about to change.
It’s the only thought keeping me going. I don’t know if I’ll come back to Dunbridge after that.
In the worst-case scenario, I’m cuffed and locked up in a cell, but I try not to be overdramatic.
I was a minor at the time; I’m rich, white, and I didn’t do it deliberately.
I never intended to set fire to the gym, so I’m hoping for a lenient enough punishment that I can explain everything to Olive.
Or for some miracle where I find the guts to tell her first.
Either way, I’m going to face the consequences of my actions, and once I’ve been to the cops, even Ava Fantino won’t be able to prevent that.
I might get a couple of years in jail; I might get lucky and only have to do community service.
I don’t know enough about the law to be certain, so I’ll have to take what comes.
If I can’t go back to Dunbridge, I’ll find another way to graduate high school.
I doubt they’ll let me study psychology with this on my record.
And the thought of not fulfilling my dream is painful, but I can’t change that now.
I can only hope to try to hang in there that long.
They’ll ask why I even had a lighter in the bathroom, and I spend more time considering the idea of coming totally clean.
If I’m gonna do this, then I’m gonna do it right.
Not because it might look better for me.
But because I’m scared I might really need help.
It’s bad right now, even though I’m in love, but lying to Olive Garden doesn’t exactly ease the pressure.
Kit seems to notice that something’s weighing me down—he keeps making the time to go boxing with me in the gym.
He once asked me what was wrong, but I can’t talk to him.
I can’t risk it getting back to Olive. If I decide to tell the truth, she has to hear it from me first. I owe her that much after everything she’s done for me.
This evening, I get in from training and see a missed video call from Cleo. It’s the second this week, and I realize with hot shame that I didn’t get back to her after the last one.
I take a hurried shower. Then I creep down to the room with the piano and call Cleo. “Hey.” She looks genuinely surprised to see me, which hurts. “You’re still alive, then.”
“Sorry, Peanut. I plain forgot—there’s so much going on here.”
“So I saw in Olive’s story,” she says, immediately lowering her eyes like she’s let something slip that she didn’t want me to know.
She’s looking at Olive’s stories. Presumably because I tagged her in a photo the other day. Nothing much, but I ought to have known that Cleo would analyze it.
“Sorry, but, hey, I’m here now.” I try to smile, but even I can see how fake it looks. “And I’ll see you soon.”
“So you’re still coming home for your fall break?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know, Colin,” she says. It’s always serious if my kid sister calls me by my full name, but even without that, I’d be able to hear that she’s on the edge of tears.
“What’s wrong, Cleo?” I ask.
“Nothing.” She swallows hard. “You don’t care anyway.”
“I do care. Really.” I have to force myself to sound calm.
“You hardly ever call me.” Her voice is muffled. “Mom and Dad said you must be settling in at last.”
“They don’t know shit,” I blurt.
“But are they right?” Cleo stares through the phone and right into my soul. “Are you settling in, Colin? Are you going to stay in Scotland? ’Cause right now, it looks that way.”
“Cleo.” I shut my eyes briefly. “Can we just take one thing at a time? I’ll be home soon and then . . .”
“And then you’ll leave again?”
“No, I—”
“You know what? I gotta go too.” Cleo’s voice sounds choked.
“Cleo,” I say more firmly.
“Bye, Colin.”
She just hangs up. I clench my fist and call her right back. But she doesn’t answer.
Shit. I could see she was nearly in tears, and the idea of her crying on her own in her room is driving me crazy.
But I can’t do a thing. I didn’t even play her a song.
I’ve totally failed her. Cleo gets what’s going on here.
She’s not dumb, she can read people—she had to learn that growing up with Ava and Eric Fantino.
In a family where nothing is said out loud.
Cleo Fantino can see through people. Especially me.
And I don’t know what I can say to her when I see her during the fall break.
I lower my head and force myself to breathe.
I don’t know what to do.