Letter Twenty #7
Nic took my chin. “Hey. You don’t need to worry about him. I went into explicit detail with Greer and his parents about what will happen if he ever messes with you or our family again.”
I nodded, shoulders slumping with relief. Of the few things I’d never doubted in my life, my dad’s ability to protect me sat at the top of the list. He went back to sipping his latte, but I pushed mine away.
“I’m sorry I missed my graduation. I’m sorry I took that away from you.” Voice breaking, I added, “From us.”
Nic’s eyes glimmered in the daylight. But he didn’t say it was okay—because it wasn’t okay. What I’d done had cost us a special moment we could never get back.
He clasped my hand on top of the table. “Let’s keep trying to do better from now on—like John always says. Can we try that?”
“Yeah,” I said. “And what if we have a do-over? Next spring? Like a party or something? To celebrate me going off to college?” I rolled my eyes. “When I’m actually headed there, though. When it’s a done deal.”
His face split into a happy grin. “I’d love that.”
For the remainder of that summer, I ignored texts from you and Michael, begging me to text you back.
Him: Seriously, Elliot. Please answer me.
You: This is killing me. I hate not hearing from you.
Michael wanted me to answer him? You hated not hearing from me? Fine, I decided, firing off a bunch of middle finger emojis. There.
Then, one beautiful brisk day, Nic and I were sitting in the sunroom with all the windows open—him on his phone, responding to emails, and me on mine, texting—when I dropped the phone in my lap and sighed.
Nic glanced up. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Talk to me, Elliot. What’s going on?”
Since I’d been making an effort to spend more time with him—to do better—things had been more relaxed between us.
I found myself wanting to tell him stuff that I’d normally keep to myself out of spite.
“I’ve been texting Willoughby,” I admitted.
“He said we should hang out this summer, but I told him I can’t. ”
Nic turned his gaze to the row of windows—to that breathtaking ocean view he owned—and thought for a minute. “Why don’t you invite him over here to hang out?”
I blinked at him, stunned. “Are you serious?”
Maybe this had been the trick to being happier all along. The happier I made him, the happier he’d want to make me.
“Yeah. I’d like to meet this boy with the unfortunate name.”
“He’s scared of you.”
Nic smiled. “That’s perfect.”
“Can we hang out alone?” I asked excitedly. “Like, can I take him up to my room?”
The smile melted off his face. “Why are you so eager to take him up to your room?”
“Because I’m nineteen, Dad, and I should have that freedom. If I were going to college this fall, I’d be able to take boys back to my dorm as often as I want.”
“We never discussed you living in the dorms. And boys? Plural?”
“Yes,” I said, standing my ground. “I could be alone with boys. Plural.”
His gaze darkened. “Nineteen in two weeks, and alone for what?”
Did I really have to say it?
But he lifted both brows and said it for me. “Sex?”
“If that’s what I want, yeah.”
His eyes drifted closed. His lungs filled with air, which he slowly released. He needed time to process this—to finally accept it. “I leave you alone with a boy all the time. Come fall, you’ll be left alone with him three days a week.”
“That’s…different.”
“How so?”
“Because he’s a boy who doesn’t want to touch me like that.”
Nic laughed. “He’s a boy with principles—which I can appreciate—but that certainly doesn’t mean he isn’t interested in touching you.”
“Believe me, he isn’t.” Because that’s the thing, Casey.
I didn’t believe you were. In a let’s-snuggle-on-the-couch-during-a-movie sort of way, sure.
But never, ever in a back-me-into-the-wall-and-stick-your-hand-up-my-skirt kind of way.
Take our first kiss, for instance, when you’d banished me back to my sofa before it could go from hot to sizzling.
Nic’s gaze held mine. “You didn’t see what he did to those boys, Elliot. Based on that and a few other things I’ve witnessed, I’d say Casey wants more than just sex with you. But he’s sensible enough to know something that serious can wait.”
But that was the problem. I didn’t want to wait. I’d waited years already.
Besides, I firmly rejected the archaic idea that I, a girl, should have to wait for anyone—when it had become abundantly clear that no guy, including you, had ever waited for me.
“As for you and Willoughby,” Nic added, “you’re not on birth control.”
“I know to use a condom.”
“Condoms can fail,” he said darkly.
“So can birth control,” I pointed out. “That’s how me and Michael got here.”
Nic couldn’t argue with that logic. “Speaking of Michael,” he said, now scratching at his hairline, eyes narrowed. “What—um—how far did that go exactly?”
“Do you want me to go into detail or…?” I would never, Casey. I’d asked the question to mess with him.
“Absolutely not.”
“We never had sex—if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Good.” He gave a little nod here and lifted his phone. “That’s great. Glad to hear it.”
“Why?”
Nic resumed scrolling. “Might save you some trouble later on.” A minute later, his gaze flicked up to mine. “Shouldn’t you text Willoughby back?”
As I crafted a text to Willoughby, I was still pondering what kind of trouble Nic meant. Trouble with you? My stomach twisted at the thought. “Willoughby’s staying local, you know. For college.”
Nic cringed. “UMass Boston. I know.”
“What’s wrong with UMass? And how do you know he’s going there?”
“Nothing. It’s a perfectly respectable school. But he also got into NYU and Duke.”
“I know he did. How do you know that?”
“And when his parents handed him the deed to their brownstone,” Nic went on, like I’d never spoken, “and granted him access to his trust fund, he chose the state school. Which is fine. State schools are fine. But I question the boy’s decision-making skills.”
“Okay, but how do you know all that?”
Nic cast me a look like, You’re kidding, right? “It’s my job to know.”
Our relationship might’ve drastically improved over the last few weeks, but he was still my dad: shady, invasive as hell, and skilled at dodging my questions.
Some things never changed.
The next day, Willoughby arrived after lunch. When he walked out to the sunroom with me, my dad stood to greet him.
“Willoughby,” Nic said, expression neutral as he shook Willoughby’s hand. “I’ve heard things.”
Not good things. Not bad things.
Just things.
Just vague enough to make Willoughby squirm.
Willoughby only nodded, scared shitless.
Out by the pool a little while later, we sat on two chaise lounges, facing each other. “I’m surprised you still want to hang out with me,” I said.
Willoughby pushed his hair back. “Why?”
“Because I asked you to hurt me and it freaked you out.”
Willoughby studied me carefully. “How important is that stuff to you?”
“It’s not important,” I lied. “I was going through a rough time. I wanted to hurt myself after what happened with Greer and Rory.”
“Why?” he asked. “None of it was your fault.”
I shrugged. “I felt like it was.”
Willoughby took my hands, hoisted me up, and pulled me into a hug.
Later, as Willoughby and I walked down to the beach together, I tried not to think of you. Or our kiss. Or how quickly you’d believed I’d cut myself on purpose.
The morning of my birthday, I came downstairs, ravenous, instantly grabbing a handful of strawberries from the fridge.
With one hip propped against the island, I watched the sun rise through the kitchen window, the water glittering light blue and pink-orange beneath the little orb of the sun.
I dreaded the day ahead. It had only begun, and it already felt like a disappointment.
My first birthday without Michael. Without Tinsley.
Another year gone, without a mom. Another year, where I wasn’t any closer to knowing who she was. Or why she’d left. Or why my dad was so cagey about the day of my birth.
How could this day have been the greatest day of my dad’s life, but not hers? How did that work? When I grew inside her for all those months? When she’s the one who ultimately gave me life?
Like I did every year, I wondered if she’d think about me at all, or if she’d go about her day like it was any other day of the week. Nothing special. Nothing to remember here.
I rolled one of those strawberries between my fingers and sighed. Nineteen, and still the same. Nineteen, and still stuck. A grown woman, like my dad said, but forever trapped at eight.
Nic would want to celebrate and I wouldn’t, but this year, maybe I’d be nice to him about it, since he’d been trying so hard to make up for not believing me about the cut on my hand.
I bit into a strawberry, and then—
“Well, that’s hardly an acceptable breakfast.”
My heart leapt into my throat. Because you, Casey. You.
The sound of your voice.
Right behind me.
In that very room.
I froze, wide-eyed, and slowly turned around.
And there you were—arms crossed over a gray t-shirt, dark hair tousled, face covered in dark stubble—leaning against the kitchen archway.
There you were, in the flesh—after eight long weeks—real and solid, the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen.
There you were, giving me butterflies, my eyes rapidly welling with tears. I dropped those strawberries and put my hands to my mouth.
Head cocked to the side, you gazed back at me with such tender warmth and affection on your face that it made my heart do funny little flips inside my chest.
“Come here,” you whispered, and my heart flipped again.
I rounded the kitchen island and rushed into your arms, where you buried your face in my hair and squeezed my body to yours.
Where I melted against the warmth of your chest and breathed you in, pushing my fingers through the hair at the nape of your neck.
Where I cried happy tears, but you shushed me, anyway, your warm breath tickling my ear.
Several pounding heartbeats later, when we finally drew apart, you pressed your forehead to mine. “I’m shit for not believing you.”