Chapter 12 #2
Her eyes were still glistening with tears as she looked at me. Just looked. Like my little sandwich offering was the best thing she had ever heard, like I had a diamond necklace in my hand or something. She drew in a breath, and then slowly, a little smile graced her lips.
I really liked it when she smiled.
* * *
Branmore was fancy as fuck. That was old news.
The roads were better and so were the schools—and the sandwiches.
But damn, even their parks looked picture perfect.
Juliette had brought me to one that was a five minute walk from her school, and there we sat under the warm afternoon sun sharing my stolen sandwich.
“Have you lived in the South Side your whole life?” Juliette asked.
She seemed to be feeling better now. The more we walked away from her school, the lighter her voice got and the more those tears seemed to dry.
“Uh, yeah.” I nodded. “Born and raised. What about you?”
“Yeah, I’m a Branmore girl,” she muttered. “It sucks.”
I laughed at that, holding my half of the sandwich by my mouth. “You wanna swap?”
Her eyes flickered up to meet mine. “Honestly, I wouldn’t mind that at all.”
“You don’t like it here?” I asked, eyes scanning around the place. It looked pretty damn good to me. Benches that didn’t have chips in them, grass that actually got mowed, a fancy ass gazebo in the distance that looked like the kind that people got married in.
“It’s not as fun as it seems,” she said. “The people? Awful. Terrible. Boring. Kill me.”
Snorting, I rubbed a hand against the back of my neck. “That bad, huh?”
“My parents are at the top of that list. They think they know what’s best for me,” she said bitterly. “The class that I skipped? There’s a reason why I did that. Not just because it’s boring, but because…”
“Because?”
She tapped her fingers against the bench for a second, like she was amping herself up or something.
“I want to study art,” she said. “I love art. Sometimes knowing that I get to paint is the only thing that gets me through the day. And I was so excited to actually have art class, to be able to paint and make something. That was supposed to be the best part of the school year, of my final year. I’d be stuck at this place, but at least I had art, right?
At least I had something to look forward to… ”
I kept taking in that look in her big, pretty eyes. Like she was all lost and confused or something, and I just wanted to fix it. “So, what happened?”
“My parents found out,” she said, head lowering. “Made me transfer to that dumb politics class. I can’t paint at home. I can’t paint at school. I can’t paint anywhere.”
“How can they make you transfer?” I asked. “They don’t control you here, right? At school?”
Pausing, she let out a shaky breath. “They’re good at getting their way.”
“So, you gotta do that boring politics class now and not the one you really want?”
“I’ll get punished if I don’t listen to them…”
I didn’t like that. She had been kinda vague about it, kinda mysterious, but her voice? It got all deep and low, like she was hiding something. I wanted to pry, wanted to be nosy and ask her what she meant and if she was okay and if she needed help, but then her lips were parting again.
“Women in my family don’t get to do things like that,” she continued. “Like painting and being creative. My mom and dad want me to just focus on marriage.”
I snorted. “You’re in high school.”
“They’re weird about stuff like that. Like image and money and prestige and last names.
That’s all my family’s ever cared about.
Being elite and wealthy. Being perfect. Happiness isn’t important, it’s all about how good we look to everyone else,” she said, her voice becoming more dull the more she spoke. “It’s pathetic.”
She took an angry little bite of the sandwich.
My brows rose at her words. What the fuck was wrong with her parents?
I couldn’t exactly relate to that. Hell, all my parents wanted was for me to stop skipping school and graduate.
I bit into my own sandwich, the taste of chicken and avocado hitting my tongue as I stared at the girl across from me in her prim and proper uniform.
Swallowing hard, I frowned. “Your parents are kinda whacky. No offense.”
She smiled at that. “No offense taken at all. Whacky is an understatement.”
“Well, when you go to college they can’t tell you what to do anymore,” I said. “You’re probably going, right?”
She set her sandwich down and I wondered if I had asked a question I shouldn’t have. “I want to go to Harvard. Their arts program is amazing.”
“Harvard, huh? That’s fancy.”
“I want to go. But…”
“But?”
She let out a shaky breath. “They won’t let me.”
“You can do whatever you want when you’re eighteen. Aren’t you eighteen now?”
“I am. But…” Her eyes lowered to the table.
“They’re really strict about… everything.
No, they’re not just strict and controlling.
They’re mapping my whole entire life out from start to finish.
All they care about is who I marry. If he’s not rich, it’s not happening.
He could make me the happiest girl in the world, and they still wouldn’t approve.
They just want everything to go their way, they don’t…
” Finally, her eyes moved back to meet mine, and they glistened ever so slightly with tears.
“Hey…” I reached a hand out, letting it rest on top of hers.
“I can’t believe I’m telling you this,” she whispered, letting out a shocked, little laugh. “I don’t get to… be open about stuff like this. I don’t get to talk about my feelings and be honest. I’ve never skipped before either. A lot of firsts today.”
“I hope you don’t get into shit for skipping.” I didn’t wanna be the reason she got into trouble if her parents were really that goddamn crazy.
“No, it’s okay. I can figure out something… But I won’t be able to get away with this again. This is probably the first and last time I’ll be able to skip class…” she said with big eyes.
“Glad I was your first,” I murmured.
Cheeks red, she chewed at her bottom lip for a second. I hadn’t even meant for it to sound like that, but I couldn’t deny that I enjoyed the way her round cheeks went all pink and pretty. She was pretty all over. The prettiest girl I had ever seen.
“You should do what you want to,” I said. “Your art and stuff. And Harvard. You should do all of that.”
“I really want to. Painting is my favorite thing in the world.”
“Yeah?” I asked, sitting up a little straighter. “What do you paint?”
“Um, landscapes usually,” she said, her finger fidgeting with the crust of the sandwich. “Places and stuff. Places I wanna visit, since my parents don’t really let me go anywhere.”
“You don’t go to five star resorts every weekend?”
“No,” she said with a shy smile. “Nothing like that. They usually leave me at home when they go on their vacations, which is fine with me, because I have no interest in spending any time with them. They never wanna go to the places I’d really like to see, anyway…”
“What places?”
Eyes meeting mine, her cheeks flushed bright red. “I’ve never been to the beach.”
I blinked at her. “Are you serious?”
“Completely. I… I don’t know,” she said, pushing her hair behind her ears. “It sounds dumb, but don’t you think the ocean is the prettiest thing in the world?”
Eyes stuck on hers, I gave my head a little shake. “I’ve seen prettier.”
Her cheeks went red again, and God, it was so fucking cute when she did that. Cute and sweet and I would have been perfectly happy spending the rest of the day making her smile and blush.
“I want to see the ocean,” she said. “It goes on forever and ever and just… there’s so much freedom.
Don’t you ever look at photos of the ocean and just feel your heart stop?
Imagine being in that. Living next to it.
When you’re on water, you can get as far as you want and no one can stop you.
It must be nice to have no one stop you… ”
“Yeah,” I said softly. “Yeah, that does sound nice.”
“I don’t like the life my parents want me to have. I don’t like the… country club dinners and society balls. I like…” She let out a shocked sounding laugh. “Honestly, this right here is probably the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”
“Really? Sitting in a park eating half a sandwich?” I asked. “With me? With your good friend Kylie?”
She giggled, tossing some of her long hair over her shoulder. “Kylie, this afternoon has been really fun. I don’t really get to talk about my… feelings and what I want from life. People at my school don’t get it. And I could never tell my parents any of this. Thank you for listening.”
I nodded. “Yeah, of course.”
“We keep talking about me.” She rested her chin in her hands, eyes all big. “Let’s talk about you.”
“About me?”
“Uh-huh. What’s your deal? Are you really skipping school because of work?”
“Well…” I shrugged. “There’s more to it than that.”
“You’re not really working, are you?”
“I am. Technically, I am. I will be. Soon…”
“Where do you work?”
How the hell was I supposed to explain that to her?
That I beat up rich guys and stole their fancy shit just so my dad could get his pain meds and so that the electricity wouldn’t go out and Mom could get a break from it all and watch her shows and so that the heating wouldn’t go out and we wouldn’t freeze?
How did you explain that to a rich girl?
“At the library,” I said.
Her big eyes blinked at me. “You work at the library?”
“Yeah,” I said with a huff. “I mean, you might be goin’ to Harvard, but I’m goin’ to Yale.”
She smiled, all big and bright and perfect. “Is that right?”
“You sound like you don’t believe me,” I said playfully.
“No, I believe you.”
“I give you my stolen sandwich and everything and you treat me this way?” I pressed a hand to my chest.
“I swear, I believe you.” She laughed, her chin still in her hands. “And wait, you stole that sandwich?”
“Stolen stuff tastes better.”