CHAPTER 10 #2
Dalton laughed, the sound entreating me to join in. I resisted, sliding my fingers down the bumps in the spiral of my sketchbook. “I’m glad it’s summer vacation,” Dalton announced, stretching his arms up over his head. “College was rougher than I’d expected.”
“Oh, it was rough, was it? It wasn’t parties every day and girls throwing themselves at you and your chiseled jawline?” ASU did have quite the reputation for those who were looking. At least, that was what endless spirals on Google and Reddit told me.
Dalton grinned, and his arm came down to rest alongside the back of the bench, brushing against my shoulder blades. “Is that jealousy I hear in your voice?”
“Jamie’s jawline is just as sharp as yours.”
I hadn’t intended for it to, but that wiped the smile from Dalton’s face.
We both turned toward the playground, using it as filler in the dead conversation.
I should’ve cut it off the second he sat down, but I couldn’t bring myself to walk away.
That was the problem with Dalton Giovanni.
He could walk away from me, but I never figured out how to turn my back on him.
“I wish I could say I’d never expected you two to get together,” Dalton murmured after a moment, quietly stepping onto a topic that felt like a landmine. One wrong move and everything could explode. “But… well. I’m not surprised.”
Of course he’d say that. I’ve been in love with Daisy since Nell and I switched schools freshman year. Jamie really did not think that through. “I’m surprised you didn’t get a girlfriend at college.”
“No one was like you.”
Dalton could’ve kicked me in the chest and it would’ve hurt less. “I’d hope not,” I muttered. “You dumped me.”
“Daisy.” Dalton’s voice was quiet and strained, and I stilled. Not DD. Daisy. “Can you… look at me?”
Drawing in a breath, I met the soft gaze of my ex-boyfriend, bracing myself for a blow. It’d been the same feeling when I’d opened my door that day in August and had found him on the porch, carrying a box of our things and a small, polite smile on his face.
There was no smile on Dalton’s face now. “When I ended things last year, I really looked at it like a pause. Not a full stop.”
A pause. A pause. “You’re trying to say ‘it’s been fun’ was your way of putting us on pause?”
Dalton scratched his neck. “Okay, yeah, I could’ve worded it better—”
“You think?”
“I just—” He closed his eyes, letting out a breath through his nose. “You had so much going on at home. And, yeah, it was fun to dream about you coming out to visit, but you couldn’t have. Not really. Not with… the kids.”
Another blow to my chest. This time, I could’ve sworn I felt a rib crack. “You broke up with me because of the kids?”
Now Dalton wouldn’t look at me. He stared out at the playground instead, knotting his fingers together in his lap.
“I just knew what it’d turn into. I figured I’d save us the hardship of fighting through a year, trying to balance schedules, and that we’d just…
pick everything back up when I was home. ”
I could hear my heart thumping in my ears, but not in the fluttery way it’d been since he came home.
He framed it to make him out to be the good guy, as if dumping me had been lightening my load.
“You thought I’d be waiting for you,” I murmured dully, and for some reason, hearing the words aloud seemed to unlock something in me.
“You thought, after breaking my heart, that I’d still take you back. ”
Hearing the words aloud had something settling within me. He’s just trying to prove he still has power over you, Daze, Jamie had said the night of the graduation party. And that’s pathetic. For the first time, I realized just how ridiculous it’d been of me to want him back. Weak. Pathetic.
And that realization broke my heart all over again, the butterflies in my stomach shriveling. “Is that why you always told me I’d never get into NYU?” I asked. “Why you said it was silly and that I should give up my art? So I’d be here, not in New York, when you came crawling back?”
Dalton looked at me seriously. “I never told you to give up your art. I said it’s silly that you talk about NYU like you’ll go.”
“Exactly.”
Dalton shifted, his arm brushing against my shoulder blades again. This time, I leaned forward, away. “I never thought you wouldn’t get into NYU. I just always knew you’d never go.”
“I definitely would’ve gone.” For some reason, my voice came out small, softer than I’d meant for it to. Like the truth was being drowned out by something else. “If I’d gotten into NYU, I would’ve gone.”
“So you didn’t get in?” he asked, and I froze, realizing what I’d just said. “It’s okay, DD. When I brought it up, I could tell. Your eyes didn’t sparkle like I’d expected them to.”
I hated that he could read me.
“But even if you had gotten in, you wouldn’t have gone. You want to know how I know?” Dalton leaned close, and our shoulders brushed again as he pointed toward the playground. “You have four little roots holding you in place.”
I followed his finger to see Penn lightly pushing Theo on the swings, where Junie was now swaying from side to side on the set, intentionally bumping into Ivy on the swing beside her.
Junie was grinning, Ivy’s face was red with a scowl, and Penn’s lips were moving as she tried to calm a fearful Theo.
Even from here, I could see his little white hands gripping the chains.
They were basked in sunlight, but something heavy pressed on my chest, like the darkness that always seemed to circle me. Roots. “Don’t call them that,” I said to Dalton, but the snap in my voice was weak.
“That’s what they are, DD. And I know you.” He lowered his arm, but he didn’t lean back, leaving our shoulders together. “You don’t know how to put yourself first. You never have. I wish you would, though. I’d love you even more for it.”
Love. Present tense. That should’ve been my cue to get up and walk away. We were officially in territory that neither Nellie nor Jamie would approve of, but I couldn’t move.
Roots. The word was stuck in my mind. I pictured the sinewy ropes of a tree stretching underneath the ground, holding the trunk in place.
Roots didn’t need the tree, though—the tree needed the roots.
Dalton was wrong. “I don’t care what you’d love,” I bit out, flicking off the Dalton light in my chest. “I’m with Jamie now. ”
“Jamie.” Dalton’s tone hardened. “Like I said, I’m not that surprised. I saw the way he looks at you, even back when we were together. It was obvious.”
Even back when we were together. “How does he look at me?”
Dalton looked like he wasn’t going to respond at first, and when he did, his voice was a grumble. “Like he’s committing everything you say to memory.” Dalton squinted, but the sun wasn’t in his eyes. “Or the moment entirely to memory. Like he was trying to remember it to write about later.”
“Jamie’s not a writer,” I said automatically, but could barely hear the words. “Just a reader.”
“Well, he looks at you like he wants to write about you.”
It was so wrong, though. Jamie had never looked at me with hearts in his eyes or anything like that. Jamie hadn’t looked at me any sort of way before the fake relationship—there’d been no reason for him to. Jamie had just been… Jamie.
“You think he looked at me that way back when we were together?”
“I know he did. I almost told you to stop hanging with him because of it, but I knew you’d choose him over me.”
The mere thought made me feel sick, because though Dalton was absolutely certain, I wasn’t.
“Really think about how you feel about him, DD,” Dalton murmured, almost sounding pleading. “Do you really like him? Or do you only think you like him? It’s easy to confuse friendship and love.”
I stiffened. “Dalton—”
“Do you like him the way you liked me?” Dalton’s gaze caught on the hair fluttering in my face. “Because I don’t think you do.”
Dalton reached out toward me. I should’ve flinched away, but just as traitorous as my body had been in the hallway at Lydia’s party, it was traitorous now, holding still. Just once. Just one more time, and then I’d—
Long fingers wrapped around Dalton’s wrist, jerking his arm to a halt mid-reach. I traced the arm up to find none other than Jamie standing there, wearing a loose gray hoodie despite the heat, and a pair of worn jeans.
Jamie’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses. “I’d appreciate it,” he began in a level voice, pushing Dalton’s hand down before letting go entirely, “if you kept your hands off my girlfriend.”
I swallowed my gasp at the words and how firmly Jamie spoke them. His fingers caught the lock of hair that’d fallen into my face, coasting it over my ear. The tips traced across the skin behind my ear, along the back of my neck, before drawing away.
A shiver worked its way down my spine at the whisper-like touch, tummy fluttering like the butterflies hadn’t all shriveled up. I caught Jamie’s hand in mine, wrapping my fingers around his as I lifted my chin. “Hi.”
Jamie’s expression was perfectly neutral, and his gaze roamed my face for a beat before he replied, “Hi.”
Under his breath beside me, Dalton murmured, “That’s the look.”
That was the look? The casual expression on Jamie’s face? That was the he looks like he wants to write about you expression? Dalton needed his eyes checked. If anything, Jamie almost looked ticked off.
Dalton got to his feet then, dusting his palms along his knees. “It was nice talking,” he told me, slipping his hands into the pockets of his joggers. “Did Lydia tell you about next week?”
Jamie wrapped his hand around mine, pressing our palms together in the way I’d told him was comfortable, and remained silent. “What’s next week?” I asked.