CHAPTER 4
Later that night, I lay on my made bed, already dressed in my pajamas. I had about thirty minutes left until Mom took my phone—our parents were really strict with screen time, despite the fact that we were nearly eighteen—and had been blindly scrolling through social media for the last half hour.
On Sundays, we weren’t allowed in our rooms until after dinner. Mom called them Enrichment Days, where we had to either be in a common area—like the living room or the dining room—working on something that would “enrich the mind or body.”
Growing up, Jamie loved Sundays. For him, enrichment just meant reading.
For me, time passed too slowly. No phones, no screens, just stuck in the house for hours on end. I didn’t have hobbies that could keep me engaged for long. Sometimes I’d do a puzzle. Sometimes I’d memorize new words. Sometimes I’d stretch.
But after years of persuading, I’d managed to convince my mom that any outdoor activity should count.
Today, pickleball. Next week, I’d pick some other activity as an excuse. Maybe I could talk Daisy into going on a run with me.
Doubtful.
As I wound down for the night, I started off just idly going through Instagram.
A few hours ago, Daisy had posted a picture of a comic strip she’d doodled on the side of her homework sheet.
It was a boy and a girl standing in front of what looked like a cherry blossom tree, and the only caption was a flower emoji.
I tapped to leave a comment. Jamie had beaten me to it.
@JamieTheBookworm: Not sure how Mr. Taylor will grade it, but I give it an A+
I liked his comment before readjusting my grip on my phone.
@NellieBellie: OBSESSED! Can you doodle on my homework next? and… fill out the answers while you’re at it? x
I scrolled further and found that Lydia had posted pictures of herself and a few other girls from Senior Night last night. She hadn’t taken a photo with me, but had the audacity to butt in on our pickleball session? Rude.
Lydia captioned it, Who’s sparklier? The chandelier or us?
Sparklier isn’t a word, I wanted to comment.
Instead, I typed,
@NellieBellie: Is that even a question?! xx
I tapped on her profile. She was a frequent poster, with aesthetic, influencer-style shots that looked like she was trying too hard.
The picture of the girls in the mirror wasn’t the only recent one she’d posted, though.
The next one was from last night, too. A photo dump.
The first photo was a shot of her shiny heels in their designer Malstoni box, and the next was a photo of the Alderton-Du Ponte ballroom chandelier.
There were a few other pictures of her with her friends.
And then the final slide was Beckham Jennings.
In Alderton-Du Ponte’s serenity garden.
It was a black and white photo of him just standing in the center of it, with the grand tree behind him, outdoor chess table to his left.
He had his full drink pulled up to his lips, and his eyes cut over the rim to stare down Lydia’s camera.
The sun was brighter in the background—so they’d taken it before I’d arrived.
He wasn’t tagged, but that was because he didn’t have an Instagram. I hated that I knew that.
I only knew that because, once upon a time, I’d checked.
He’d brought Lydia out to the garden, posing as the picture of nonchalance as if he’d never left Alderton-Du Ponte in the first place. The garden that’d been our place.
Before everything crashed and burned.
I’ll remind you what it’s like to really want someone.
I squeezed my eyes shut. My brain was too scrambled to find a word to spell. You don’t have to remind me, I thought bitterly. I haven’t forgotten.
Immediately, I dropped my phone onto my bed and got to my feet.
Jamie was on his own bed, sitting on top of the covers with a book open on his lap, when I poked my head in.
Sometimes I worried about how simple Jamie was, with no other real hobby aside from reading.
He was so introverted, too. I wondered if he’d ever be able to get a girlfriend, if he’d just pick his head out of his book.
Almost as if my slightly offensive thoughts announced my arrival, Jamie lifted his head. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Instead of going to the desk near the window of his room, I came up beside his bed and sat down. “Whatcha doing?”
Jamie raised an eyebrow at me, as if to say, it’s obvious.
“I know.” I groaned as I folded my legs underneath me. “Spare me the sarcastic response. I’m just…”
“Bored?”
I plucked at the fabric of his dark brown duvet. More like I need a distraction. “A little.”
Jamie picked up his bookmark by his side, and I caught a flash of ink drawn on the paper—it kind of looked like an octopus—before he slid the cover of his book closed on it. “Tell me about your day. You were out with Daisy?”
“We went to play pickleball at the club. Lydia and Raelynn forced their way into our game.”
“Yikes.” Something tight filled his eyes. “Was Daisy… Did she say anything about last night?”
The tightness in Jamie’s gaze was worry, winding around him and squeezing taut. “You should’ve told her in private, Jamie,” I said, trying not to sound too accusatory. “She shouldn’t have found out about Columbia that way.”
Jamie’s jaw clenched. “I didn’t know how to tell her.”
I understood it. How did you tell someone that you gave up on a dream you’d dreamt together? Life after high school. Mullhound had always been my future, and NYU had always been theirs. “I don’t think she’d be as upset if she’d been accepted to NYU,” I said.
“I know.” He let out a soft breath and then repeated, even quieter, “I know.”
Jamie looked so miserable, staring down at the cover of his book, that I circled the conversation back. “Carter was there today.” I picked at the stitching of his blanket with more fervor. “At the club. He asked me out on a date.”
Jamie’s hand came down over mine. “You put a hole in it, and you’re buying me another one,” he said, and then leaned back. “What did you say?”
“Of course I said yes.”
“Of course,” he echoed. He nodded thoughtfully. “I suppose I’ll allow it. Carter doesn’t look nearly fifty. Heck, he could pass for twelve.”
I snorted. “If he could pass for twelve, you could pass for ten.”
“Rude. And untrue. I’d be a very tall ten-year-old.”
I snorted again. “I kind of wished I’d known Mr. ASMR was a Pembleton, though.” Without the plucking to keep my fingers busy, I resumed chewing on the inside of my cheek. “It would’ve made my agonizing over meeting Dr. Pembleton simpler.”
“Simpler?”
“Now impressing him will be super easy.” And if I impressed him, and if he took me under his wing freshman year, that’d make Dad even more proud of me. Excited for my future. “People normally are impressed with me anyway.”
I’d been teasing with the last line, but Jamie frowned. “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that. It makes you sound stuck-up.”
A pang went through me, because I hadn’t even realized how snotty that’d sounded. You used to be more fun. “Sorry.”
Jamie moved his leg to nudge into my knee, his way of saying he hadn’t meant it as scoldingly as I’d taken it. That was one of the problems with the Alderton-Du Ponte world—it was easy to get sucked into it.
You only want him because you want to get an in with his father.
I drew in a sharp breath. “Would you defend my honor if someone was threatening it?”
Jamie immediately jumped into my hypothetical world. “Your honor? Defend it how?”
“I don’t know. Like… beat them up, I guess.” Except I couldn’t imagine Jamie throwing a punch at Beck.
And apparently, neither could Jamie. “Can’t I just talk to them?”
“You’re going to defend my honor with words?”
“Well, look at me. It’s not like I’ve got the muscles to do much else.” He gave his skinny arms a little wiggle. “I could throw a book at someone’s head, I guess.”
I was torn between feeling hopeless and amused. “Helpful, Jamie.”
“Ever and always.” Jamie’s lips twitched as if he was about to smile. “Is this about Beck?”
“Of course not.” Tell Jamie about what Beck said today, the rational part of my mind urged. Tell someone. “Just trying to gauge how chivalrous my brother is. The answer? Not very.”
Jamie didn’t even acknowledge the insult. “You’re taking him showing up pretty well,” he said softly. “I wasn’t sure if you—”
“It’s fine.” The two words were more of a snap than anything else, bitten out in desperation for him to shut up.
The memory surfaced anyway, though. Two kids in a dark garden, the moonlight shining down.
A lighter in Beck’s hands, and then one of his hands in mine.
“I don’t want to talk about him anymore. ”
“All right.” I could feel Jamie’s eyes still on me, and I held perfectly still despite my pulse slamming in my ears. I was surprised he couldn’t see it in my throat. “Did Mom tell you Destelle is coming home?”
At the mention of our sister, everything seemed to stop. Jamie’s breathing, my pulse, and time itself. “What?”
“For our graduation. For a week, I think. I’m not sure if she’s bringing Harry with her or not, but Mom said—”
“She’s not coming home,” I said, as if it were a fact. Anger reared within me, replacing the sick feeling that’d surfaced. “She’s not staying here.”
Now, when Jamie frowned, he looked sad. “She is. Mom said she’s staying in the guest room for a week—”
“No.” I swung my legs over the side of Jamie’s bed and stood. “She’ll cancel a few days before, like she always does. Because our graduation isn’t any more important than Christmases and birthdays and everything else she’s skipped.”
“Nellie—”
But I was already on a roll. “Her new life is more important to her, Jamie. She’ll say she’ll come, but she’ll miss this too—just watch.” I turned around then, ready to storm back into my room, and even though it was a different emotion, I almost felt worse.
The sadness in Jamie’s eyes had spread to his voice as he called after me. “She’s our sister, Nell.”
“Tell her that.”
As I swung out into the hallway, I nearly slammed straight into Dad, who’d emerged from his bedroom.
He looked—rough. His pajamas were rumpled as if he’d been wearing them for a few days, and honestly, they smelled like he had, too.
The bottom half of his face was peppered with graying facial hair, too much to be called a 5 o’clock shadow.
Unease shot through me at the sight of him, and I had the strongest urge to backpedal into Jamie’s room and hide like a child.
Instead, I cleared my throat. “Hi, Dad.”
Dad blinked at me, as if even though I’d almost run into him, he hadn’t noticed me until I spoke. “Hey, Nellie.” His voice was coarse. He hesitated in front of me, like he wasn’t sure if he should say something or continue on. “I’m going to get a drink from the kitchen.”
He said it in more of a this is what I’m doing way and not come and join me way. “Okay.”
Jamie had gotten up from his bed and stepped into the threshold behind me, his hand closing around the door frame. “How are you feeling?”
Dad hummed a little under his breath in answer, shuffling forward, his slippers creating a hush-hush sound on the wooden floors because he didn’t pick up his feet.
“That’s the first time I’ve seen him all weekend,” Jamie whispered to me, the two of us still watching as Dad moved down the hall like a ghost. He turned at the stairs, descending them without glancing back once. “He looks…” Jamie didn’t finish.
He didn’t need to. I knew exactly what Jamie was thinking, because I’d thought it, too. Rough.
It’d been the middle of March when things suddenly shifted.
Dad came home from work late, eyes red-rimmed as if he’d been crying.
He’d shut himself in his office and hadn’t come out for dinner.
Mom had said that the case he’d been working on—and had recused himself from—had gotten to him, and that he was taking time off.
She wouldn’t share more details about what had been so bad, and after the trial became public record, Jamie found that it’d been a case involving a young drunk driver.
We’d been confused, because Dad had presided over worse cases as a court judge. I wouldn’t have thought that’d been enough for Dad to recuse himself.
I wouldn’t have thought it’d be enough for him to pull back his support from me and close himself off entirely, either, but here we were.
“For his sake,” I muttered, turning to give Jamie one last look before heading back to my room. “Destelle better come home.”
Even though she was on the list of the last people I wanted to see.
Right alongside Beckham Jennings.