Chapter 29
“So, I just had the most interesting conversation with Chloe,” Belle comments from her spot on the corner of the sofa as the girls and I lounge in our living room, watching a chick flick playing on the flat-screen hanging over our brick fireplace.
It’s another regular girls’ night in our apartment where we gorge on ice cream and junk food—chips for the Peyton sisters, gummy bears for me, and cookies for Belle—and movies or TV shows. The logs crackle and pop, a fire burning in the hearth as the temperatures turn icy cold with the heavy rains pouring outside.
While I took care of the rooftop garden, Belle had taken the helm at decorating the interiors of our swanky SoHo apartment using her impeccable fashion sense.
At first glance, it’s an overwhelming burst of colors—soothing aquamarine walls decorated with colorful Andy Warhol and other avant-garde art prints, a long, lavender velvet sofa backed up against the wall, a clashing mustard-yellow armchair nestled in one corner and a teal ottoman pouf in another. But somehow, it all works together.
I swallow a sigh and stuff my mouth with a big bite of Choco Madness ice cream to buy myself some time. The explosion of chocolate mixing with swirls of thick, gooey fudge and tiny brownie pieces almost has me forgetting the incident this morning in the JEAP committee meeting.
Almost.
“What did you hear?” Feign nonchalance, Millie. Don’t twist your fingers. Don’t even look at her.
I keep my eyes pinned on the TV, which is showing the classic love triangle between a regular girl, her warm werewolf friend, and the mysterious cold vampire classmate of hers. I’ve always felt for the girl—she’s so normal, just like me, but is stuck in some shitty circumstances and trying to make the best out of her situation. Now, which man to pick…that all depends on my mood.
Right now, my mood is leaning toward stabbing the sparkling cold vampire in the heart with a stake.
After defending my honor, so to speak, Ryland went back to being his mercurial asshole self this morning—ignoring me for the rest of the class and darting out the door at the strike of the hour. I ran after him, not caring I attracted the attention of the students loitering in the halls.
“Seriously, are we back in high school?” I gritted out as I looked surreptitiously around us, the crowds of students moving around us like we were large boulders in rapid waters.
“Ms. Callahan, if you don’t have questions regarding class, I need to run to an appointment.” Civil, no-nonsense response and tone. Cold, hard eyes. A facial expression chiseled into stone. Unemotional.
“What are you doing, Ryland?” I whispered.
“It’s Professor. And that’s all we’ll ever be. Professor and student.”
“But, what about what happened—”
“Ms. Callahan.” He raised his steely voice. “The past is in the past and cannot be undone. We can only choose to make the right choices for the future. Now, excuse me, I have somewhere to be.”
He stalked away, all clenched muscles and coiled strength.
Anger churns in my veins as the events of this morning play for a hundredth time in my mind.
“Just a certain someone has something going on with a certain handsome professor, who is at the helm of a certain famous family, who—”
“Oh my God, Belle, shut it with the ‘certains’ and tell us who the fuck you’re talking about,” Taylor, our negative energy “take no bullshit and no prisoners” goddess rolls her eyes, her lips twitching in amusement.
“Do you want to tell them, or should I?” Belle asks me. As if sensing my indecision, she follows up with, “It might feel better if you let it out, Millie. We won’t judge.”
Setting down my bowl of ice cream, I sigh. The truth is, I’ve been wanting to say something for the longest time, but I was afraid I’d look like a pathetic little girl with a crush on her older professor. Then, they’d worry about me and would try to talk me out of it as if I didn’t already know how this was a very, very bad idea.
Not to mention the professor in question is actually Grace’s and Taylor’s older half-brother.
A tangled mess of knots.
I look up, finding the girls staring at me expectantly. Grace is leaning forward with rapt attention. Belle lifts her elegant brows in amusement. Taylor is trying very hard to act disinterested in “mundane” gossip, but she doesn’t seem to realize she’s bouncing her long legs on the floor.
“I am half in love with Professor Anderson, and I think he feels the same way.” I bite my lip and wait for the chaos to descend.
The room is quiet for a few seconds. I hear the faint honking sounds of cars at the street level, the squawking of birds as they fly past our partially opened windows.
“You what! Ryland, right? You’re talking about Ryland?” Grace screeches excitedly.
I bury my face in my hands and nod.
“No wonder he has been walking around being pissed at the world,” Taylor comments before taking a sip of water.
“He has?”
“Sis, if you stop making moony eyes at Steven during our monthly family dinners, you’ll have noticed Ryland sulking in the corner. Every time. Everyone is giving him a wide berth, including Maxwell. We all suspected he’s involved with a woman, but he has admitted nothing. Well, shit. Now I guess we know why.”
I squint through the gaps between my fingers, taking in Taylor’s nonplussed recollection of the Anderson family dinners she attends with Grace now that they are officially part of the family.
Ryland has been upset even in front of his family? They think he has a woman?
The thought kicks up my heart rate and my lips twitch.
“Geez, look at her smile. I knew you had boy problems, Millie! I thought it was that Fred guy you mentioned. Now, tell us everything,” Belle squeals like an excited toddler and sits closer to me.
I don’t think I’ve seen her this excited since she discontinued the luxury clothing line made from real fur shortly after she joined her family’s business. She looked like she won the lottery then.
Closing my eyes, I recount the events of the last two years, from how Ryland and I met at ULA, the instant, electric connection, how he comforted me on Mom’s birthday, how he almost kissed me the day I helped him with his bow tie, the cheating, our separation, and everything that transpired in the last few months, including our two scorching make out sessions in his office and the shed. The girls’ eyes widen, and Grace and Taylor turn a little green when I skim over the details of my amorous sessions with their older brother.
“And now he’s avoiding me like the plague,” I finish, feeling my chest lightening. Finally, the truth is out, and my girls know. Perhaps they may worry about me, but it’s out of my hands now.
Belle’s mouth parts, jaw-slacked, Grace has hearts in her eyes, and Taylor’s face is scrunched up like she’s hurting on my behalf.
After a few seconds, Grace whispers, “What do you want, Millie?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. I know what I should be doing. I should stay away, just like what he’s doing. It’s wrong. It’s forbidden. If anyone finds out, we will be ruined, and he has a lot on his plate with the IPO, your family’s reputation, his work at school. And me? The schools will rescind their acceptances if they find out I’m involved with my professor, and such a high-profile professor, no less.”
“But?” Belle prods, placing her hand on my lap and giving it a soft squeeze.
My eyes burn and I sniffle. “Why is it so hot in here?” I fan myself as heat rises to my face.
“Ah fuck.” Taylor stands from her spot on the teal ottoman and sits on the other side of me. She throws her arm around my shoulder and murmurs, “Let it all out, Millie. We’re here for you.”
Her words trigger the dam bursting inside my chest, and I choke out a sob, then another. “I think I can fall in love with him…if I’m not already there. He sees me, girls. Like no one ever has before. The things I feel when I’m with him, it’s so strong. And I want…I want—”
“You want him,” Grace finishes, her violet eyes soft with sympathy. “Of course you do. It’s not every day you meet someone who feels ‘right’ in the marrow of your bones. I understand that feeling. What’s your gut telling you to do?”
I swallow the lump in my throat and wipe my wet eyes with a tissue. This is the swirl of gray. It’s not black and white. I refuse to see it that way.
Straightening up, I look into the girls’ eyes and reply, “I want to take the risk and go after him.”
Later that night, I fit a sheet of stationery on top of my clipboard and turn on the reading light affixed to it. I sit on the bay window of my bedroom as rain pelts against the glass from the outside, blurring the world in a swath of blues and grays.
I smooth my fingers over the delicate drawing of an owl on the top corner of the paper, its feathers white with specks of gray and brown, its yellow eyes with dark pupils wise. The snowy owl. His favorite.
Uncapping my pen, I write.
Dear Ryland,
It seems fitting the first letter I write to you, one you’ll never read because I’ll never send it out, is on a stormy night. I’ll never forget the day I met you, when I was dripping wet from the rain and absolutely mortified, my mind with one focus, which was to get out of your way so you could continue to teach without my disruption. But even then, you took my breath away.
My mom told me about the whirlwind. The exhilarating feeling of being in love with the right person such that nothing else matters, no hurdles too high, no conflict too deep. I’ve always wished it would happen to me someday. And when I was at your feet that day, staring up at your angry face, your steely eyes, I could sense the flutters of the whirlwind, an innate connection between us I couldn’t explain in words.
And I know you feel the same way because you and I are kindred spirits, both having experienced debilitating loss but are still standing, still fighting. You are my warmth in the harsh rains, and I can be the light in your dark moments, when you feel the weight of the world sitting on top of your shoulders.
I know you’re pushing me away because you think that’s what I need and I’m here to tell you one word: No.
A resounding no.
What I need is you. The rest is just noise.
Yours, Millie