Chapter 34 #2
My heart swoops like a pendulum as I get up and move closer, trailing my fingers along his desk.
There’s a photo of him and Preston taped to the window.
His brother’s swirl of dark hair mirrors Sumner’s.
Preston sticks his tongue out at the camera, and Sumner, mid-laugh, pretends to chomp the side of his head.
“They made dinner together today.” He moves from the bed to stand beside me. “I thought he’d take him to some fancy, flashy New York City restaurant, but Preston seemed to enjoy it. He said he wants to show me how to make mashed potatoes that aren’t instant.”
“That’s good then, right?”
Two steps backward and he’s sitting on his bed. “Yeah, Carmichael. It’s good.”
But there’s distance in his voice. He must feel it, too. That constant reminder we’re no longer guaranteed time.
He changes the subject. “Did Analiese have a nice Thanksgiving?”
“I wouldn’t know.” I sit next to him and lie back so I’m staring at his ceiling.
“She wants to publish an exposé on William after break. I tried to tell her it’s not worth it and we got into a fight.
Now we’re not speaking.” I spin the marker in my hands.
“I was also pretty honest about where our friendship stands. I don’t think it helped. ”
A stretch of silence. He lies down so we’re side by side, the hem of his Henley rising a few centimeters as he does. My eyes catch the exposed slice of his abdomen and, pulse thrashing, I quickly divert my gaze toward the ceiling.
“We don’t need any more obstacles right now,” he finally says. “And you stood up to her. I’m impressed.”
I roll onto my side, admiring his profile. “That’s the second time you’ve said that to me.”
He mimics my movement, our noses only a few inches apart. “What, that you impress me?” His slanted smile appears, and I like how it’s not completely even. “I thought that much was clear.”
An airy laugh erupts from my lips. “Sumner,” I say, “the only thing you’ve made clear from the very first moment we met is how you enjoy beating me in anything.”
Sumner makes a face. “That’s because I didn’t know how to talk to you.”
“Sure you did,” I fire back. “Hey, ninety-one, you know I’m ranked twenty and you’re twenty-one? Or my personal favorite, Hey, Carmichael, what’d you get on that calc quiz? When you knew damn well I rarely scored as high as you.”
“You had me beat in physics.”
“And you with chemistry.” I raise my brows. “I’m a game to you.”
His eyes trail down to my lips before lifting to meet my gaze. “No,” he insists quietly. “You’re not.”
I’m not sure what to think, because if we’re basing all my theories on hard evidence, then the results point to him messing with me for his own personal enjoyment. Because he needed me to be the challenge.
“Then why? Half the time I was convinced you didn’t even like me—that you put up with me because I’m Jared’s sister.”
I see the moment his expression changes. A shift in the jovial, confident Sumner to a delicate sincerity.
“Early on, back in our first year, you walked into the common room and—I can’t really explain it.
I wanted to impress you.” His fingertips nudge his frames.
“There was this one time when Sherlock came up and I said Arthur Conan Doyle was Irish, but you were quick to correct me. You loved being right. I don’t know—I guess that was my in.
If I was, like, galvanizing you in some way. Egging you on so you’d notice me.”
“So it wasn’t to get under my skin?”
“Maybe a little.”
My gaze tangles with his. From this close, I notice his eyes aren’t a stormy blue-gray, not fully.
I got it wrong. Rings of deep gold circle the black holes of his pupils, a cataclysmic flare bursting and expanding outward into a galaxy of ever-shifting blues.
Heterochromia, the technical term. No wonder it seems as though the color shifts depending on the light.
“Then how come—”
I stop myself, suddenly back on my patio in Pennsylvania as his head tipped toward me and his glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose. The way my fingers had reached over and pushed them into place, surprise registering in his expression, a silent exhale slipping between his teeth.
Now his eyes search mine in the dimly lit room. “What?”
“It was just”—I stare up at his ceiling—“so easy for you to leave.”
This is the closest we’ve come to talking about it, and something inside me suddenly hardens.
He’d shown up for me that summer; then he’d left like it meant nothing.
I’d been vulnerable, so open and forthcoming, like I’d cracked open a piece of myself only he could see.
And then he’d wanted to reset. Keep everything how it’d been before. Walls up, doors locked.
I can’t even pretend I don’t understand it.
Not when I know the truth. Everything he does is a way of proving to his family that he’s enough.
His fraught relationship with his parents creates this internal, expanding insecurity, and to control that simmering anxiety, he strives to succeed in tangible ways.
He’s constantly afraid of leaving expectations unfulfilled, so he overcompensates with a front of arrogance.
“It wasn’t,” he says gently.
“Then why pretend?” I push myself into a sitting position, smoothing my hands over my sweater. “I mean, sometimes you’ll act so haughty and confident. But I think, deep down, you’re a coward.” I brave a look at him. “Why didn’t you go to Argentina last summer?”
“Don’t,” he cautions, heat behind his eyes.
“You’re scared.” I utilize my words like I’m pressing into an aching bruise. “I used to think you were a self-righteous dick who felt superior to everyone else, but that’s not it—”
“Delaney.”
But using my first name as a warning doesn’t scare me into stopping.
“You’ve had the misfortune of having to earn your dad’s love and respect, and that infiltrates every aspect of your life.
You stream so you can make money for Preston because you worry you’re not enough for him, but I bet he would have been happy spending the entire summer with you.
And maybe that’s why you feel like you have to earn your grandmother’s love—by somehow being Argentinian enough to travel all the way there to get to know that side of your family—but that’s not true.
That’s not how family works, Sumner. Real love isn’t circumstantial. You’re enough because you’re you.”
He pushes himself up on his elbows, mouth tense. His voice is so low that I almost don’t catch his next words. “You should go.”
A stinging sensation wells behind my nose. I won’t cry here. Not when I’m the one who overstepped.
I remove myself from his bed, creating distance as I step in the center of the room. “Come find me when you realize I’m right.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. His eyes darken.
“I’m not the only one who’s afraid.” He uses the heels of his palms to force himself upright. “What about you?”
My defenses rise. I don’t back down. “Okay. What about me?”
“You’re terrified of making your own choices because you’re not sure if they’re the right ones,” he fires.
“But you want the truth, Delaney? You’re going to make wrong choices.
And when you do, you’ll be disappointed and worried and maybe regret it.
But if you don’t give yourself permission to choose, you’re just following a road paved by someone else.
Sometimes you have to make your own path and find out what lies at the end of it, because it could be something really great.
Instead, the fear of fucking up your own life is preventing you from actually living it. ”
His words are a thousand tiny needles pricking at my heart, but at least it’s something I’ve slowly come to accept.
Any remaining argument shrivels on my tongue.
Mrs. Vidar-Tett was right. I’ve been comfortable in taking a passive role in how I’m defined because I felt like everyone else knew better.
My parents had always been there to hold my hand, to guide me, but when it came time to let go, I’d only held on tighter.
We’re not so different, him and I. We both want to make our families proud, but we’ve gone about it in all the wrong ways.
I reach the door. “I’m working on it. But I made a decision to kiss you last summer, and I never once regretted it.”
His eyes shift to the ground. My hand turns the knob, and I push my way out, doing as he asked. Leaving.
He doesn’t try to stop me.