Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Fiona
The kitchen smelled like rosemary and garlic, the kind of warm, familiar scent that normally made it impossible to feel bad about anything for long.
Normally.
Granny stood at the stove, humming as she stirred something in a large pot, while I sat at the kitchen table with my calculus textbook open in front of me. My pencil rested against a problem I’d already read four times without understanding a single word.
Another scholarship rejection had arrived that afternoon.
Third one this month.
Fifth overall.
I’d opened it at lunch while sitting alone in my car because apparently, I’d already learned to schedule disappointment somewhere nobody could watch me react to it. The email had been polite, professional, regretful.
We received an overwhelming number of qualified applicants this year. Unfortunately, we are unable to offer you a scholarship at this time. We wish you the best in your future endeavors.
Future endeavors.
Such a nice phrase.
It made everything sound wide open, as if my future were some endless stretch of possibilities instead of a collection of dollar amounts I kept calculating in my head. I pressed harder with my pencil until the tip snapped.
Perfect.
My phone buzzed beside my calculus book.
Jasper: You disappeared.
I stared at the message. Of course he’d noticed.
Me: I’ve been studying.
Jasper: For four hours?
Me: Some of us take school seriously
Jasper: I take many things seriously.
Me: Name one
Jasper: You.
I closed my eyes. He really needed to quit doing that. One sentence. Sometimes one word. Then I’d spend the next ten minutes staring at my phone like it contained the secrets of the universe.
Jasper: What happened?
Me: Nothing happened.
Jasper: You only say that when something happened.
I frowned at his annoyingly perceptive words as my thumbs hovered over the screen. I could’ve ignored him, and he probably would’ve let me. Somehow, knowing that made me want to tell him more.
Me: I got another rejection letter.
Jasper: From a college?
Me: Scholarship.
There was a pause before his answer appeared.
Jasper: I’m sorry.
Me: It’s fine.
Jasper: Stop doing that.
My eyebrows pulled together.
Me: Doing what?
Jasper: Calling things fine because you don’t want anyone to see they hurt.
I had to read it twice. There were days I really hated how much attention that man paid. How he saw me from halfway across the country.
Me: Maybe I don’t want to talk about it.
Jasper: Then I’ll sit here quietly.
Me: Over text?
Jasper: I’m talented.
A smile tugged at my mouth before I could stop it.
Me: You really would, wouldn’t you?
Jasper: As long as you need.
The smile faded—not because the answer bothered me, but because I believed him.
I put the phone down and looked at my calculus book again. He hadn’t demanded that I tell him more. He hadn’t offered unsolicited advice or tried to convince me the rejection didn’t matter.
He’d just stay.
That shouldn’t have felt as unfamiliar as it did.
“Fiona, honey, can you set the table?” Granny called from the stove. “Everyone will be here soon.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I stood, grateful for something to do with my hands, and started pulling plates from the cabinet.
Friday dinner at Granny’s had become one of those things nobody officially called a tradition even though everybody knew better than to make other plans. The family descended, the kids took over the house, and whatever peace Granny had enjoyed disappeared until everyone finally went home.
I loved it, even when it made my head hurt.
I was setting down the last fork when the front door opened.
“Granny!”
Jasper and Jasmine came barreling into the kitchen and wrapped themselves around Granny’s legs.
“Careful, careful!” Josie followed behind them with a casserole dish balanced in her arms.
Georgie walked in right behind her, carrying a bottle of wine.
His eyes found mine and his smile came a second too late.
There it was again. Whatever had been sitting between us since Valentine’s Day.
“They’ve been asking about dessert since we left the house,” Josie said while the twins disappeared toward the stairs. “I swear they get louder every day.”
“That’s what happens when you feed them,” I said.
Georgie set the wine on the counter and crossed the kitchen toward me. He wrapped his arms around me and kissed the top of my head.
Usually, I sank into his hugs without thinking. This time I noticed how tight his shoulders were. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one pretending everything was normal.
Josie grinned at me. “How was your day?”
“Fine.”
Jasper’s text immediately flashed through my head.
Stop doing that.
I sighed. “Busy. Lots of homework.”
“Senior year,” Josie said sympathetically. “It’ll be over before you know it.”
I nodded, though lately graduation felt less like a finish line and more like the edge of something I couldn’t quite see over.
“Fee! Fee!”
Charlie saved me from thinking about it.
I scooped him up and kissed his soft hair. “Hey, buddy. Did you miss me?”
He babbled something only he understood and grabbed a fistful of my hair.
“Charlie, gentle,” Claudia said as she came into the kitchen.
I loosened his fingers while Frank followed her in with Theodore and Benedict strapped against his chest in a double carrier. Both twins were asleep despite the noise.
I stared at him. “How do you do it? Three kids under two?”
“Caffeine,” Frank said dryly. “And denial.”
Claudia laughed. “And a lot of help from family.”
I held Charlie a little closer before setting him into his highchair.
Family.
That word still caught inside me sometimes. I didn’t think any of them knew just how much they all meant to me.
Dinner turned into its usual chaos. Jasper and Jasmine talked over each other, Charlie discovered that banging his spoon against the highchair tray made an excellent sound, and when Theodore woke up crying, Benedict immediately decided he should too.
For a while, all that noise gave me somewhere to hide. Then I looked across the table and found Georgie watching me.
“So, Fiona,” he said. “How’s the college search going?”
My stomach tightened. There was nothing decipherable in his tone, but things had changed between us.
“Fine. My plans haven’t changed.”
“Good.” He set his fork down. “I just want to make sure you’re staying focused. Senior year is important. You don’t need distractions.”
There it was.
Not college.
Not school.
Jasper.
“I am focused.”
“Are you?” Georgie asked. “Because those flowers that showed up at the Creamery on Valentine’s Day say otherwise.”
Silence spread across the table faster than I would’ve thought possible with that many children in the room.
“What flowers?” Frank asked.
“Nothing,” I said quickly. “Just—”
“Not nothing.” Georgie’s voice went flat. “I was there, remember? I saw them arrive.”
“It’s none of your business, Georgie,” Josie muttered beside him.
“It became my business the second I learned who sent them.” He leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. “You know why they call him Romeo, right?”
My jaw tightened.
“Georgie,” Josie warned.
He didn’t look at her.
“It’s not because he’s romantic. It’s because he’s got a different Juliet every week.”
The word formed in my head before he even said it. Next. Like women lined up and eventually Jasper had pointed at me.
“We’re friends,” I said. Georgie had already had this conversation with me months ago when Jasper was here for Jack’s wedding. After we danced together at the reception. After I thought I would never see him again.
“Friends.” Georgie laughed, but there was no humor in it. “That’s what they all think at first.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means men like him don’t send flowers to women they want to be friends with.” Georgie leaned forward. “He’s thirty-one, Fiona. You’re eighteen. You really think—”
“Do you have a problem with my cousin?” Josie interrupted.
Georgie turned toward her. “Yeah, Josie. I do. I have a problem with a man who’s earned that road name deciding my little sister is next.”
My hands curled beneath the table.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Josie said.
“Don’t I?” Georgie asked. “How many women has he been with in the last year, Josie? How many has he brought to the clubhouse? How many—”
“That’s enough.” Something inside me snapped.
“Excuse me?”
I shoved back from the table so fast my chair scraped across the floor. “You think I’m too stupid to know my own mind?”
Georgie blinked. “That’s not what I said—”
“That’s exactly what you said. You think I’m a child who can’t make her own decisions.”
“Fiona, I’m just trying to protect you—”
“I don’t need you to protect me from Romeo!”
The room went completely silent. Even Charlie stopped banging his spoon against the tray. For one ridiculous second, I almost laughed.
Then Claudia cleared her throat. “Georgie, maybe you should—”
“Stay out of this, Claudia,” Georgie said, though some of the anger had gone out of his voice.
“No.” Claudia’s voice stayed firm. “Fiona’s an adult. She gets to make her own choices.”
“Thank you,” I said, looking at her. “But I’ve got this.”
And I did.
My hands were shaking. My heart was trying to beat its way out of my chest. But for once, I didn’t want someone else stepping between me and the problem.
I looked at Georgie.
“Let me ask you something, Georgie. If I came to you and said I thought I was born in the wrong body and I wanted to change my name to David, would you support me?”
He blinked. “What? Of course I would. I love you. Changing your gender wouldn’t change that.”
“Really?” I pressed. “You wouldn’t tell me I’m too young to know what I want? That I don’t understand my own body? That I need to wait until I’m older to make decisions about who I am?”
His jaw worked. “That’s different.”
“So my brain is developed enough to change my gender, my body if I choose to, but I’m too damn stupid to know what my heart feels?” My eyes burned, but I refused to look away. “I’m not a child, Georgie. I gave birth to a child.”
I looked toward Charlie. He stared back at me, wide-eyed, his spoon forgotten on the tray. My throat closed for a second.
“Yes, I was young and stupid and lacked the guidance that might have stopped that from happening.” My voice cracked anyway.
“But I don’t regret my decision for a second.
And if it meant the choice between a world with Charlie, or without him, I would do it all over again.
Because that choice brought me here today, sitting at this table with my family. Family I thought had my back.”
The anger disappeared from Georgie’s face.
“Fiona, I didn’t mean—”
“I told you,” I interrupted. “Romeo and I are friends. But if we decide to be more than friends, that is my choice. And I would hope you would support me the same way you would support any major decision I made about my life.”
I couldn’t stay there. Not with everyone watching me.
Not with Charlie sitting three feet away.
I turned and walked out of the kitchen before the tears could fall.
They blurred my vision halfway up the stairs, but I made it to my bedroom and shut the door behind me before the first one slipped free.
My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
I’d yelled at Georgie.
Really yelled at him.
The person who had been there for me through almost everything.
A sob caught in my throat, and for half a second, guilt tried to convince me to go downstairs and apologize. Then I heard the word again.
Next.
No. I sat on the edge of my bed and pressed my palms against my eyes as the tears finally came.
I loved Georgie. That didn’t mean he got to decide this for me. Nobody did.
And underneath the hurt, underneath the guilt and anger and everything else tangled inside me, something unfamiliar had started to take shape.
For once, I’d made them listen before they decided what was best for me.
It hurt.
But it also felt a hell of a lot like freedom.