Chapter 31
CHAPTER 31
THEN, May: eleven months ago
Is this still about Mark?” Henry yawned from beside me, nuzzling his face deeper into his pillow, eyes squinting shut. I turned the brightness of my screen to its lowest possible option. As it was probably the reason he was still awake.
Mark, Henry’s friend who’d managed a full-ride scholarship to Harvard. Mark, the thin, blond European guy I’d interviewed today. Mark, whom I couldn’t help but have a weird feeling about. I’d been trying to ignore it ever since I’d gotten back from Boston. So far I had nothing, though.
“Yeah,” I answered his question. “How did you say you guys knew each other again?” My eyes flicked down to Henry, and I honestly felt a little bad when he turned, with a stretch, onto his back to blink at me sleepily. Quickly, his eyes trailed over me, the way I sat against his headboard. He shrugged.
“Friend of a friend of a friend. I think,” he added. “But however pretentious it sounds, he’s the only guy I could think of who’s smart enough for an Ivy and not filthy rich. That’s what you wanted, right?”
“Because going to an Ivy probably isn’t as much pressure when you’ve got a hefty trust fund to back up your academic achievements. Or lack thereof, I guess.” And that’s what HBU wanted this entire article to be about.
How damaging the stress of keeping up expectations at Ivy League colleges across the country was, and how most people might be better off going to equally good schools without that added pressure. Hall Beck University, for example.
I was essentially writing a marketing letter for them. Just with more words, research, and time invested.
“And what about Mark?” Henry asked.
My head shook. I wish I could pinpoint it, but I had no idea what it was about Mark that made my stomach turn.
He’d been kind, his answers perfect. Detailing every way in which going to Harvard would look great on his resume, but was damaging enough to his mental health and self-worth that it might not be worth it.
It was exactly what I’d been wanting to hear, exactly what I’d been worried I wouldn’t—unsure how willing students were to give me those details when they spent sixty thousand dollars a year to go to an Ivy. With Mark’s scholarship, it had seemed even less likely. But alas.
From arrogant professors to a lacking safety net for their students’ mental health, Mark had given me everything I could’ve asked for. Including personal anecdotes that had been so perfect, I’d known which parts to quote when they’d come out of his mouth.
It’s like someone had personally sent Mark Lager to make my life easier. It seemed almost too perfect. And I didn’t know how to word the suspicion in response to Henry’s question.
“I don’t know,” I sighed instead, head falling back against his headboard. “Something feels off. I just don’t know what it is,” I rasped, frustrated. “I’ve gone through his followers, his following. Tagged pictures. Facebook friends,” I stressed.
“And nothing?” Henry’s hand emerged from below the covers to trail along my arm, up and down, gently, soothingly.
“Nothing,” I agreed. Ignored the goosebumps his touch still sent across my skin. “Just his own GoFundMe link and financial troubles he seems to love posting about.”
“Then maybe,” Henry began, sat up and kissed my shoulder, neck, cheek along his way. “There’s nothing wrong with him. Hm?”
My eyes finally trailed away from Mark’s Facebook page on the screen. The sight of Henry’s smile was much more welcoming, warm and encouraging and begging me to go to sleep. “You’ve been checking for the past three hours, charm. Do you really think you’re still going to find something now?” His gaze flicked to the time on my laptop. “At one in the morning?”
Probably not, I thought. “But if I just—”
“You’re being paranoid.” And his tone wasn’t judgmental or cruel. It was the opposite, and I could tell it pained him deeply to be so blatantly honest about it. I appreciated it, though.
Perhaps it was time to sleep. Perhaps I should just let it go—be happy about the answers he’d given me instead of trying to find a catch in them.
Henry’s head tilted, and it almost seemed like he could read my internal struggle from my face. The way my eyes closed, the way my nose twitched. Then, the way I threw my head back with a frustrated groan, which probably wasn’t as subtle.
“I’m sorry this is worrying you so much,” he sighed, slipping his hand in mine and bringing it up to his lips. He kissed it once. “Maybe I shouldn’t have suggested him. I don’t know much about the guy, but he seemed fine whenever—”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” My head shook at the suggestion. “ Thank you . For getting me anyone to talk to at all,” I pressed. “My overthinking isn’t your fault.”
And the fact that he thought it might be, was what finally made me close my laptop and place it on the bedside table. When I turned back to Henry, I could only make out his general shape in the dark, and that he was holding his arms wide open for me to fall into.
Which I did. Without hesitation.
We scooted lower, heads accidentally landing on the same pillow. “You’ll do great with this article,” he muttered into my hair. Kissed the top of my head. “I can already tell it’ll change things. They’ll love it.”
“You haven’t even read it,” I reminded him in the dark, a laugh on my lips I was too tired to let go of fully. I huffed.
“I don’t need to,” he said before his warm body and sweet nothings whispered me to sleep.