Letter Twenty-Seven #5
“Just take a few days,” I said. “Allow it to sink in. I know you’re angry and hurt, but you met his adoptive dad, so you probably know better than anyone how delicate this situation is for Casey.
” I shook, chilly all over despite still having my coat on.
“You’re his brother, and he’s terrified you’ll hate him, so please keep in mind that your reaction to this has the power to destroy him.
Please don’t do something you’ll end up regretting. ”
Michael continued to stare blankly, lost in thought. Keys jangled in the hallway. A door opened and closed—his neighbor across the hall. The heat kicked on. The fridge hummed. Outside, an airplane roared loudly overhead.
“I need to be alone right now,” he said finally, his voice calm and flat, devoid of emotion.
My gut clenched. “But Michael—”
He sank back into the couch without looking at me. “Go home, Elliot.”
Back at home, when I walked through the door, you were standing over the stove, staring at your teakettle.
“Have fun at Tinsley’s?” you asked.
I slipped out of my coat and draped it over a barstool, hyperaware of the tremor in my hands, of the rapid beat of my pulse. I couldn’t make eye contact. “Yeah.”
My voice had come out hollow, too faint. And you noticed, of course, which is why yours was laced with concern when you asked, “Are you okay?”
I wasn’t. Why hadn’t I listened to my dad? Why did I have to go and make it all worse—exactly like he’d said I would?
What had I done?
But to you, I only said, “Yeah.”
I grabbed my water bottle from the fridge and quickly retreated to my room, where I crawled into bed fully clothed, yanked the duvet over me, and stared vacantly out my window. That’s where you found me a little while later, when you brought me a cup of tea.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
You put the back of your hand to my cheek. “Are you feeling alright?”
“No.” Regret clawed at my insides, so sharply and violently I felt nauseated. I needed to confess before Michael charged in the house, fists swinging. Or texted you. Or visited my dad at the firm. Or went to John and told him everything. Oh, God.
But the confession remained lodged in my throat, barb-wired and cruel, because surely it was cruel of me to betray you like that, even if it hadn’t been intentional. How hurt and angry would you be? Would you ever be able to forgive me?
“Hopefully you aren’t coming down with that nasty flu that’s going round,” you said. “I’ll check on you later. Text me if you need anything.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
At dinner that night, as I pushed a chunk of salmon around my plate, my dad’s voice pierced through the dense fog of my guilt. “Elliot,” he said—and in a tone I knew well. It meant we needed to talk about something serious.
Had Michael talked to him? Did he know what I’d done? Were you about to find out, too? My palms began to sweat as I dropped my fork and looked at him.
But Nic didn’t look upset—serious, for sure, but definitely not upset.
“So, listen, I want to talk to you about a few things.” He pushed back his plate, took a deep breath, and said, “Why don’t we get a dog?”
I blinked at him, too stunned to respond.
“I know you’ve always wanted one,” he said. “So why don’t we go by the animal shelter this week and bring one home?”
“A dog,” I said flatly. Something so far removed from my mind by that point, I couldn’t make sense of it. Why a dog? Why now?
“Yeah,” Nic said, a smile tugging at his mouth.
I narrowed my eyes. “Is this some ploy to keep me at home this fall?”
He gave a little laugh. “Honey, no. Of course not. You’ll start school in the fall, and I want you to live on campus, have the full college experience—Casey, too. But we’ll talk about that later. We have plenty of time to plan it all out. In the meantime, let’s talk about what else you want.”
“Hold on,” I said, head shaking. “I’m still trying to process the fact that you waited until it’s time for me to leave home…to finally let me have a dog.”
Nic sighed. “Look, you’ll be home for another nine months, right?
And you’re not going far. You can come home for dinner a few nights a week, for brunch on Sundays, for all the breaks.
You can come home as often as you want, and I hope you do.
Selfishly, I hope having a dog here makes you want to come home more often, because I’ll miss you like crazy.
I’ll want to see you as often as possible. ” He glanced at Casey. “Both of you.”
“And you,” I said, “will take care of the dog.”
“Of course. It’ll give me something to do. With you two gone, it’ll”—he glanced around the house, looked lost there for a moment, didn’t he, Casey?—“keep me company. I’ll hire a dog walker to come by during the week while I’m at work. It’ll be fine. It’ll be great.”
I stared at him, utterly dumbfounded. A dog. Finally. The one thing, other than freedom, I’d always wanted.
“And, listen,” Nic said, “I still want us to celebrate you graduating and going off to college. We could do something special during everyone’s spring break, or we can wait until the beginning of the summer. That’s up to you. But I’d like to do something big. I’d like to throw you a party—”
“I don’t want a party,” I said, the words like glass as they scraped up my throat.
“Now, wait,” he said, holding up a finger. “Last summer, you promised me a party. You promised we could celebrate.”
“But then you tried convincing me to get back with Willoughby.”
“Forget Willoughby, okay? I didn’t realize he’d hurt you.”
“Oh, I see. So the dog is a consolation prize. You’ll let me have a dog, but only if I agree to give up something else. Like Casey, for example.”
“There’s no ulterior motive behind the dog,” Nic said, like, Why aren’t you getting this?
“I’m not saying you two can’t be together.
I think it’s a bad idea right now, all things considered.
But you know what? You’re here all alone together, and I’m not stupid.
This”—he waved a hand between us—“has been going on for quite some time. I know better than to believe I can stop it, so that’s up to you, too.
All I ask is that you keep it to yourselves for the time being. Don’t flaunt it.”
“So you’re saying I can have whatever I want,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Well, I don’t want a dog,” I said, not because I didn’t want one. Because it was something I didn’t deserve—not now. It was something I could take from myself because I’d slipped your secret. “And I definitely don’t want a party.”
“Elliot,” Nic said, gaze pleading, “you promised me.”
“There’s nothing to celebrate. I mean, sure, I got into college, but it’s not like I earned it.”
He pulled a face. “Of course you fucking earned it. What are you talking about?”
“I got in because I’m a Bancroft. Because you went there first. Because my grandfather’s given millions in donations over the years, and our family owns a large portion of this city.”
Nic tossed his napkin on the table. “What are you doing? This is how you react when I try to give you things? I’m giving you everything you want.”
“Besides,” I said, like he’d never even spoken, “what are the odds that two people from the same household would both get accepted to the Ivy with the lowest acceptance rate of all the Ivies and end up being students at the same time?”
“Stop it,” Nic ordered. “Why are you doing this?”
“How convenient,” I said, stabbing at my salmon, “that Casey and I should be there at the same time. All by design, I’m sure, so he can keep an eye on me there, too.”
“Elliot,” Nic snapped.
“I bet there’s some devastated kid out there who worked really hard to get into their dream school, but someone like me took their spot. All because—”
Nic snatched the fork from my hand, forcing me to look at him, visibly shaking as he said, “You can’t let me do anything nice, can you?
You have to put a negative spin on it, turn it into something it isn’t, hurt me with it.
Why can’t you let me be happy for you? Celebrate you? Be proud of your accomplishments?”
I didn’t answer him.
His tearful gaze pierced mine. “I have this amazing, capable, brilliant daughter who I would love to celebrate, just once, without being made to feel like I don’t deserve it.”
“Amazing, capable, and brilliant,” I repeated, fighting back tears of my own. “Or fucked up and broken?”
That got him. “Don’t,” he said, shaking his head. “I misspoke, Elliot. I didn’t mean it.”
“You did mean it, or you would never have said it to John and Libby in the first place. You think I’m fucked up and broken. I’m a problem. I’m—”
“Stop it,” he said, slamming his open palm on the table. “You’re taking my words out of context.”
Was I, though? That’s the thing I couldn’t comprehend—how he could say those things about me at all unless they were true.
I was hurting myself for revealing your secret, Casey. But I was hurting him, too.
“Let’s be real, Dad. Harvard won’t change what I am.
I’ll just go on to disappoint you there, probably screw up at the firm, and when that doesn’t pan out, marry someone you hate just to piss you off.
Eventually, though, I’ll screw that up, too, get divorced, and refuse to give you grandchildren. So what’s to celebrate?”
Nic rapidly shook his head. “You always do this. You take moments that are supposed to be good, and you twist them into something that breaks my heart. Your birthday last summer,” he whispered, “is the only time you have ever allowed us to be happy.”
“That’s me,” I said. “All I do is hurt you. All I do is rip your heart out. I’m a spiteful little bitch, and I ruin everything. You should’ve sent me away like your girlfriend wanted—”
“Stop it!” Nic yelled, slapping his water glass with such force that it hit the wall opposite the table and shattered. You and I both flinched.
Once again, that rage filled him. He trembled with it. Tears rolled down my face as I watched him shove back his chair and stand.
“You’ll never let us be happy, will you?” he asked, giving me the only thing I did deserve: bitter disappointment.