Chapter 5 #2
But Penelope had been with Cole Matthews, Heath's best friend, all through junior and senior year. Off-limits in the most fundamental way possible. So Heath couldn't have her. At least that was what the rumors said.
And a boy who can't have the girl he wants doesn't stop wanting her. He just finds someone he can have.
The girl next door. The one who's always around, always available, already halfway in love with him anyway.
The one who's safe.
Penelope was the prize. Penelope was always the prize. And you don't settle for the girl next door when the prize is available.
You settle for her when it isn't.
All those summers, all those careful conversations and shared jokes and moments when I thought maybe, maybe he saw me the way I saw him—I was never the choice. I was the consolation. The backup plan. The girl who was there when the real one wasn't an option.
We never talked about school, Heath and I. Never mentioned the different crowds we ran with, the invisible lines that kept us separate from September to June. Summer was its own world, and in that world, we could pretend that ten months of social geography didn't exist.
But it did exist. Ten years later, I'm watching the proof of it unfold on Gram's lawn.
The worst part is how it reframes everything. Last night in my bed, this morning in mine, all the careful touches and stolen glances I thought meant something.
All of it takes on a different shape now. Not chosen, just available. Not wanted, just willing.
That was why I ran away from him during our last summer together. I thought things were different now. Apparently not.
I turn back toward Heath and Penelope, and that's when I see Heath hug her. His arms wrap around her small waist, her face turned up toward his. And when they pull apart, he smiles at her—soft and genuine and sweet.
The tears come from nowhere, and I have to turn away before anyone sees.
My hands shake as I pretend to adjust a flower arrangement, and I realize I need to get away from this lawn, away from the evidence of my own stupidity, before I do something that will make the rest of this weekend unbearable for everyone.
Gram's gift. I still haven't given Gram her birthday present. It's up in the loft, wrapped and waiting, and retrieving it gives me a reason to disappear that doesn't require explanation.
My feet carry me toward the house before my brain fully commits to the plan, but once I'm moving, it becomes the only possible course of action. Get the gift. Pull myself together. Come back down and play the part of the cheerful granddaughter for the rest of the evening.
I can do that. I've been doing it my whole life.
The house feels blessedly cool after the afternoon heat, and the relative quiet is a relief after the chaos of suppliers and setup. But as I head toward the stairs, I pass the guest bedroom on the second floor, and I halt.
The door is fully open, revealing a perfectly made bed and untouched linens.
I stand in the doorway for a long moment, letting the implications settle. The room Gram swore was occupied. The reason I got shunted to the loft with Heath in the first place.
Nobody has been staying here. The bed hasn't been touched. The surfaces are dust-free but clearly unused.
Gram lied.
I continue up to the loft, grab the gift from where I tucked it beside my suitcase, and try to decide how I feel about being manipulated by an eighty-year-old woman.
Angry seems like the obvious choice, but what rises in my throat feels more like gratitude mixed with devastation.
Gram wanted this for me. Wanted Heath and me together badly enough to lie and scheme and orchestrate an entire weekend around making it happen.
The problem is that Heath isn't a thing you can engineer. He's a person with his own wants and history, and apparently what he wants is the same thing he's always wanted. The same person he's never been able to have.
Until now.
Gram's door is closed when I reach the second floor, but I knock softly and hear her voice telling me to come in. She's sitting in the chair by her window, still in her robe, and she looks smaller than usual in the afternoon light.
"I wanted to give you your present before the party gets crazy," I tell her, settling on the edge of her bed.
But instead of taking the wrapped package, Gram studies my face with the sharp attention that makes most people nervous. "Did you have fun last night?"
The question catches me off guard, direct in the way that only Gram can be. "I don't know what you mean."
"Course you do."
"So why was there an empty bedroom?"
She doesn't even pretend to misunderstand, which is somehow both irritating and reassuring. Gram has never been one to dance around uncomfortable topics.
"Gram, you lied to me."
"I did. You and Heath have been circling each other like vultures for years. I like that boy, I really do. But damn if he didn't need a bit of a push."
"Gram, what did you do?"
She shrugs, and there's something almost fond in the gesture. "Nothing. Maybe I just wanted my birthday gift to be a happily-ever-after for you."
"Here." I hand her the wrapped package, needing to change the subject before my voice gives me away. "I saw this and thought of you."
Gram unwraps it carefully, and when she sees the blanket, she smiles softly. It's the one I found online three months ago—hand-knitted, the exact shade of blue as her bedroom walls, with a pattern that reminded me of the quilts she used to make when I was little.
"Oh, honey." Her voice catches, and I realize with a shock that there are tears in her eyes. Gram doesn't cry. Has never cried, not in my presence. "This is beautiful."
She runs her fingers over the soft wool, and I watch her face transform. For a moment, she looks every one of her eighty years, fragile and not as hard as she pretends to be.
"You are a beautiful person, Harriet," she says quietly. "So is Heath. You make a good match."
It's like salt in an open wound. She means every syllable, believes it completely, and that makes it worse somehow. Gram sees something in Heath and me that isn't actually there, some compatibility that exists only in her loving, hopeful imagination.
But I can't tell her that. Can't explain that the match she's so proud of engineering is built on a fundamental misunderstanding of what Heath wants. Can't break her heart on her eightieth birthday by admitting that her gift to me is something I was never supposed to keep.
So I hug her instead and let her think her matchmaking worked. Let her have this moment of satisfaction, this belief that she's given me exactly what I need.
"Thank you, Gram," I tell her, and mean it for the blanket, for the party, for caring enough to meddle in the first place. "I love you."
"Love you too, sweetheart. Now go get ready for this party. Can't have the guest of honor looking like she's been wrestling with balloon deliveries all afternoon."
I laugh, and it sounds almost normal. "Yes, ma'am."
Back in the loft, I close the door behind me and lean against it, finally allowing the tears I've been holding back all afternoon. They come quietly, just a steady stream that I wipe away as quickly as it falls.
This is what I get for letting myself believe. For thinking that maybe, this once, I could be someone's first choice instead of their consolation prize.
But the weekend isn't over yet. There's still tonight's party to get through, still tomorrow morning and the drive back to real life.
I can do this. I can hold it together for a few more hours and then retreat to my own space, my own life, and figure out how to file this weekend away with all the other things that were never really mine.
I'm washing my face in the tiny bathroom, trying to erase the evidence of tears, when I hear Heath's footsteps on the stairs.
The loft door opens, and he appears in the doorway looking windblown and happy, riding some kind of high that makes his whole face bright. Whatever conversation he just had with Penelope, whatever plans they made or problems they solved, it left him glowing with satisfaction.
"Hey." He's grinning, completely oblivious to the wreckage of the last hour. "You disappeared."
I wipe my face and keep my hands busy, fiddling with the clasp of my watch, focusing on the tiny mechanism rather than looking at him. "I wanted to give Gram her present before the party."
"Good call." He settles on the edge of his bed, and I can feel him watching me as I step out of the bathroom. "Everything okay? You seem..."
"Did you know Gram set us up?"
Heath goes still for a moment and bursts out laughing. "I know. She's not as good an actress as she thinks."
He has no idea. No clue that everything has changed in the space of an afternoon, that the ground has shifted beneath us in a way that can't be undone.
Finally, I look up and meet his eyes for the first time since he walked into the room.
"So did you sleep with me out of pity, or because I was simply available? Or both?"