Chapter 14 Confessional
Confessional
Cooper followed me to the drink table. After actively avoiding me for what felt like an eternity, he was suddenly right next to me, close enough to touch.
He was acting like the last week and our almost-kiss had never happened.
It was exhilarating and confusing. Had something happened to change his mind about me?
Or maybe, said a little voice in the back of my brain, maybe he missed you. Maybe he’s been thinking about you too.
I shook my head. The thought was ridiculous.
But regardless of why, the fact was that he was here. I decided to play it cool.
“Do you want anything?” I had to raise my voice over the ambient sounds of the party.
I reached for a bottle of ginger ale and tried to twist off the cap. It wouldn’t budge. I tried again, with a tighter grip and more force. Still nothing. This was getting embarrassing.
“Here. Let me.”
My eyes tracked from the bottle in his hands, up his arms and neck, to his face. He was backlit by orange and half concealed by shadows. My heart was beating faster than a hummingbird’s wings.
“Thank you,” I managed to say. “I hear you’re an expert at opening pop bottles.”
He returned my smile when he handed back the open soda bottle, looking like Hephaestus in the firelight. Yep—without a doubt—I was fucked.
“I’ll have one of those too,” he said.
I fumbled for a fresh cup and filled it for him before refilling my own. “If you want anything to doctor it up, you’ll have to see Phyllis. I really wasn’t planning on drinking tonight.”
“I hadn’t planned on coming,” he said, thumb grazing my hand as he accepted the cup. A zing of electricity shot up my arm.
“Then why did you?”
Before the words had even left my mouth, I knew I shouldn’t have asked. There was no chance he would say what I wanted to hear. I wanted to see you. I regret ending our game. I like you. I missed you.
He paused, then replied, “Alan wanted to.”
Hope blew out of me like air from a deflating balloon. I tried not to let the disappointment show on my face.
“Oh. I see. You two seem close.”
“He’s one of my oldest friends. He was a year ahead of us at school.”
Ugh. I was such an asshole. I had absolutely no idea. Who else had I overlooked? Had Ashley and TJ been in our class too?
“You don’t remember him either, do you?”
I jerked my head up, hoping my cheeks weren’t as red as they felt. “Well, I—”
“It’s fine. We weren’t in your circle.” There was a touch of bitterness in his words, though he was clearly trying to seem unbothered.
My heart cracked as I was reminded of Miriam. I had made him feel like an outsider then just like she was feeling now. I hated to be the reason that he had felt excluded. No one should feel that way.
“You didn’t seem fine with it before,” I said, so softly that he had to lean in to hear me.
“Before,” he began, “I… uh… I wasn’t expecting… you.”
My head snapped up, and I met his gaze. I must not have heard that right. That didn’t sound like bitterness. It sounded like longing. But that couldn’t be right. Maybe Phyllis’s whiskey was stronger than I realized.
I tried to recover, giving him the benefit of the doubt and changing the subject. “I wasn’t expecting you either. Usually, when you’re offered a job, you don’t have to fight for it anymore.”
He looked down and shook his head, chuckling softly, before looking back up and finding my face again. “No, you don’t,” he said. “But that’s not what I meant.”
I knew it wasn’t, but at that moment, I didn’t have the nerve to dig into a sore subject.
“Do you want to walk a loop around the party with me,” I asked, “and make sure the students are behaving? Or do you need to rescue your friend from the hens.”
Cooper and I glanced over at Alan standing between Ashley and Phyllis. His full attention was on Ashley who was gesturing with sharp jabs of her finger as she spoke.
“He’s fine,” Cooper said before beckoning to the beach with his cup. “After you.”
I walked slowly, taking careful steps in the uneven sand.
Cooper followed at my shoulder as I made my way.
The sun had set, and the only light on the beach was from the bonfire.
Shadows danced and waved around us as we walked through the small groups of chatting students.
A larger number clustered around the fire roasting marshmallows and hot dogs.
Miriam stood in a small circle with some of the other October Lovers, but I noticed her stealing glances at David who perched on a seat near the fire.
“Come here,” I said, grabbing her arm and pulling her with me. She didn’t have time to protest before we were standing in front of her crush.
“David,” I said, drawing his attention to us. “Can you please roast a marshmallow for Miriam?”
“Um, sure,” he replied and stood, wiping his hands on his jeans.
Miriam’s eyes were as wide as dinner plates. “Oh no, you don’t have to—”
“He said sure,” I repeated, cutting off her protests, and gave her a little shove in his direction. “Smile and let him,” I whispered so only she could hear. I squeezed her arm and released it.
I felt like a proud mama bear as I watched them amble toward the food tables. David picked up a roasting stick and held it while Miriam pressed two fluffy marshmallows onto the sharp end. They were both grinning.
“I’ll be damned,” Cooper said. “That was too easy.”
I glanced over to him next to me and found him grinning too. I nudged him with my elbow and winked. “Sometimes it is easy,” I said. Then, I set back off to finish checking on the party.
The students, for their part, were surprisingly well-behaved. There didn’t seem to be any drinking or shenanigans happening tonight—unless you counted the teachers. A peace settled over the beach, anchored by the calming presence of the fire.
“Do you… want to make s’mores?” Cooper asked when we completed our circuit.
A warmth spread through me that had nothing to do with the fire.
“I’d like that,” I said.
We helped ourselves to a couple of sticks and marshmallows from the food table, then found an empty place next to the bonfire. Cooper carefully held his marshmallow over the blaze, letting it turn a golden brown. Mine, on the other hand, immediately became engulfed in flames.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I cursed while I tried to blow it out.
“Here. You can have mine.” Cooper extended his perfectly roasted marshmallow to me with a small smile.
“Oh, I couldn’t—”
“I insist,” he said. “I’ll just make another one.”
He pulled my stick from my hands and replaced it with his own. I returned a shy smile and let him.
We sat next to each other on the sand in companionable silence eating our s’mores and watching the party swirl around us. My gaze kept drifting to him. I all but groaned when he slipped his fingers between his lips, sucking off the sticky marshmallow.
Alan came by and discreetly tipped some whiskey into our cups before sauntering away. By now, I was feeling more relaxed, and I took a sip, grateful for the liquid courage.
“You did a great job here,” Cooper said.
Surprise and pleasure bloomed in my chest like a flower at his praise, and I turned to him, beaming. His lips were curved into a soft smile that had my insides turning gooier than the marshmallow he toasted for me.
“Thank you,” I said. “It was really the students’ idea—well, mostly Russel’s idea. I just gave them a little encouragement. To think bigger, you know.” I gestured to the flames licking up charred logs, but I couldn’t pull my gaze away from him, firelight igniting him with an ethereal glow.
“You’re really good with them.”
“They’re good kids. I like them a lot.”
“Is that why you’re here?” When I tilted my head in question, he clarified, “Why you’re teaching?”
I nodded before responding. “Well, I adore chemistry. But, yes, the students are a big part of my why. I like helping them grow, in class and outside of class.”
“Like with that girl?”
I nodded. “Miriam. She has so much potential, but she’s holding herself back with some made-up rules.”
Cooper’s brow furrowed. “How do you mean?”
As one, we glanced over to where Miriam and David sat close together in the sand. “She said she was afraid to talk to him because she’s a scholarship student. Isn’t that silly?”
“Not so silly,” he replied.
When I looked back at him, his gaze, which was back on the fire, had turned pensive.
I reached out and touched his arm, and he turned to look at me, expression closed. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Did I say something wrong?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, and I thought for a minute that he might not say anything else. I held my breath.
“It’s hard. You can’t relate when people talk about private jets or personal chefs.
Guys are showing off their Cartier watches and iPhones that aren’t even on the market yet.
And then I walk in with my department store khakis and shoes from the outlet, and they don’t need to say anything. We all know I don’t belong.”
I turned over his words in my mind. Would I have noticed if another student wasn’t feeling included? Obviously not. The whiskey and marshmallows sat heavy in my gut.
“But you still got to come here,” I countered. “You still got one of the best educations in the world.”
He nodded, but still didn’t look at me. “True, but I think you’re discounting how valuable the connections are in addition to the education.
I got into every college I applied to with a perfect GPA from Newbury, but it didn’t make much difference when I was trying to get a job.
My parents didn’t have friends at the country club offering me seven-figure salaries. ”
“I see your point,” I said slowly. “But I think you’re over simplifying things.”
I paused, waiting for him to clap back at me. Instead, he turned his face to me, his gaze penetrating into my soul.
“And how’s that?” he asked.
He didn’t sound insulted or angry, merely curious. I owed him an explanation.
“It’s my parents,” I said. “Well, really it’s my dad.
I’m sure you’ve heard of Burke Limited. I was always supposed to work with him once I finished my education.
I was supposed to go to Yale like him, get a degree in finance or economics—and maybe an MBA—and then take a role in the family business. ”
“I don’t follow,” Cooper said.
I sighed and tried again. “That seven-figure salary,” I said, and he nodded. “It comes with strings. More like chains. I can’t imagine living under their thumbs for the next forty or fifty years. Watches and private jets aren’t worth it.”
Cooper nodded, but his dark eyes never left my face.
“Okay sure. Fifty years of grinding in a job I hate sounds shitty. But it still sounds better than working three jobs so you don’t have to choose between paying student loans or rent.
Couldn’t you just pick another profession? Like a doctor—they work with people.”
I snorted a humorless laugh. “Dad thinks medicine is a dead-end job. There’s no upward mobility and limited room for growth. Unless you get into administration, but then, isn’t that just business?”
His brows pulled together as he frowned. “So, then, how did you get into teaching? If something as esteemed as medicine wasn’t acceptable, then surely education…”
“Yeah, education and science aren’t acceptable either,” I confirmed with a sigh.
“At first, I convinced him to let me take a gap year after high school, and then that stretched into two. Then three. When I finally told him I got into Columbia, I think he was just so relieved that he didn’t complain about my major. Or maybe he just didn’t care.”
If possible, his frown deepened. “So you rejected your birthright in favor of teaching?”
“No. I—well—sort of?” I said. “It sounds much more noble when you say it like that. It wasn’t noble. It wasn’t even intentional.”
“So then how would you say it?”
I tipped my head up, trying to find the right words. Eventually, I replied, “I would say that sometimes the easy choice isn’t right. And sometimes the right choice isn’t easy.”
A silence fell between us while we regarded each other. My eyes were all but pleading with him to understand me. He set his hand between us in the sand, palm up. When I set my hand into his, he curled his fingers around it and squeezed gently.
I wanted him to wrap his arms around me and hold me close and reassure me that I was doing the right things. But after a moment, a group of students wandered by, and he let go of my hand. We sat next to each other staring at the dancing flames, and I tried to be grateful for the quiet company.