4. PRESENT DAY – January
London, England
WILLOW HALE
“L o told me I could pick any room in the house that I wanted with one exception,” Garrison explains as he folds clothes into a new dresser. I watch him on Skype. Boxes surround him, and computer monitors and cords litter the queen-sized bed.
Before he officially accepted Lo’s offer, he called to ask if the whole thing was a bad idea. He wanted to make sure that I was on board.
My boyfriend moving into my brother’s house.
In Garrison’s words: “If you become unhappy in our relationship and this makes it harder for you to break up with me—then I won’t do it.”
He’s always thinking about me, in most everything. Even in some strange reality where I’d break up with him, he thinks about me. By the way, that’s a reality that I refuse to believe will ever come true.
During the same phone call, Garrison spilled everything about his brothers. How they hurt him during the holidays and then again in the greenhouse. How his mom did nothing.
It gutted me, but I tried to stay strong over the line for him. Towards the end, we were both crying. I wish I could’ve been there.
With him.
His drunken anger in London made more sense, and guilt gnawed at me for not flying home with him that night. Garrison said he wouldn’t have wanted me to, but I’ll regret it forever.
“I regret a lot,” I told him on the phone, wiping at my tears. “I could’ve confronted your mom or told Lo sooner—”
“No,” Garrison forced out. “We were teenagers.”
“I’m not a teenager anymore.”
I could hear his tears and cracking voice. “What happened isn’t on you, Willow. You left everything you knew to come to Philly. And you came here to meet your brother. Saving me wasn’t your job. It’s mine. And you know how many times I wanted to confront your mom but never did?”
He’s been pissed about how easily she’s erased me from her life.
“She’s thousands of miles away in Maine,” I said in quiet protest. “Your mom lives down the street.”
“So what? I could’ve flown there. I have money.”
I felt terrible for making this about me.
“I’m sorry.” I grimaced at the apology, hearing my best friend Daisy telling me not to apologize for my feelings.
Even though it’s hard. I sniffed back emotion and loosened my grip on the phone.
“Sometimes I think that I’m a nonentity in so many people’s lives—shy, timid Willow Hale,” I whispered, “and I’m afraid of being a nonentity in yours.
” He’s my guy, my only love, and it’s terrifying to think that I could be this invisible shadow to the person who’s been my everything.
“You’ve never been a nonentity to me, Willow,” Garrison breathed.
“From the first time we touched, you became my world and safe place. I’m so in love with you that my heart feels like it’s being ripped to shreds just knowing you’re sad, and I’m stuck here, sitting on this crappy floor. Wishing I could hug you.”
I was sitting on the floor too. I told him that.
We laughed softly. Sadly.
I hugged my arm around my body, pretending that Garrison was with me. “Don’t push me too far away that I can’t ever reach you again, okay?”
“Okay.” We listened to our breath over the line for a while. It sounds creepier than cute, but it felt…calming. To hear him ease and our tears dry.
So that was the phone call.
A big one.
All I can do is think about now.
How he’s moving into my brother’s house, and we’re currently on a Skype call.
This move is a great thing for him. He’ll be surrounded by people who care about him and love him. Happy doesn’t even come close to what I’m feeling.
I’ve been grinning so much these past couple days that my cheeks hurt.
“Which room did you pick?” I ask Garrison. Back on Skype, I squint at my computer screen, trying to decipher which room he chose in the big eight-bedroom Hale house.
At one time, over half of the rooms were occupied. Way back when Lily, Loren, Ryke, Daisy, Connor, Rose, and I all lived under the same roof. Hard to believe that happened at all—but it did.
Now that it’s just Lily and Loren and their three-year-old son, it must be a quieter house.
“I almost picked Ryke and Daisy’s old room,” Garrison tells me. “But then Lo said that I wasn’t allowed because it’s the smallest guest room in the house and I’m not permitted to do that to myself out of guilt.”
Sounds like Lo.
Garrison starts untangling his wad of cords. “And I thought about your old room, but it’d be too weird. So I chose the guest room at the end of the hall, three doors down from Maximoff’s. You remember it? It’s the one with the paisley wallpaper.”
I nod, still smiling. “Is that the one Lo says gives him a migraine every time he goes inside?”
Garrison laughs, a real heartfelt laugh. “That’d be the one.” He glances at the screen, our eyes meeting for a beat.
I push up my glasses. “I wish I were there to help you move in.”
I almost bought a ticket, but Garrison told me not to miss my first week of classes for him. That we’d Skype instead.
“You are here,” Garrison reminds me. His positivity is palpable, and it runs through me like a drug. “Pick a wall for my poster.” He travels around the room with his laptop.
“By the window,” I say.
He smiles wide. “We are two minds in one. Who knew, I was thinking the same exact thing.” The way he says it—he definitely wasn’t.
“Uh-huh. Sure.” I match his smile. It’s contagious.
“I love your choice,” he says. “That’s exactly where it’s going and I’m going to think about you every time I look at it.”
My chest swells, and I wish I had that reminder in my room. I glance at the photograph of us on my nightstand. We’re both lounging on the dock at the lake house, the sun setting, and he’s kissing my cheek.
Garrison places the laptop on the dresser, the spot that lets me see most of his room. He grabs a hoodie from a box and tosses the clothing in a trash bag. He already told me he’s throwing away every hoodie he owns. New start. New look. “How’s school?” he asks.
I’m about to answer but the door opens abruptly. “Uncle Garrison!” The dark-haired toddler rushes in and belly flops onto Garrison’s bed.
“Heyheyhey!” Lo calls out from the doorway. “What’d we say about knocking?”
Maximoff picks himself up from the mattress and turns to his dad. “I have to knocks before I enters,” he slurs the words a little.
“Try again, bud,” Lo says and then gives Garrison an apologetic look.
Garrison is full-on grinning.
Maximoff goes outside and knocks on the door. I hear Lo say, “And now what do you ask?”
“UNCLE GARRISON?!” Maximoff screams at the top of his lungs. “CAN I COME PLAY WITH YOU?!”
Garrison laughs. “Yeah, kid, come on in.”
Maximoff just started calling Garrison his uncle. Even though they’re not related. He’d be his actual uncle if Garrison and I got married, but we haven’t really discussed that possibility. It can’t be on Garrison’s radar if he’s thinking I’m going to break up with him.
I wouldn’t.
The door opens and Maximoff bounds back inside. “Can I—can I help you unpack?” he asks with these big green eyes that are so Lily—it’s impossible not to fall prey to them.
Garrison nods.
Lo notices the laptop screen. “Is that my sister?” Lo asks me, brows raised.
“I’m here in the…not-so-flesh,” I say.
“Just a bunch of ones and zeroes,” Garrison adds, and while standing behind Lo, my boyfriend winks at me. It’s sexy enough that I blush.
Lo frowns and looks over his shoulder. “Are you two flirting in nerd?”
“Man, we’re not nerds,” Garrison snaps. “Aren’t the nerd stars a few houses down the street?
” Lily affectionately refers to Connor and Rose as the “nerd stars” but the Cobalts are so far from what you’d picture a stereotypical nerd.
If anything, I fit the bill the most. Glasses, comic-book loving introvert.
Lo touches his chest. “Forgive me, you two are flirting in geek.”
Garrison raises his brows. “That’s you and your wife.” Lily and Lo are the superhero-obsessed ones, sometimes even more than me.
Maximoff picks up a pillow and tosses it at his dad. Lo dodges it like it’s nothing, his focus on Garrison. “Christ, you and words. Fine, you’re flirting in computer shit or whatever you youths calls it.”
“Binary,” Garrison says.
“What?” Lo’s brows knot.
“It’s a binary numer—you know what, never mind.”
“Good, I was thinking this was going to turn into a lesson,” Lo smiles his half-smile. “You do know I dropped out of college.”
“You tell us every chance you can get,” I say lightly.
Lo turns back to the computer. “My sister with the jokes.” He cracks another smile. “London is going well then?”
“Yeah, really well.”
Lo’s phone rings and he excuses himself to answer the call. Just as he leaves, I hear him say, “Hey, Dad.”
My stomach twists, unsettled all of a sudden.
Maximoff rips the tape off one of the smaller boxes, helping Garrison. It’s a good distraction for him, and I need a second to myself so that I don’t look like I’m about to puke.
Because I’m hiding something from Garrison. From my brothers. And if I can, I’d like to take this to my grave.
It’s about that night in London when Garrison visited.
After he flew home and I stayed back, I did some damage control.
Students filmed Garrison punching Salvatore, and I saw the look on Garrison’s face.
If that footage leaked online, he would’ve been prime fodder for the media.
We both have been memes before, and it’s only ever easy when you’re emotionally and mentally prepared to handle it.
It’d destroy him, and since Connor Cobalt—the usual damage control expert—wasn’t around, I had to think of different resources. I couldn’t call Lo or Ryke without alerting them that Garrison was drunk, and he made me promise not to say anything.
So there was only one person left.
My dad.
Jonathan Hale.
I did what I swore I would never do after he cut me a check for school.
I asked him for more money.
He gave me a hundred grand. He knew what it was for and wanted to help. Though, he called it “pennies” which I found…a little insulting. A hundred grand is a fortune to me. And it was enough to put my plan into action.
Sheetal had filmed the whole fight, and I was able to identify everyone with cameras who recorded Garrison. Luckily, Tess knew most of the students at Bishop Hall that night. So I gave them cash in exchange for the footage. They deleted their videos from the cloud and cells.
I, Willow Hale , paid people off with Jonathan Hale’s money.
Ryke has constantly warned me about our dad. I know he doesn’t give things without something in return. Allegiance. Time. I’m not sure what he’ll ask for, but I never wanted to feel indebted to him. Now…it’s all I feel. And what happens when he comes to collect?
Or worse, what happens if Lo, Ryke, or Garrison find out?
They can’t. They can’t.
I practically carve those words into stone.