Chapter 4 #3
They can’t leave though, not right away, not with her parents there and everyone still having a great time, and it’s another hour before her dad claims exhaustion after the nearly six-hour drive; the party breaks up naturally once the older couple excuses themselves.
And somehow that’s even worse, even though she wanted to leave.
Xavier walks her to her door and then follows her inside when she turns and holds it open for him in invitation. She doesn’t even think about it, she just knows she wants him there with her as her facade falls away and dissolves into pure, unadulterated rage.
She’s only a few steps inside when she kicks off her shoes and lets out a high-pitched shriek from between clenched teeth, her hands balling into fists at her sides. It sends Amelia sprinting out of the living room into her bedroom with an annoyed yowl.
“Un-fucking-believable.”
“Uh, what is?”
“My parents. I just . . . I’m so fucking angry, I could . . . I don’t know, throw shit? Punch a wall? I’ve never . . . I’ve never, ever felt like this . . . I don’t know how to . . .”
Her breath is coming hard and fast and for a second she’s worried she’s going to work herself into an actual panic attack, but then he reaches out, taking her hands, and she lets him lead her to one of the stools at the kitchen counter.
“Slow down,” he whispers. “Take a slow, deep breath and tell me what’s wrong.”
She does, closing her eyes and pulling in a long breath before exhaling, then repeating it, while his thumbs stroke her knuckles. The contact keeps her grounded. Her fists loosen and come undone, leaving four red indentations from her nails on each palm.
“My parents came. They got in their car this morning and drove six hours because they thought it was important to show up, but weeks ago when I brought up the PhD party, they said it was too far to make the drive and I . . . I just thought that was okay. I agreed with them.”
“Are you okay?”
“No, no, I don’t think I am. They’re just . . . here. They showed up with absolutely no notice. They knew about last night for weeks and . . .”
It’s old news now, the elephant in the room this whole time, the basis for this entire bullshit lie they concocted, and she’s even angrier than she was last night.
“Do you know that none of them apologized for not coming last night. Not one. They just pretended like it never happened. All they wanted to do was talk about you and all I wanted to do is scream at them. All of them.”
“You could do that. If you want. I’ll drive you back right now.”
“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen. I’ll just rage-cry and then it’ll be ‘poor pathetic Bianca, she’s sad we didn’t come to her party’. I don’t want them to feel bad for me. I want them to get what this feels like, to have the most important thing in the world to you get dismissed like it’s nothing.”
“We could . . .”
“What?”
“We could keep it up.”
“Are you kidding me?”
He shakes his head. “You said you want them to understand how you’re feeling. Clearly they think this is more important than you becoming the preeminent expert in your field.”
“Xavier . . .”
“Don’t argue with me, I’m almost a doctor. I know what I’m talking about.”
“Yeah, well, I am a doctor and . . .”
“You’re an expert ?”
She rolls her eyes, but there’s more affection in it than genuine frustration with him.
She hopes he’s able to tell the difference by now.
They’d found themselves assigned to work on projects together over and over again when their professors realized that they had little patience with most of the rest of their classmates.
They tended to just run roughshod over everyone else, but when they worked together, they were both so stubbornly attached to being in charge that it was either figure out how to let go or fail.
They chose the former, but she never gave in without rolling her eyes at him at least once.
As for everyone else in their program, they were more than happy to let them keep banging their heads together rather than have to deal with either of them.
“Come on, boss, what’s the worst that could happen?”
“When I come clean to my family and friends, they hate me forever.”
“You know that’s not gonna happen. Listen, maybe they fucked up, but they clearly love you. They just . . .”
“Don’t understand me.”
“So you do what you do best. You teach them. You’re a great teacher. I’ve seen you.”
“Okay, so if we do this, which I’m still not agreeing to, what’s in it for you?”
“What?”
“I don’t get why you’re agreeing to this. This isn’t just my sister and friends; this would be like . . . public and long-term. I don’t understand.”
“Maybe I just feel like helping out a friend.”
“Bullshit.”
“Fine! You really want to know?”
A surge of triumph flutters in her chest. She knew she was right. “Yeah, I do.”
Xavier runs a frustrated hand through his hair and then his shoulders deflate.
“I’m angry too, okay? I’m furious that they did this to you.
You don’t deserve that shit, you deserve .
. . shit, you deserve for your friends and family to be there for you the way you are for them.
They hurt you and I can’t let that stand. ”
“Oh.”
She wants to roll her eyes at herself. What a ridiculous answer to one of the sweetest things anyone has ever said to her in her entire life.
“So is that enough of a reason for you?”
Nodding, she tries desperately to figure out what to say, but the only thing that comes out of her mouth is, “Can I at least, like . . . I don’t know, pay you or something?”
She cringes at herself. “You have a bunch of extra cash I don’t know about?”
“No,” she says, biting her lip and sighing heavily, “obviously, but I still feel like . . .”
“Listen, how about this: how about you let me stay with you for the summer? I need a place to crash before I leave for Greece and it has the added bonus of giving our story more credence. We’re engaged, why wouldn’t we live together?”
It’s probably a colossal mistake, but one she’s suddenly happy to make.
“Okay, yeah, that’s good. You’ll stay here, everyone will think we want to spend as much time as we can together until you leave, and then after you leave, we can just tell everyone that we’re calling it off, that it didn’t work out.”
“Exactly, that it was too fast and we rushed into it and our lives aren’t following the same path, no matter how much we wish that was different. Your life is here and mine is in Greece and wherever that takes me next.”
It’s like a rush of cold water being dumped over her head.
Because in the middle of all the lies, there’s the hard truth.
Their lives aren’t following the same path and at the end of the summer, they’ll go their separate ways.
Which is definitely something she’s not going to think about right now, because if she scrapes even just a little bit more beneath the surface of not wanting him to go, she’s pretty sure she won’t like what she finds.
He nods, like it’s sealing their agreement. “Okay, we’re gonna need a better story. Erik saw through my bullshit in like half a second tonight.”
“What did you say?”
“That we hooked up and it was so good we decided we didn’t want to hook up with anyone else ever.”
“I’m not surprised he didn’t buy it.”
“No?”
“There’s more to a relationship than good sex.”
“But it’s a good start.”
“It’s a very good start.”
“You know that I don’t mean . . . I don’t think we should be fucking just to keep up appearances.”
“I’m so glad you think that because that was definitely never on the table.”
“Wait, so not on the table, but we could . . .”
“Xavier.”
“Yeah, boss?”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Yeah, I know, but you’re in love with me, remember? So you have to think it’s charming.”
It’s enough to break the tension, the sense that they’re deliberately getting in over their heads gone, for now.