Chapter Thirty-Seven
97 days until graduation
I wasn’t in London for very long before I was back in Hartford-Brainard Airport, ready to make things right.
No one knows I’m here. No one except my dad knows I’m back in Connecticut.
I pull my phone out of the back pocket of my jeans as I drag my luggage through the airport terminal.
The first person I call is Logan, and when he picks up, I can tell by the background he’s at a party. “Jameson, hey!” He yells over the noise before it becomes quieter.
I’m assuming he went outside, because the only sound I hear is passing wind.
“Hey, I have a favor to ask you,” I say as I take a seat, leaving my luggage on the floor by my feet.
“Uh, I don’t know how much help I’ll be from a different continent, but sure,” he replies.
I look around the airport, almost laughing to myself at the irony. “Well, good thing we’re not in different continents, because my favor is asking you to pick me up from the airport.”
“Right now?” He asks. “You’re in Connecticut?”
“Yeah, I just landed,” I sigh. “I fucked up, Logan.”
“Trust me, I know.” He laughs before adding, “You’re lucky I haven’t had a drink yet.” I hear a car door shut.
“Where are you?” I ask, wondering what party he’s at.
His answer has my stomach feeling heavy, “Gen’s birthday party.”
I look down at my phone to see the date. February 18th. I would never admit to knowing her birthday before today, but I remember it from the glimpse I got of her college applications when we were in the bookstore together months back.
Logan notices my silence, saying, “I’ll be there in an hour.” Then, the line goes dead.
This is going to be one hell of a night.
“Okay, what’s the plan?” Logan asks when I get in the car after I put my luggage in the trunk. “Where are we going?”
I’m taken back to the first time I met Logan. It was just like this when he picked me up from the airport, except that time I didn’t have much of a reason for being here.
“Genevieve’s birthday party,” I tell him as he pulls away from the curb.
Logan looks over at me. “So, that’s why you came back.” He doesn’t phrase it as a question, almost like he already knew the answer.
“That wasn’t how I should have left things,” I say, not giving him much.
“I think we both know that you shouldn”t have left at all,” Logan chides, pulling onto the freeway. “Gen was angrier at you for leaving than she ever was when you two were sharing Valedictorian.”
Great.
“So I’m really in for it this time, huh?” I can only imagine the look on Genevieve’s face when she sees I’m in Fairwood again—it will not be an excited one.
“She might be more angry, but she cares about you a lot more than she did when you first met,” he responds, sounding sympathetic.
“So, you think I have a chance at making this better?” I ask.
“I guess we’ll find out,” he says, turning the volume of the radio up.
For the rest of the ride to Genevieve’s house, Logan catches me up on the life of Fairwood Prep, explaining everything that has been going on while I’ve been away.From Genevieve being absent for the first time all year right after I left, to Winnie and Eloise deciding to throw her a birthday party at her house. Not much has really changed.
Then again, I haven’t even been gone a week.
“Are you ready for this?” Logan asks as we pull up to the Alderidge house.
The last time I was here, I left feeling as if I had done more harm than good, even though my intentions were the complete opposite.
Now, here I am, walking to the front door of Genevieve’s house with the goal of reconciling our relationship.
“Could you go get her and bring her out here?” I ask Logan as we reach the front porch. “I don’t want to have this conversation in front of an entire party of people.”
“Yeah.” Logan opens the front door, about to enter the house.
“Logan,” I say, stopping him.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t tell her I’m here before she comes out.” The last thing I want is for Genevieve to find out that I’m here and choose to avoid me at all costs.
He nods, making his way into the house.
I don’t know how she’s going to react when she finds out I’m back in Fairwood. She’s going to be angry at first, I’m sure of it, but there’s no way for me to predict how she’ll respond once that initial anger subsides.
When the front door opens again, Logan is the first to step onto the porch, and then Genevieve.
Before Genevieve even realizes I’m here, Logan is already heading back inside, shutting the door behind him.
“Hi,” I greet, making Genevieve look up.
She’s wearing a pair of denim jeans and a red, cotton long sleeve with lace on the neckline. It’s simple, but cute.
The sight of her pummels me. How she manages to look this good, when I look like a train wreck will never fail to take my breath away.
“What are you doing here?” She asks immediately, not wasting time on formalities.
“I came to apologize,” I tell her, hoping my sincerity is apparent.
“You flew all the way from London just to apologize?” She narrows her eyes in confusion.
“Don’t pretend it’s such an absurd task,” I reply. “I understand how much I hurt you, and I need you to know it wasn’t my intention.”
Her eyes pool with tears when they finally meet mine. I can see the pain behind them—feel it, even.
“It wasn’t your intention because you didn’t take any of my feelings into consideration in the first place,” She sighs, balling her sleeves up in her hands.
“I thought you would be happy.” I clench my fists at my sides, internally punishing myself for making her feel this way.
“Jameson…” She sighs. It feels like she’s stopping herself from saying something further.
“I’m sorry, Genova.” I rub the heel of my palm across my cheek. “Truly, honestly, I never meant to hurt you. Ever.”
“I believed you when you told me that the night of the party right before I kissed you, but now…” Her chin trembles as she makes sense of my apology. “Now, I don’t know if I do.”
I reach out, intending to grab her hand, but she pulls it out of reach, crossing her arms over her chest.She pushes her hair out of her face, the long, brown curls falling just below her mid-back. The clasp of her necklace gets caught in one strand, making her wince.
“I was trying to do what was best,” I tell her. “If I had known how much it would hurt you, I would have asked for your opinion beforehand.”
She scoffs. “So, you think that after I kissed you and confessed I had feelings for you, I would be ecstatic at the idea of you leaving?” Her arms fall to her sides in annoyance.
“I wanted you to be Valedictorian, Genevieve,” I admit. “You deserve that. I thought that, if I went back to London, I would go to a prep school where I could be Valedictorian and I wouldn’t be in your way anymore.”
“You were never in my way!” She yells, a tear finally rolling down her cheek. “Maybe it makes me seem stupid, but I would rather win Valedictorian and have to share it with you than not have you here at all!”
The heartache in her voice is pivoting, and yet, I’m still focused on her declaration. She would have rather been Valedictorian with me than without me.
My lips rise the smallest bit.
“Don’t laugh at me Jameson!” She spits, making my smile drop.
“I’m not laughing at you,” I reply truthfully. “I’m just happy you feel the same way I do.”
She looks shocked by my words, as if she thought her confession would be viewed as embarrassing. “I was ready.” She swallows roughly. “I was prepared to share the speech with you—to share everything with you.”
“I didn’t know that.” My voice strains. “I thought I was doing the right thing by letting you have it.”
The hurt she’s feeling right now is mutual between us. I can see it within her, bearing down on her soul.
I never meant to hurt her; I told her I never would, and yet here we are.
The fog clears from my vision when Genevieve looks back up at me. I can tell she”s beginning to understand my reasoning.
“I forgive you,” she states, sounding like she’s testing the waters to see whether she believes herself. “I just don’t know if I can forgive myself.”
Genevieve makes her way over to the other side of the wrap-around porch, taking a seat on the swing that hangs from the end.
I follow, carefully taking a seat next to her. “What would you need to forgive yourself for?” I ask.
She leans forward so her elbows are resting on her knees before she puts her head in her hands. “This isn’t me,” she says, more to herself than to me. “Before you came to Fairwood, I would have done anything to ensure I stayed Valedictorian. Junior year Genevieve would never forgive me for wanting to share it with you.”
I rest a hand on her back, unsure how to help calm her distress. I’ve never felt such self-doubt before; I’ve never cared about upholding the standards my past self held for me.In all honesty, I have no understanding of what she’s going through.
Still, I attempt to comfort her. “You’re not the same person you were last year, or the year before. You’re probably not even the same person you were at the beginning of the school year.”
“Don’t you see the problem with that?” She lifts her head to look at me. “I’m not the same person because of you.” She pauses, letting out a sigh. “Before this school year, I had been going through life solely to meet my goals. Freshman year was when I decided I would do anything to go to Columbia and be Valedictorian, and I was a machine dedicated to my goals for the next three years.”
I lift my hand to cradle her face as I wipe the tears trailing her jaw.I say nothing because I know how much she needs to express her concerns. All she wants is for me to listen.
“I think—” Tears clog her voice, causing her to clear her throat before she can continue. “I think I’m worried I’m losing a piece of myself by allowing you in my life, and yet I can’t control it because my feelings are getting in the way.”
My breath catches in my throat, seeing how torn apart Genevieve is while attempting to confront her emotions.
“That piece of yourself you’re losing,” I reconcile, as I grab her hand in mine. “It’s the part that’s been embedded in my soul.” She looks at me again. “And the part of myself I’m losing, I’m giving to you.”
Her body falls into mine, and I see a small smile lace her face as she seems to make sense of the fact that we feel the same way.We may not have shown it to the best of our abilities until now, and we may have continuously hurt each other unintentionally, but that didn’t take away from what we have now.
“Jameson?” she asks, making me look down to where her head is resting on my shoulder. I raise my eyebrows, silently telling her to continue. “I think I might love you.”
Her small smile elicits an identical one from me. “Well, that’s good,” I say, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Because I know I love you.”
All she does is smile.
“Do you want your present?” I ask Genevieve. We’re still sitting on her porch, completely oblivious to what is happening inside.
Her eyebrows furrow as she looks up at me. “How’d you know it’s my birthday?”
I bring her hand up to my lips. “How could I not?”
She rolls her eyes, like it was the most ridiculous question she has ever heard. “Maybe because, up until about a month ago, we absolutely hated each other.”
I smile at her. “I never hated you, love.” I make direct eye contact with her as I kiss her knuckles. “Ever.”
She sits up further, her grin spreading throughout her entire face and eyes—which are more blue than green today. “Okay, let me see what it is,” she says excitedly.
A few minutes earlier, I had retrieved my luggage from Logan’s car so I could give her the gift I bought her. I had no clue whether we would be on good terms by the end of the night or not, she deserved to see it either way.
I hand her the small box wrapped in light yellow paper with a birthday cake pattern. “Here.”
Genevieve rotates it across her palms, and right when she goes to shake it, I grab her wrist, giving her a stern look. She looks up at me, laughing lightly at my reaction. “Just kidding.”
She unwraps the box before lifting the lid of the cardboard box and taking out the glass globe. She holds it up, turning it every which way as she stares at it in wonder.
“If you don’t like it, you can tell me,” I assure her, not wanting her to feel like she ever has to lie for my sake.
She only holds the snow globe closer. “I love it.”
I let out a small sigh of relief. “It was one of the first things I saw in the airport when I touched down in London—and even though it”s a model of my hometown—it made me think of you.” I grab the gift from her hand, shaking it so the faux snow begins to fall within the small replica of London.
“I realized, as I stood in the airport in one of the most famous cities in the world, the only place I wanted to be was a place very few people have ever heard of, and that was Fairwood.”
I hand the snow globe back to her, and as she takes it, she asks, “You’ve wanted to come back ever since you got home?”
I grab her wrists, needing to hold her as I say, “Leaving you that night was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made.” Her eyes glass over, pure adoration within them as she looks down at the snow globe.
“And I swear on whatever deity brought you down to this earth and gave me the chance to spend even a single moment of time with you, I will spend however long you need me to—here in Fairwood—proving there is nowhere else I want to be.”
“Does that mean you’re here to stay?” She sits up, a large, hopeful grin covering her features.
I nod in confirmation. “I’m staying.”
For a long, long time.