CHAPTER 21 #2
“I, uh,” I tried, but faltered, because the sight of Beck had wiped the topic clear from my mind. “I’m sorry. I lost my train of thought.”
“It happens with age,” Dr. Pembleton said, and then gave a loud, boisterous laugh, one that filled the ballroom. My lips curled on instinct. “Eleanor, Carter tells us you’re attending Mullhound in the fall.”
Mullhound. College. Carter. B-E-C-K-H-A-M J-E-N-N-I-N-G-S. “Y-Yes, that’s the plan.”
“For pre-law? Following in your parents’ footsteps?”
Instinct almost had me saying absolutely, but when I met his light eyes, I stilled. “Actually, I think I’m going to take time to really explore things before dedicating myself to one path,” I told him, voice sure. “I’m still leaning pre-law, but don’t want to tie myself to anything.”
Dr. Pembleton grinned. “Sounds like a wise idea. It’s always better to find your own path than try to go down someone else’s.”
Unbidden, my eyes cut to Lydia, who refused to look at me.
“What are we talking about over here?” Ms. Jennings swooped in between Mrs. Pembleton and Carter, delicately resting her hands on both of their shoulders. “Gushing over our lovely Eleanor, are we?”
“We were talking about her college plans in the fall,” Carter said. “It’s a shame UConn and Mullhound are about two hours apart. It’ll be difficult once school starts.”
“But not impossible!” Ms. Jennings rushed to say. “Unlike my nephew. He chose Stanford, which, well—lovely school, and all—but so far away!”
I turned back toward the entryway wall, leaning ever so slightly to peer around a couple of party guests.
When my view finally opened up, I found the wall empty.
Beck was gone. My gaze darted around the ballroom, just as it’d been doing earlier, but now I looked with a more fervent pace.
I had seen him. He had been there, but what if he’d left?
No, he wouldn’t leave. Not without at least saying Happy Birthday… right?
Don’t think about it, I told myself sternly, but I could feel my control slipping. Don’t think about him. Not right now. It’s not time for Phase Two.
“—honestly wasn’t sure he’d go back,” Ms. Jennings mused. “He was talking about transferring to UConn, but he’s decided to go back to Stanford for his summer semester, and I should encourage him, not hold him back, hmm? Oh, the house will be so lonely!”
“What?” I squeezed Carter’s arm tight enough that he ducked a little under the pain, reaching up to pat my knuckles. “Beck… is leaving?”
Ms. Jennings’s eyes slipped to my throat, as if my necklace had drawn her eye. “It feels as though he rushed into the decision, but he always has been a little… impulsive.”
Isn’t Stanford boring? I’d asked Beck before.
He’d given a dull, lifeless response. Horribly.
And yet he’d chosen to go back, to enroll in a summer semester instead of staying with Ms. Jennings. Instead of staying in Addison.
Instead of staying with me.
“Would you excuse me for a moment?” I asked the group, the picture of politeness, even though I felt as if I were sinking through quicksand. “I, um—I need to go check and see when my dad will be here with the cake.” A flippant excuse. One that sounded thin to my own ears.
Carter tried to catch my eye. “Want me to come with you?”
“No.” The response came too quickly. I forced myself to take a breath. “Keep talking, please. I’ll only be a moment.”
I broke away from them, but before I could get to the balloon archway, Daisy and Jamie intercepted me. “Nellie.” Daisy seemed to read the dilemma in my expression, but even though she didn’t know exactly what it was, she knew the right question to ask. “What do you need us to do?”
I looked into the eyes of my best friend and then my twin, both who were there for me at every turn. In that moment, I internally made a promise to be there when they needed me next. “Can you stall?”
Daisy gave a determined nod. “On it.” And then she grabbed Jamie’s arm, pulling him into her master plan.
And with that, I set off.
It started as a walk, but my legs carried me quicker and quicker down the Alderton-Du Ponte hallway until my steps were a jog. And then that jog turned into a run.
I ran as fast as I could in the stupid heels, their clacking echoing off the walls like gunshots. I knew exactly where I was going, feet carrying me toward the one place I’d avoided for years. The place I’d gone to over and over again for years to find him.
I knew, without knowing how I knew it, that that was where Beck would be now.
I shoved through a door that led outside, the cooler air greeting my skin.
I nearly stumbled, my heel hooked in one of the crevices of the cobblestones, and I only paused to kick both shoes off, leaving them in the middle of the path as I hurried on.
He wouldn’t have left the party yet. Not yet.
Not without saying happy birthday. Not without saying goodbye.
The outside of Alderton-Du Ponte wasn’t as well-lit, since it wasn’t a place that was supposed to function after eight, but despite the fact that I hadn’t gone here in years, I knew the path by heart.
And, in the garden exactly where I knew he’d be, stood Beck.
His back was to the entrance, his hands slipped into the pockets of his jeans, staring up at the winding tree above him. Something caused him to turn—probably the ragged sound of my breath—and the sight of him in the serenity garden hit me in full force.
The last time we’d been here together had been the best night of my life—and then the worst.
“Where’s the fire?” Beck asked, trying to invoke humor even though he looked mildly alarmed.
“You’re leaving,” I gasped, chest heaving and lungs burning. “You’re leaving Addison.”
“Is that a question?”
“Beck.”
His hands slipped from his pockets. “I’m not leaving tonight,” he said, taking a hesitant step closer. “Is that what you rushed out here to find out?”
I didn’t respond, mostly because I was still gulping down air. Desperation had propelled me forward, stolen my breath, and left me swaying.
Beck’s gaze dropped. “Where are your shoes?”
My shoes. I couldn’t even bring myself to care about my heels, nor my bare feet, which were cool on the cobblestones. “Are you leaving because of me?” I asked, breathing through my nose and trying to slow my heartbeat. I took a step toward him. “Are you leaving because you hate me?”
Please say no. I didn’t know what to do if he said yes. Yes, that he hated me, and yes, he was leaving because he couldn’t stand the sight of me.
A strange expression passed over Beck’s face, looking halfway between amused and something else. “He won, didn’t he?” At the sight of the line between my brows, he clarified, “Carter.”
Carter. Not Pebble Brain. That, alone, felt like defeat, but not Beck’s. Mine.
My lips parted, but the words wouldn’t come out. Carter didn’t win, I wanted to tell him. It’s not real. But I knew what would happen if I said that. Beck’s lips would twist into a smirk. His eyes would shutter. See? he’d say. Perfect Eleanor Brighton.
“Go back to your party, Nell,” Beck said softly, eyes glancing over me one final time. “You’ve got goosebumps.” And then he turned to the tree once more.
My entire body hummed, the same way it’d hummed four years ago when I’d entered this same garden. Filled with energy that vibrated through me, threatening to splinter me apart. My confidence wavered, and the speech I’d been practicing over and over died on my lips. “Play with me,” I said instead.
“Play?” Beck glanced at the outdoor chess table, one bare of pieces. “What, right now?”
“Yes.” I started hunting in the grass, looking for stones, clovers, anything that could be useful as pieces. I’d need sixteen pawns, four knights, four bishops…
“Nellie.” Beck’s voice came close behind me. “Your birthday party is happening right now. You’re the guest of honor.”
“Only half. Jamie’s inside.”
“Eleanor.”
I straightened, finding Beck with a serious line between his brows.
I wanted to rub it away, like he’d done to me once upon a time, but he was more than an arm’s length from me.
“Think of it as a birthday present,” I told him, realizing what I was doing.
The same thing Daisy was doing inside. S-T-A-L-L-I-N-G.
“If you’re going to leave again… play one last game with me. ”
This time, I knew that once Beck left, he’d probably never come back. There’d be no imagining the next time, no point in hoping for it. That thought was what spurred me now, and some other desperation that I couldn’t name.
“I’ll find the pawns,” Beck said finally. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “You find the rest.”
And like that, we went on the hunt for our set of pieces.
My heart pounded steadily as I found a stick that I could break up into four little twigs for the knights, a dying flower that I could pluck four petals off of for the bishops, managed to find two bottle caps for the queens, and four acorns for rooks.
I brought them back to the chessboard, laying them out as Beck finished collecting sixteen pebbles for the pawns.
He slowly eased himself into the seat across from me, setting each stone in its space. “What about the kings?” he asked, but his eyes flicked to my necklace, answering his question.
I removed it carefully and slid the two charms off the gold chain. I pressed the opal pendant to my spot, the four-leaf clover to his. “Don’t forget which piece does what,” I told him, the words giving me déjà vu.
“Never,” Beck murmured, then tipped his chin. “Your move.”
I regarded the board, at the array of trinkets on it, committing it all to memory. Pebbles were pawns, flowers were bishops, acorns were rooks. Beck was my opponent, and I was his. For one final time.
I moved a pebble forward.
“Did you get in trouble for coming home all dirty?” he asked as he mirrored my movement.
“They were more concerned with the way I acted before showing up covered in mud.”