Chapter 19
It occurs to Xavier in the middle of the night, Bianca’s warm weight pressing him into the mattress, that he can’t go on like this. Because if he stays much longer, the pain is going to be so fucking intense, it will actually destroy him from the inside out.
Carefully, he extricates himself from underneath her. She sighs a little as her head falls down to the cool pillow below her head, and he edges off the bed, pulling the covers up over her body.
He stays and just looks at her for who the fuck knows how long. Too long, probably, but not long enough to let himself change his mind.
If he . . . if he doesn’t go now, if he doesn’t leave, he never will.
And then, sooner or later, probably sooner, they’ll end up like Chloe or Frankie or Paolo or, worst of all, his parents, and he doesn’t want that for her or for himself.
This . . . this is better, to just move on with their lives.
She doesn’t need him. She’s got her people and they’ll stand by her side through whatever fallout – to borrow her term – his leaving causes.
Not that he really expects there to be fallout, aside from maybe a little shock on her part.
And as for him? He’s got everything he’s ever wanted waiting for him on the other side of the world.
He just has to get up enough courage to go for it.
Or is . . . it the opposite.
Would staying be the brave thing, and is leaving the fucking coward’s way out?
He wants to ask Bianca. Wants to know what she thinks. She’d know the answer.
But she’s the one person in the world he can’t ask.
He has to make this decision on his own, right or wrong, and he’s going to have to live with it.
How he’s going to live without her, though . . . He’s still not sure it’s possible.
As quietly as he can with Amelia sitting on top of Julie’s bed watching him, he moves his boxes from where he was supposed to sleep for the next few weeks out the door, down the stairs and into the back of his car.
He’ll drop it all off later at a storage spot.
Before that though, he has some errands to run and he figures he should take care of the toughest one first.
Frankie’s home when he pulls up; the car is in the driveway and her lights are still on. He stands at her front door for a solid five minutes before he works up the courage to knock.
“What are you doing?” she asks when she opens the door, staring at him, still in her work clothes.
He’d been here just a few hours ago with zero notion that he’d be back any time soon, if ever – even if, for the briefest moment that afternoon, he allowed himself to picture this as his home.
“I’m leaving,” he says, without preamble, edging past her into the house.
“You’re what?”
“I’m leaving. I can’t . . . I can’t do this anymore.”
“Listen, I barely know you and I’m grateful for everything you said this afternoon, but I swear to God, if you walk out on my best friend in the whole world in the middle of the night, I’m actually going to murder you.”
“It’s not . . . it’s not what it seems like.”
“It better not be. Or was all that stuff about changing what you wanted bullshit?”
“The opposite actually, which is why I have to go.”
“That makes zero sense.”
“It doesn’t need to make sense. It’s just what’s happening.”
“Are you even going to tell her goodbye?”
“Of course I am. I wasn’t going to leave without saying goodbye, but . . .”
“But what?”
“I’m going to tell you something and then I need your help, need you to call some people and make some stuff happen they’re not gonna like.”
“It’s what I do best,” she says, with a careless lift of one shoulder that somehow feels more calculated than any shrug he’s ever seen in his life.
“Yeah, I got that.”
“The question is, why should I help you?”
“You’re not helping me. You’re helping her, just like she always helps you and everyone else she loves.”
“I don’t know . . .”
“I need you to trust me, and I know that’s a lot to ask, especially after what you’ve just been through, but I’m only doing this because . . . because of how I feel about her. Can you do that?”
Frankie eyes him up and down, a brow lifted in silent judgment of him.
“We’ll see. First, you tell me everything.”
The sun is barely rising when he makes it back to campus. Finals week is over and the parking lot is practically empty, except one car in its designated spot, that he recognizes. He has a few things still left on his desk, but mostly he’s here because he needs to talk to her.
Miranda’s in her office, looking more casual than he’s ever seen her in yoga pants and a giant USC hoodie.
“I’m missing my SoulCycle class for this, Dr Byrne, so it better be important.”
He wants to feel that thrill in his chest at the title, but instead it just feels like an insult and honestly, he probably deserves that.
“You love her, don’t you?” Miranda asks simply, without preamble or even judgment in her voice.
Like it’s a simple fact. She’s not wrong.
It is. Pure and true and as necessary as breathing.
He loves her. And if anyone is going to know that, it might as well be Miranda, the person Bianca trusted with the truth this whole time.
“What gave me away?”
“Oh, sweetheart, you are fooling absolutely no one except her.”
“Well, she’s the only one that matters.”
“You should tell her. It’s not fair to her that she doesn’t know.”
“C’mon, Miranda, you know I can’t do that.”
“And why not?”
“She doesn’t feel that way about me and I . . . If I’m gonna get my heart broken, at least she won’t feel responsible.”
“Such a martyr. You’re not giving her a choice.”
“What choice?”
“To love you back.”
“What makes you think she would?”
“She already does.”
And part of him, a bigger part than he wants to admit, believes that might be true. There have been moments in the last couple of weeks where he thought that her feelings matched his and he wasn’t alone in this absolute torture.
“It doesn’t matter. We don’t want the same things, don’t want the same life.”
“I know you’re a stubborn ass, Xavier, but the last thing you are is stupid and that’s what you sound like right now. You know it’s more complicated than that.”
“Maybe, but I . . . I can’t let it be, because if I do, it just ends in a clusterfuck. She’ll resent me for screwing up all her plans or I’ll . . .” He stops there. He can’t imagine ever resenting her for anything, ever. Fuck.
“You’re gonna break her heart.”
“Maybe crack it, just a little bit, but better that now than what will happen if I stay. I can’t . . . She’d hate me and I’d rather have her be a little angry now than hate me forever.”
“Don’t you think she should get to decide that?”
“I think she’s never held back anything in the entire time I’ve known her and if there was something she wanted to say to me, she would have by now.”
“Xavier . . .”
“You can’t talk me out of it, Miranda. I just wanted to talk to you because if she’s feeling even a fraction of what I am, then she might need you and Sarah after this, and her friends aren’t always the most reliable – but if you can’t . . .”
“No, of course I can, we can. That girl is like a daughter to me and . . .”
“Good. Tomorrow, once I’m gone, can you call this number? It’s Francesca Sullivan, her best friend, she’ll talk you through everything.”
“Everything?”
“You’ll understand when you talk to her. Just promise me you will?”
“Of course I will. For her.”
“That’s all I ask.”
When he arrives back at Frankie’s house, there are a few familiar cars out front and in her long driveway. Good. She made it happen. Now he just has to survive it.
“I did what you asked,” Frankie says, perched on a barstool at her kitchen island that overlooks the living room where Bianca’s friends are spread out. She’s sending him a glare that could turn a man to stone. “So explain.”
When he tells them, they all just stare in abject horror, mouths literally dropping open.
“What?” Lexi asks, and when her brow furrows, he suddenly sees a resemblance between the sisters he’d never noticed before. “Does Bianca . . .”
“No, not yet, but I needed to talk to all of you before I go.”
“We’ll be there for her when you’re gone, obviously, but you’ll be back, right?”
“No, I won’t. I’m not coming back – not any time soon, anyway.”
The explosion is expected, but that doesn’t make it any less violent.
He feels like an asshole, which is what Chloe just called him, but he needs them to move on because he needs them to do something for him .
. . well, for Bianca, really. The expletives keep coming and he’s pretty sure Erik just called him a few names he’d never even heard before, but finally they lose steam.
“I’m leaving because . . . because Bianca and I were never engaged. We weren’t even dating. For a little while there, we were barely even friends.”
“Are you kidding me?” Erik mutters.
“No, I’m not. We’ve been faking this entire time.”
“It was your idea,” Frankie states, matter-of-factly. “No way Bianca came up with something like that.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“So you’re not engaged and you’re leaving. Does she know you’re telling us?”
“She doesn’t, and normally I’d leave that up to her except . . .”
“Except?”
“Except I know how she’ll play it if she does. She’ll take the blame and let every single one you be pissed off about it.”
“I don’t know, I think being lied to about getting married is a decent reason to be angry,” Isobel says, her eyes narrowing.
“Maybe it is, but she had at least as much reason to be angry with all of you,” Xavier says. He has nothing to lose, so he may as well just put it out there.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means exactly what I said. Listen, I’m leaving and before I do, there’s some stuff I need to say to you all, because she’s never going to say it and it needs to be said.
I’ve been lucky enough to know Bianca for five years and coming to know her, being allowed even a small space in her life, has been a privilege. ”
“Obviously,” Frankie cuts in.