Chapter 10 #2
I think about that moment Mason had his hand on my ass at Ironwood. Then I think about what Rowan is doing right now: sitting on a cold wall, not reaching for me, because I told him no at the party and he isn’t going to ask twice.
“Why do you hide it?” I say.
“Hide what?”
“That you’re struggling.” I shrug. “You don’t tell anyone. Ivy doesn’t think to ask.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, then he says, “You’re hiding too.”
He says it like a fact, not an accusation.
My mind is running the warning in my mother’s voice that this is the danger zone. If I answer right now, I’m going to say something unguarded, and I’ll have to walk it back tomorrow. But as his arm presses against mine, or mine against his, I exhale.
“Yes,” I say.
“Yes what?”
“Yes, I’m hiding.” I tuck my hands further into my pockets. “I came here planning to. I had it all worked out. There’s Halden Sloane: composed, pleasant, and functional. She doesn’t laugh too loud, doesn’t ask too much, and doesn’t take up the whole room.”
“I’ve met her.” He snorts. “And the other one. I like her better.”
I feel a spark of warmth between us. I think about every time we’ve been close — the courtyard, Maple & Main, the Lantern, his hand on my arm at the party — and then the seminar, where I forgot to be careful, and the opportunity it won me.
“She’s loud and burns bright,” I say. “She feels everything in front of everyone, talks with her hands, and — I’ll be honest — is a lot.”
“She sounds awesome,” he says. “She’d be cool to hang out with.”
He turns his head now, looking at me properly. His arm is warm against mine, a gentle touch so different from the way Mason grabbed. I let it stay, but I keep my eyes on the path, because if I look at him I’ll either start crying or stop talking.
“I really wanted it to work, you know?” I sigh. “Be the Halden Girl. Date the Halden Guy. Don’t trip up, don’t ruin everything, and don’t embarrass myself.”
“Why do you think you’d ruin anything?” he says.
I pause for a long time.
“I had a boyfriend,” I say finally. “Senior year of high school. Harrison. He was, well, he was exactly the kind of boy you’re meant to have. The right last name. The right blazer.” My throat catches. “He was perfect, charming, and I liked him so much.”
“I sense a but,” he says.
“But…” I trail off, then steady. “Well, I trusted him, and I shouldn’t have, and it hurt me and my family far more than it hurt him. He did a shitty thing, yet everyone who mattered — my friends, the school — accepted his account…”
I stop. The word sits in my mouth. Account. I said it an hour ago, standing at a whiteboard, defending someone else’s side of the story. It was my story too, but nobody defended mine.
The Halden Girl is screaming at me to stop talking, to laugh it off, to change the subject, because this is exactly how you become a cautionary tale. You share too much, you open yourself up, or you send the wrong kind of photos to the wrong kind of boy.
“I’m sorry. I—” I struggle for the words. “I didn’t mean to dump all that on you, especially after the night you’ve had. I’m fine. It was last year, which is an eternity, right, so get over it, Sloane…”
He doesn’t say anything for a long moment. I can feel him next to me, the warm bulk of him against the cold. His mouth opens, then closes, his jaw working as his hands grip the stone wall at his sides, knuckles going pale.
He fights something down — the need to reassure, the need to fix, the trained response that lives in his body the way mine lives in me. He wants to fix this for me, but he doesn’t move or talk.
He just sits with it.
And with me.
But I know he can’t resist it.
“Sloane,” he says, finally.
“Yeah?”
“You can do whatever you want, but you don’t have to hide from me.”
I sit with that for a while.
“Okay,” I say, eventually, my voice a whisper. “I’d like that.”
The cold has gotten into me now, and I start shivering.
“You’re cold,” he says.
“You’re observant.”
The corner of his mouth lifts. Barely. But it’s so small and so tired that I put my hand over his and leave it there. His expression changes, eyes narrowing as he looks down at my hand — still shivering — covering his. Then he looks at me, and his eyes are wide.
I don’t kiss him. But I want to.
“Go inside,” he says.
“Stop trying to fix me.”
He laughs at that.
Fuck you, Halden Girl. I can still make people laugh.
“Bellamy’s open late,” I say. “I have reading to do, and you can study too.”
“Thought the loud one was out tonight.” His mouth curves, slow and pleased.
“What?”
“The one you told me about wouldn’t pick the most boring building on campus…”
“It’s warm there.” I take my hand from his and punch him in the arm.
“See, there she is,” he says.
He picks up his bag, the strap wet at the end where it’s been in the grass. He shoulders it and stands, waiting for me to stand too, and when I do, I stumble. His hand comes out to catch me and his fingers close around my arm, warm and steady.
He holds me there, and I feel his thumb shift against the inside of my arm, in almost the same spot as at the toga party. Then he lets go, and right then, I’m conscious — still — that I said no at the party.
Well, things change.
As we start across the quad toward Bellamy, we walk close enough that our sleeves bump twice on the path. He doesn’t move away when they do, and the third time my hand brushes his, I take it.
Cold fingers lace through cold fingers, and we don’t say a word about it.