Chapter 33 #2
With a wave, they both step into a sudden gust of snowfall and head toward the parking lot.
Instead of navigating to the student lounge around the corner, I veer in a different direction.
Half of the fluorescents are off, casting a dim light down the corridor.
My loafers emit a dull clack with every step I take, the sound echoing down the hall, but I don’t stop walking until I’m climbing the steps toward the astronomy lab.
Mr. Kovacs is snapping his briefcase closed when I open the door. “Miss Carmichael,” he says genially. “What a surprise. I’m afraid I can’t be of assistance to you, as I’m expected at my daughter’s house soon.”
“Sorry.” I start to backtrack. “I don’t need anything—I mean, I don’t have a reason I’m here.”
He indicates I should come in anyway, so I let the door close behind me. “We all have a reason we’re here, Miss Carmichael.”
My gaze tugs to the large window overlooking the lake. Snow flurries have already thickened, drifting between tree branches.
Mr. Kovacs must see something in my face because he says, “Tell you what. Stay as long as you need.” He tugs on his jacket and grips his briefcase. “All I ask is you lock the inner handle on your way out.”
I fold my hands into the pockets of my coat. “Thank you.”
His eyes crinkle behind his bifocals when he smiles. “You’ve done wonderful work this semester. He would have been proud.”
My heart squeezes. I don’t have to ask who he’s talking about.
When he leaves, I gravitate toward the window and place my forehead against the cool pane.
Last year, our family spent the holiday together.
My dad was struggling with retrograde amnesia from the tumor, and since the cancer had advanced, there wasn’t anything more his doctors could do.
When he wasn’t resting, he was reading, and when he wasn’t reading, he was resting.
All the while, his memory slowly drained away like a faulty sink leaking a constant drip.
It was a good day if he remembered. I recall an afternoon when I’d curled up on the armchair next to his bed; he’d smiled at me in a way that told me he was there.
I’d nodded to the journal in his hand. “What are you reading?”
“Musings, collections, thoughts.” He’d closed the cover, and he ran his palm over the front. The brass ring on his index finger caught my eye, a tiny universe in a never-ending loop. “Extricating pieces of myself from my own observations.”
He’d gestured for me to come closer, and I’d moved toward the edge of the bed. “All the secrets to the universe?” I’d asked, partially joking.
“The tip of the iceberg, no doubt.” A smile reached his tired eyes. “Think you’re ready to handle them?”
“As long as you’re here to teach me.”
His smile faltered as he’d slid the journal across the quilted comforter, then raised his left arm so I could ease myself by his side. He rested his cheek on the top of my head. “Everything ends,” he’d said after a while. “But what a gift, Delaney, to have been part of it at all.”
Tears stream down my cheeks as I remember how full of wonder his voice sounded.
I wipe them away with the back of my hand.
I don’t know how people go on loving when they’ve experienced loss as an expanding black hole feeding on their suffering, to continue on knowing there will never be anyone else like that person.
Everything does end. But it’s not supposed to end like this.
The door hinges release a rough squeal. Footsteps follow. As I angle my head toward the noise, Sumner enters.
“Thought I’d find you here,” he says. “But if you’d rather be alone, I can leave.”
I shake my head. “You didn’t go home?” We’ve been so caught up in work that I hadn’t thought to ask about his plans, but I assumed he’d want to see Preston and his mom.
He shrugs. “This is more important.”
He comes to stand beside me by the window. His hair looks as though he’s been mindlessly tugging a hand through it, wild strands weaving in every direction. So beguilingly him.
“I keep thinking,” I start, “what if this is all we get? What if I never get to see Jared again? Or my mom and Mads? I can’t explain any of this to them even if I wanted to.” My gaze finds his. “You should be with your family.”
Sumner palms the back of his neck. “I’ve thought about this too, but Preston’s with our dad.
” His eyes cast toward the lake. “My mom agreed he could spend Thanksgiving in the city if that meant we got Christmas—I guess he’s been asking to spend time with Preston, and I think she’s afraid he’ll fight for full custody, especially since he’s the one who has all the money and power.
But Preston—I mean, he’ll FaceTime me every couple of hours because he’s homesick and he misses me and our mom. And there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Something delicate inside me cracks. “I’m so sorry.”
“It is what it is.” His hands slide into his jacket pockets as he looks at me.
“Anyway, my mom and I talked things out. She said she’d pick up extra work over Thanksgiving and that we’ll spend Christmas together.
Meanwhile, our dad is trying to make up for eleven years of absence by taking Preston to the M&M store—god.
I’m sorry. I hear how it sounds. Complaining that he has a dad who wants to spend time with him. ”
“You don’t have to do that,” I tell him. “My problems aren’t any greater than yours. They’re just different.”
He nods, teeth skating over his bottom lip.
“I worry he’ll treat Preston like a temporary investment.
It’s like, if he gets tired of him and stops trying to be part of his life, it’s Preston who’ll get hurt.
” He hangs his head. “And I can’t let that happen.
He shouldn’t have to prove himself to gain his own dad’s affection or attention. No one should.”
Empathy pulses through me. Whether Sumner realizes it or not, he’s not just talking about his brother.
Over the years, Sumner hasn’t tried to best me for the sake of annoying me.
He’s been trying to prove to his dad that he belongs here.
That he’s worth the investment of this opportunity.
That he’s intelligent enough. Ambitious enough. Impressive enough.
It’s easy to show on paper, through grades and math awards and local news articles, but it’s not everything.
Those things aren’t what make a person. Take all of it away and you find the real Sumner Winchel, the guy who sits on your living room floor, assisting you with your makeup calculus homework because your dad just died and it’s hard to focus on anything, let alone equations.
He’s someone who won’t make promises he can’t keep but always stays true to his word.
The guy who live streams so his younger brother can have an easier time fitting in. Someone worth knowing.
Has he ever been told he’s enough? Known love he didn’t have to bend over backward for?
“Do you remember,” I hear myself say, “that time I was upset during our first year here?”
I’d come crying to Jared because I overheard two senior girls making fun of the bow I’d pinned in the back of my hair.
It wasn’t about the ribbon. Not really. This was before I’d met Analiese, before I made any real friends, and as a student here on tuition assistance, I was overcome with a sense of inferiority.
Impostor syndrome on steroids, like I’d never really belong.
“You were in the Segner commons with him and Carlos and Paul,” I continue. “Jared told me to ignore them, but you shot up so quickly—I thought you were about to leave, to be honest—but instead you looked at me and said, ‘The important ones see you for who you are.’ ”
“Seems like someone trying too hard to sound impressive.”
I won’t let him trivialize this. “You were right. And if your dad won’t stick around to see how amazing Preston is, or how amazing you are, then fuck him.” I raise my eyebrows when he smiles. “Seriously.”
A flicker of appreciation appears in his eyes. “Thank you.” He angles his body toward me. “You are too, you know.”
My nerve endings sing.
“And I’m sorry this isn’t the break either of us wanted, but I wouldn’t have progressed this far with the missing equations without you,” he continues. “I’m in. No matter what it takes.”
“I’m scared of what happens to us if we don’t finish this in time,” I whisper.
“We will,” he says with unwavering conviction. Before I have a chance to respond, he nods toward the door. “Can I walk you to the lounge?”
This question feels so out of left field from him that it momentarily catches me off guard. “Yeah,” I say. “Sure.”
He holds the door open for me and I lock it behind us, pulse beating in my throat when his eyes cling to mine. Before I overthink it, I add, “I’m glad you’re here.”
I expect a snide remark, maybe a haughty joke tossed in our typical manner of verbal sparring, and I know it’s only because we have a ton of work ahead of us with so much hanging on the line, but I swear I catch a slip of emotion as he says, voice low, “I’m glad you’re here, too.”