Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
Mom gapes at me. “You had me, Blair. You had us.” She motions to Victor. “You could’ve told us. We would’ve put you in the dorms or found you another place—”
“And what would that have cost? Where would you have cut that money from?”
She pauses, and then her mouth flattens with understanding. “So you chose your hobby over being honest with your parents.”
“I chose the thing I love.”
“Oh, Blair,” Mom says with a sigh.
“I dropped out,” says Sawyer. “Of school. I submitted my withdrawal paperwork last week.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Victor mutters. “All that money—”
“I’ll pay you back,” Sawyer says.
“You couldn’t afford it!” Victor thunders. “Do you know how many thousands of dollars a semester costs?”
“And I will pay you back,” Sawyer replies evenly. “With interest. You can send me a bill.”
Victor’s face reddens. “And how do you plan to pay that bill with no college degree?”
“I didn’t know a college degree could pay bills. I thought you had to have a job for that.”
“Do not start that attitude with me—”
“I’ll get a job. I might even go back to school,” Sawyer says. “But what I won’t do is major in finance because you two think it’s the fastest way for me to make money. I don’t need a big house or a fat bank account—”
“You say that now because you’ve never had to work for anything in your life,” Victor snarls. “This is a bad bet, Sawyer.”
Sawyer shrugs. “I’m willing to risk it.”
On the outside, my brother seems as he always does—not cowed by Victor or the gamble he’s taking. But now that he’s told me himself how scared he is, it occurs to me that all this time Sawyer wasn’t fearless. He was brave. And you can’t be brave without fear.
“I dropped out of the APM,” I say.
Mom puts her hands over her face. “Blair.”
“I was having a hard time—”
“If you didn’t have a hard time, you wouldn’t be learning!” Victor explodes. There’s sweat dotting his temples now, and the vein in his forehead throbs. “It shouldn’t be easy!”
“It wasn’t just hard! I was drowning!”
“Then you needed to learn to swim,” says Victor.
I look helplessly at Mom, but her chin is up, her gaze steady.
“Sawyer, you’ve got two choices,” Victor continues.
“You can come home with us right now, and we’ll figure out a plan for you that involves going back to school, or you can do this on your own without our help.
If you stay, don’t expect another dime from us.
You’ll be off our phone plan, off our health insurance—”
“I guess I should be glad I bought my own car,” Sawyer says.
“Good luck driving it without car insurance,” Victor replies. “You want to know what the real world is like? This is it. Adults do it all on their own. If you think you can handle that, then go ahead and try. We won’t stop you.”
Sawyer’s jaw tightens, but he says nothing.
“And Blair,” Victor says, turning to me again, “if you think you’re staying here to live with your boyfriend, you are sorely mistaken. Start packing. We’re leaving tonight.”
“I’m not going.”
“Oh yes you are,” Mom says.
“No, I’m not. I’m not playing by your rules anymore. I can’t.”
“You will,” Victor says, leveling me with a severe look, “because I don’t think you know anyone else who could’ve cosigned your lease for you. Which means you would’ve had to forge either my signature or your mother’s.”
My obvious shock seems to please him.
“You think you’re the first person to ask me to cosign for them? I know how strict they are here. Jamie asked me last year.”
Sawyer stiffens beside me, and from a glance at his face, I can tell he didn’t know this.
“You said no to him?” he asks. “Why?”
“That’s not something you do for just anyone, Sawyer,” Mom says.
“But… he’s Jamie. He’s not just anyone!” I cry.
“You only say that because you’re dating him now,” she replies.
“That’s not true.”
“Blair, his own father said no. If his dad doesn’t trust him, how can we?”
“His dad’s an asshole!” Sawyer explodes.
“He said no because he wanted Jamie to join ROTC! Because they’d pay for housing, and he wouldn’t have to worry about a cosigner then.
It was the only thing Jamie couldn’t do himself, and he got backed into a corner because of it!
You had a chance to save him from that, and you said no? ”
Mom throws up her hands. “He’s not our son, Sawyer.
” At her use of the word “our,” my brother visibly bristles.
“I know you don’t get it, but you’re still a child.
When you’re an adult, you’ll understand.
Cosigning for someone is a big deal, and it was too much to ask of us.
And you shouldn’t talk about his father like that.
We don’t know what the situation is there. ”
“I do,” I say. “I know the situation because I know Jamie, and so do you, Mom! You could’ve trusted him, but you chose to leave him on his own to figure it out. You’re an adult—”
“Exactly,” Victor says sharply. “We’re the adults. Maybe when you’ve both grown up a little and had to earn something for yourselves, you’ll get it. If Jamie has to join the Army to pay for school because that’s what his father wanted, that’s between them.”
I blink, surprised to find my eyes filling with tears. “You could’ve just loved him, you know. There isn’t a limit on how many people you can care about. You could’ve loved him because we love him. You could’ve helped him because it would’ve cost you nothing.”
“You have no way of knowing that,” Victor says.
Sawyer turns away, pacing to the other end of my room and back.
“We love you,” Mom says. “And you two are already a handful for us, clearly. Did you really forge Victor’s signature?”
I flush, nodding.
“Well, Blair,” Victor says, “you’ve now come to the consequence of that decision. Because the only way I’ll pay to break your lease without turning you in is if you leave with us. Tonight.”
I stare at him. “Are you… are you serious?”
Victor’s gaze is hard and cold. He doesn’t have to answer with words—the look is enough.
Tears prick my eyes, and I look to Mom. “You would turn me in?”
Mom’s throat moves as she swallows, her gaze flicking briefly to Victor and then back to me. “Not if you come home with us,” she says, doubling down.
I turn to my brother, who looks stricken. Clearly, this is not a possibility either of us considered.
“They could press charges,” I say. “It’s a felony.”
“I doubt there’d be jail time involved. You’re a first-time offender, and you’re only eighteen,” Victor says.
“But you’d almost certainly be charged with a felony.
You want to do whatever you want with your life?
That’s fine. I wish you all the luck finding a job with a criminal record and no college degree. ”
I stare at him, then Mom, speechless.
She doesn’t look at me, instead taking slow stock of the room. “Let’s start packing.”
“Mom,” Sawyer says, his expression slack with shock. “You can’t be serious. You’re going to let him do this to her?”
“I’m not doing anything to her,” Victor says. “She did this to herself. I’m simply offering to help her out of it.”
“That’s not what you’re doing, and you know it!” Sawyer shouts.
“Sawyer,” I say, putting out a hand. “It’s fine. I’ll go.”
Mom is already at my closet, pulling my clothes from their hangers. She starts folding them on the bed. “These containers aren’t even unpacked. This shouldn’t take us long.”
It’s true. I never actually unpacked that much, because I always knew I’d be leaving in August. That was the deal I’d made with Jamie.
“You don’t have to do this,” Sawyer says to me.
I give him a helpless look. “What choice do I have?”
He shakes his head, turning toward the door. “This is so fucked up. You’d rather destroy her than let her out from under your thumb. That’s sick. You’re both sick.” He walks out, slamming the door so hard, my furniture rattles. A moment later, the front door swings shut just as hard.
My vision blurs as my tears spill over. The three of us don’t speak. I hardly even breathe, trying to hold in my panicked sobs.
When I go to grab my toiletries from the bathroom, my roommates are in the living room.
The DnD group is long gone, and Felicity must have come home sometime during this fight, because she has her arms around Mikey, who is openly crying.
Andres sits on the floor, his knees bent up, head in his hands.
Only Jamie is missing, still at work, and I realize with a stomach-sinking feeling that I’m not going to get to say goodbye.
Good, I think. I don’t know if I’ll be able to leave if he’s standing there.
I grab my things from the bathroom, making trips back and forth to dump them into a suitcase. Victor takes my keys to start carrying containers to my car while Mom packs my clothes.
When we’re nearly finished, I head to the living room, swiping at my eyes. “Um, so I’m moving out,” I say.
“Bee,” Mikey says, their voice hitching, but they don’t say anything else. They lift their arm, sobbing into their elbow.
Even Felicity’s eyes are red. She stands and hugs me. “If there’s anything we can do—”
“I wish,” I whisper.
As Felicity pulls away, Mikey jumps up, throwing themself into my arms. They hold on for a long time, until Mom says my name from the front door. Mikey lets go, stepping back into Felicity’s embrace.
Andres is last, squeezing me tight. “I’m so sorry, Bee.”
“Me too,” I whisper. I pull away, facing the three of them. “Thank you for everything. This was… like, the worst summer of my life, maybe. But also the best, because of you. I want to stay. I’d stay forever if I could.”
Mikey makes a small, distressed sound.
“Blair,” Mom says again. “It’s time to go.”
We’re crossing the parking lot, splitting wordlessly—Victor in my parents’ car, Mom and me in mine—when I see a Jeep swing into the parking lot, barely making it into a spot before Jamie jumps out.
“Blair!” Mom shouts as I bolt.
I meet Jamie halfway, and we crash into each other. His arms latch around me, his hand in my hair. He grabs on to me so hard, it’s almost painful, and I match him, digging in my claws until I’m sure I’ve torn straight through his shirt.
My voice comes out a whine as I say, “How are you here right now?”
“Sawyer called me. I’m sorry,” he says, desperation lacing his words. “If I hadn’t asked them—”
I bite down on his shoulder, and he gasps. “Don’t apologize,” I mumble against his shirt. “Just don’t let go yet.”
He holds me even as my parents call my name—Victor’s tone increasing in fury, their voices growing closer.
“I love you,” I whisper, pressing my face into his neck as I begin to slacken my hold.
Jamie’s grip on me tightens. “Not yet.”
“I have to go.”
“I love you too,” he says. “I’ve loved you forever.
I loved you the second I saw you. I went home and started looking up if love at first sight was real, because my stupid twelve-year-old science-geek brain could not comprehend it.
And maybe it isn’t real, but it doesn’t matter, because I fell in love with you anyway.
More and more, every time I saw you. Love at every sight. ”
I pull away, wiping my eyes. “Are you kidding me, Jamie? You’re telling me this now?”
“Yeah, bad timing. But you needed to know.”
I lean up and kiss him, not caring that my parents are watching, that the stitches on the wound of this summer are being popped one by one, letting out all the infection that’s been festering since I told my very first lie.
Here’s something that’s not a lie: “You’re the best person I know. Don’t give up on me yet, okay? I’m going to figure this out.”
Jamie’s expression softens as he leans down to kiss me again. “Only an idiot would give up on you,” he murmurs against my mouth.
Mom grabs my arm, yanking me away. I follow her half turned, watching Jamie as I go, not wanting to take my eyes off him for a single second. Not until we’re pulling out of the parking lot, leaving my brother, my most miraculous friends, and the boy I love in the rearview mirror.