Chapter 9 Isla #2
Sunday morning arrives cold and bright. I wake up to a text from Sebastian: Ready for our very normal, very regular afternoon? I have ideas.
Me: Should I be worried?
Sebastian: Probably. Pick you up at 1?
Me: I can meet you—
Sebastian: I'm picking you up. Stop fighting me on this. The message comes before I can even finish typing my message.
Me: Fine. But if your ideas involve anything that costs more than twenty dollars, I'm vetoing.
Sebastian: Deal.
I spend the morning doing homework and trying not to overthink everything. By twelve-thirty, I've changed outfits three times and given up on looking like I'm not trying.
Jeans. Sweater. Boots. Hair down. Good enough.
At exactly one PM, there's a knock on my door.
Sebastian stands in the hallway wearing jeans, a jacket, and a nervous smile.
"Ready for the most aggressively normal date of your life?"
"Hit me."
We end up at the campus bowling alley, a dingy, ancient place in the student union basement that smells like stale beer and disappointment. It's perfect.
"Bowling?" I raise an eyebrow as Sebastian pays for shoes and a lane.
"You said normal. Normal college students bowl." He hands me genuinely hideous rental shoes. "Besides, I'm terrible at it. Thought you'd enjoy watching me fail."
"I do enjoy that."
We get our shoes and find our lane. The alley is mostly empty, a few other students, some staff members, a kids' birthday party in the far corner.
"Full disclosure," Sebastian says as he enters our names on the electronic scoreboard. "I haven't bowled since I was eight and my father decided it was beneath us."
"Everything fun is beneath you people."
"You're not wrong." He picks up a ball, testing the weight. "But I'm trying to change that. Be less Thornhill, more human."
"How's that going?" I ask.
"Ask me in two weeks."
We play. Sebastian is, as promised, terrible. His first ball goes directly into the gutter. His second isn't much better.
I, on the other hand, am mysteriously good at bowling.
"How?" Sebastian demands after I get my third strike. "How are you this good?"
"My hometown had a bowling alley. Cheapest entertainment around. I spent every Friday night there from age twelve to eighteen." I line up my next shot. "Some of us had to find joy in places that didn't require money."
"I'm starting to realize how much I missed."
"You didn't miss bowling alleys. Trust me."
"No. But I missed... this. Being normal.
Having fun without it being a production.
" He sits next to me on the plastic chairs.
"Everything in my life has always been about appearances.
Legacy Council meetings, charity galas, networking events.
Even the parties at Legacy House aren't actually fun. They're just another obligation."
"That sounds exhausting."
"It is." He watches me bowl, another strike. "You make it look easy. Being yourself. Not caring what people think."
"I care what people think. I just don't have the luxury of pretending otherwise." I sit back down next to him. "When you're a scholarship student, everyone's watching to see if you fail. Waiting for proof you don't belong. So you either own who you are or you let them break you."
"And you chose to own it."
"I chose to survive. There's a difference."
We bowl three games. I win all three by embarrassing margins. By game three, Sebastian has given up even trying and is just laughing at his own incompetence.
"I'm beginning to think you hustled me," he says after his ball goes in the gutter for the fifteenth time.
"Would I do that?"
"Absolutely."
We return our shoes and head back outside. The February afternoon is still cold but sunny, and campus is alive with students enjoying the weekend.
"Food?" Sebastian suggests. "And before you say anything, I know a place that's definitely under twenty dollars."
He takes me to a small sandwich shop off campus, the kind of place with plastic tables and a hand-written menu. We order at the counter, and Sebastian pays before I can argue.
"You're buying a lot of my meals lately," I observe when we sit down with our sandwiches.
"I'm making up for two years of being an asshole. I figure I owe you at least a few hundred meals."
"That's a lot of sandwiches."
"I'm committed to the cause." He takes a bite. "Can I ask you something?"
"You're going to anyway."
"What happens after the gala? After the contract is fulfilled?"
The question catches me off guard. I've been so focused on getting through the five dates that I haven't thought about after.
"I don't know," I admit. "What do you want to happen?"
"I want to keep seeing you. For real. No contract, no cameras, no social media documentation.
Just us." He sets down his sandwich. "But I also know that's asking a lot.
Your friends don't trust me. Most of campus thinks I'm an entitled asshole and you have every reason to walk away once this is over. "
"Yes to all of that." Not sure what else to say to him.
"So what I'm asking is... do I have a shot? After this is done, do we have a shot at being something real?"
I think about Ivy's warnings. Lennox's concerns. Two years of cruelty that can't be erased by a few good dates and some poetry.
But I also think about his hand in mine on the ice. His vulnerability with the journal. The way he kisses me like I'm precious. The fact that he's trying, really trying, to be better.
"Maybe," I say finally. "If you keep being honest. If you keep showing up. If you prove that this version of you is real and not just a performance."
"How do I prove that?"
"I don't know. But you've got two more dates to figure it out."
He reaches across the table and takes my hand. Right here in this cheap sandwich shop with students and staff around us. Making it public. Making it real.
"I'll figure it out," he promises.
And despite everything, despite all my doubts and fears and the voice in my head that sounds like Ivy warning me to be careful, I believe him.
We spend the rest of the afternoon walking around campus, talking about everything and nothing. He tells me about growing up with the weight of the Thornhill name. I tell him about my sister's medical issues and why every dollar matters.
It's easy. Comfortable. Like we've been doing this for years instead of days.
When he drops me off at my dorm that evening, he kisses me goodbye, soft and sweet and full of promise.
"Two more dates," he says against my lips.
"Two more chances," I correct.
"I won't waste them."
I believe him. God help me, I actually believe him.