Chapter Twenty-Six. Clara
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CLARA
NOW
BEFORE I CAN SAY anything else, Reid walks out of his bedroom without so much as a backward glance. I’m left standing there in the wreckage of what neither of us can seem to repair.
His touch was searing, his kisses almost bruising in their intensity. When he wrapped his body around mine, I never wanted to let go as my heart sighed, Yes, this, finally.
But the moment I brought up last year, he shut down. Maybe no matter what we want, what he needs is closure. The thought forms a breathless ache in the center of my chest.
I hear a door open across the hall, followed by tense, low voices. Reid telling Mitchell to get up about five hours earlier than he usually would. Then several fast footsteps and the firm closing of the front door.
Reid’s in a darker place than I realized. If things are as bad as he says they are, it’s almost as if he wants them to implode. And they will if he keeps running on an injured knee or avoiding what’s going on at school.
I hate seeing him in pain like this. I wish I could do something.
Mitchell appears in the doorway, puffy and mussed from sleep.
He raises his eyebrows, and with every drawn-out syllable dripping with implication says, “Sleep well?”
I slump onto the edge of the bed and bury my face in my hands. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
He steps into the room. “Good. Literally always err on the side of sparing me the details of my brother’s sex life.”
“We didn’t—”
But I stop. Because we almost and, god, I wish we had. I feel my cheeks heat at the thought.
“Ewww.” Mitchell grimaces and playfully covers my face with his hand. I shove it off as I stand up.
“Where’s Kenji?” I ask in an effort to change the subject.
The humor drains from him instantly. “He left last night when it was clear you weren’t coming out.”
I frown at his tone. “What does that mean?”
Mitchell turns. “It’s too early for boy talk. C’mon.”
When we get to my house, Mitchell not only invites himself in but also immediately helps himself to a massive bowl of ice cream. For breakfast.
I was hoping to crawl back into bed for a few more hours, or get ahead on editing footage before the brunch, but Mitchell flops on the couch with his giant bowl of feelings and I can tell—early or not—we need to talk about the boy.
“What happened?” I ask, perching on the couch across from him.
“It’s nothing. Or it’s Logan. I dunno. I’m fine,” he grumbles, before shoving a large bite in his mouth.
I narrow my eyes. I’m so tired of these brothers and their “fine.” Through my interviews, I’ve noticed Mitchell responds better to a challenge than to direct questions. I nudge him with my foot. “What do you care? Logan was an asshole to you, but you have Kenji.”
His spoon clatters loudly against the bowl as he eyes me like I wounded him. “Bite your tongue. I don’t have Kenji. There is no having of Kenji.”
“I was there when he put his arm around you,” I say.
“And I was there when he told you that you looked hot.”
My face screws up. “Mitchell, it’s Kenji. He tells everyone they look hot. You can’t seriously think he’s into me.”
Even saying the words makes me want to laugh. It’s only Mitchell’s serious expression that keeps it in.
“How would I know?” he asks. “He’s such a fucking flirt I have no idea who he’s into. He’s off at college happily slutting it up and I’m here pining like a Bridgerton brother just desperate for him to look at me.”
He aggressively shoves more rocky road into his mouth.
After the way Logan treated him, I don’t blame him for feeling insecure.
Even though I’ve caught more longing stares on my camera between Mitch and Kenji in the past twenty-four hours than I know what to do with, it still wouldn’t be enough to convince Mitchell.
Logan had watched him longingly, too, but always wanted to keep their relationship a secret.
He said it was about securing Legacy, but he’s only ever openly dated girls after they broke up, too.
Mitchell has every right to be confused.
“Kenji isn’t Logan,” I say gently.
“True. Logan was terrified of standing out, whereas Kenji relishes it.”
Mitchell polishes off the bowl, then pushes both his hands through his hair like he does when he’s upset. The small huff of laughter that escapes him is humorless. “God, that guy messed with my head.”
I swallow at his choice of words. The same words Reid said to me when we broke up.
You do nothing but mess with my head.
“Reid said I did the same thing,” I say quietly.
Mitchell’s eyebrows rise in surprise.
I don’t ever talk to him about Reid, which he clearly prefers. But the situation is eerily similar, and my feelings about Reid are becoming so gnarled, I’ll never be able to make sense of them in time if I don’t start untangling them.
“I thought by keeping things low-key that I was protecting both of us from getting hurt,” I say quietly. “Maybe Logan was doing the same thing.”
Mitchell rears back a little. “Are you seriously being a Logan apologist right now?”
I grimace. “Not on purpose. Am I?”
He holds up his forefinger and thumb an inch apart. “Little bit.”
I put my hands up. “Sorry—I know he broke your heart.”
Mitchell winces at that, but I keep going.
“I’d just hate for you to miss out on something good because you think the way he acted was about you. It wasn’t. You should talk to Kenji. Tell him how you feel.”
Mitchell bursts into a laugh that takes over his whole body.
“What? Why is that so funny?”
It takes him a few seconds to answer. “It’s not—it’s good advice.
I just wish you would take it, since you’re obviously in love with Reid.
” He says it like a joke, but as our gazes meet, whatever he sees in my eyes makes his go round with surprise.
“Holy shit. You are. You’re in love with him, aren’t you? ”
I stare down at my hands, my face instantly flaming. “Don’t tell him,” I say in a rush.
“What?”
“He’s got enough going on right now—”
“No way.” Mitchell leaps to his feet, suddenly agitated. “You can’t do this to him again. Clara, what you did? That shit broke him last year.”
My pulse begins racing so hard I feel it in my fingertips.
It’s been an unspoken rule that Mitchell and I don’t talk about Reid for this reason. He’s spared sharing the things that would burrow deep.
But now that we’ve torn open the subject, Mitchell no longer holds back what he’s clearly kept in all year. “What happened at the assembly was so fucked up. I know that. My skin crawls any time I think about it. But it wasn’t Reid’s fault.”
“That’s not why … I wasn’t about to ruin his time at college, Mitchell. A long-distance relationship would’ve made him unfocused, and he would’ve ended up hating me for holding him back. I had to let him—” My voice breaks and I stop.
Mitchell’s eyes widen, and he puts a hand over his heart like he’s touched. “Oh my god, you White Fanged him. Or, like, the butterfly thing. Loving so much you let him go.”
I nod. “He even tried to give me his Legacy spot, did you know that?”
Mitchell goes still. “Yeah, I did know that.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“He told me not to.”
“See? This is exactly why I had to break things off. It makes no sense that he would give up something like that for me.”
Mitchell frowns. “Actually it makes perfect sense. He believes in you. It wasn’t because of his feelings for you.
I mean, okay, it wasn’t just because of that.
You got cheated out of a chance you deserved, and he was just trying to make it right.
He was trying to”—his shoulders sag—“he was trying, Clara.”
Tears heat the backs of my eyes.
Reid always tries so hard. Too hard. It’s what’s breaking him now and what was always difficult to keep up with then. But hearing Mitchell say it like this, I’m starting to wonder if Reid tried that hard for me because … I didn’t try enough.
“Did I give up too easily?” I ask.
Mitchell shrugs. “That’s probably being too hard on yourself. But you did pivot to tree person, and that was a dark timeline for you, I’m not gonna lie.”
I kick him, and he laughs.
But he’s also not wrong.
When that video played at the assembly, it silenced something in me. No matter my love for Reid, I couldn’t stand the idea of him being with that girl. The one who was messy and broken and stuck.
But he didn’t see me like that.
It wouldn’t stop you. Nothing can stop you.
I lost almost everything that mattered to me last year. I thought that those losses defined me. But I’m still here. Still trying. Still fighting for what matters to me.
Maybe that’s what defines me.
Looking at Mitchell now—who’s so afraid to get hurt again he refuses to acknowledge what’s real even when it’s speaking ridiculous Shakespearean English in his ear—I’m starting to see that pushing Reid away time and again didn’t protect either of us from pain. It actually invited so much more in.
When Mitchell goes to refill his bowl, I pick up my phone to check my favorite poetry account the way I have all year when I miss him.
It still hasn’t updated. But I can’t linger on that long when in the next moment, both our phones chime.
We share a quick glance. That can only mean a text on the group chat.
Sure enough, Kenji sent an update from the Legacy Lore account with the text, Another reason we hate Josh!!! He’s why I had to retake that AP Calc final!!!
@LEGACY_LORE: A former Woodhurst student entrepreneur who relocated to a different school midyear has revealed his number one customer. Anyone recognize a certain Legacy? More soon …
The post includes several screenshots of text messages between Anderson Beck, who got expelled last year for selling answer keys to tests, and Josh negotiating where to meet and the price for both the midterm and the final.
Mitchell lets out a low laugh. “Oh, this is bad.”
As I read through the texts I think of Josh’s response when I asked him about the cheating accusation. I have nothing to hide. He said that about what happened between us last year, too. He’s a good liar.
Still, this isn’t exactly hard proof.
“I mean, there’s no way to know for sure it’s actually Josh and Anderson sending these.”
Mitchell shakes his head. “You know nobody cares about proof. The damage is done.”
The comments prove Mitchell’s point. They’re scathing. Of Josh and the school. Starting to call into question the Legacy Program.
As someone also trying to tell that story, I should be excited that its faults are starting to show. But I’m not.
Whoever is behind this account isn’t trying to right wrongs or bring the truth to light, they’re trying to ruin reputations. They seem hell-bent on forcing out anything that could threaten the Legacies’ scholarships. Their very futures. Everything Reid has worked for.
I refuse to let that happen to him.
Which is exactly why I’m making the doc.
If Reid is still willing to talk to me after what happened between us this morning, I can finally get his interview at the brunch with just enough time to finish putting the video together for the banquet tonight. To show the complete story.
Hopefully before any more rumors get around.