Chapter Thirty-Six
I couldn’t imagine breaking up with Davi, andnow I’ll have to say goodbye to him for good.
It’s likely I’ll never see him again. It’s likely once I’m gone, he’ll move on and forget about the weeks we dated. I won’t forget, though. I think I’ll carry him with me forever, tucked away somewhere deep in my mind, behind a door I’ll forever be afraid to open because of all the things that might fall out, things I can never have—Juilliard, Broadway. It’s likely the what-ifs of my life will haunt me forever, but I’ll learn to live with them.
“Hey. Enore.”
My head snaps up, away from the biology textbook I have opened on the library table. “Um…” I clear my throat after seeing Davi standing above me. “Hi.”
“I’ve been looking for you. What are you doing here? It’s lunch.”
“Just catching up on some studying.” I’m trying to convey some coolness, but my voice shakes.
He watches me without a word. I wonder if he notices my puffy eyes, the evidence I spent last night crying. After the conversation with my mom, it was all I could do. This morning, I held an ice pack over my eyes before leaving for school, but I doubt it made much of a difference.
After a long pause, Davi pulls out the chair beside me and sits. “What’s going on with you? Huh?” he asks softly.
I look away from him. If I’m going to lie, my eyes can’t give anything away. “I’m fine.”
“Ara just told me you quit the musical. Why?”
“I didn’t want to do it anymore. It was interfering with my schoolwork.”
After another long pause, he shifts closer to me and holds my hand. “This has something to do with your mom, doesn’t it? She found out about the musical and made you quit.”
With the cautious look in his eyes and the slight tremor in his voice, I know he’s calculating his words, careful not to mention what else my mother recently found out. He’s still afraid of the answer—of what her knowing means for our relationship. And I’m still afraid of delivering the answer—of breaking his heart as well as mine.
“Enore.” His voice is sweet, tender. “Did you tell her what the musical means to you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “The musical, Juilliard. It’s not happening. It will never happen.”
“But—”
“There are no buts.” Only what-ifs. That’s all there will ever be, the fantasy of what could have been. I grab my books and stand. Tears gather at the corners of my eyes. Before they fall, I need to excuse myself and rush into a bathroom stall. “Sorry. But I have to go.”
“Wait.” Davi stands quickly. “Juilliard. It’s your dream. You can’t just give it up. You have to talk to your mom. Make her understand. Make her see this is what you want.”
“What I want doesn’t matter, Davi. My family is… is… broken. What I want doesn’t matter.” It never should have.
And if I had stuck to my original plan, followed the rules, and stayed on that straight and narrow path, I wouldn’t have discovered a passion I was once conveniently oblivious to. I wouldn’t have selfishly pursued it to the extent where I couldn’t see my mother’s pain and struggle. I wouldn’t have disappointed her or my father.
“Enore, listen to me.” The determined look in Davi’s eyes is a sign he’s about to give a pep talk I don’t want to hear. “You have to stop hiding who you are from her.”
“Hiding who I am? Really?” Those words feel so wrong coming from him, because he’s preaching something he doesn’t practice. “First of all, you don’t know what it’s like to be me. Our cultures and our upbringings are so different. So please save the speech where you tell me to defy my mom and do whatever I please. Because, for the last time, it doesn’t work like that for me.
“And second, you’re the one who’s hiding—too afraid to tell Blake you’d rather join every academic club than play football. Too afraid to tell me the truth about your mom.”
The librarian at the front desk presses a finger to her lips, but I ignore the gesture and the fact that I might be disturbing Cooper Clark, the only other student in the library.
“You’ve kept things from me,” I tell Davi, my voice low and pained. “I’ve told you so much. About my dad. About moving here. Do you understand how hard that was for me—to trust you, to rely on you? And for months, you completely shut me out. You’ve ignored every question I’ve asked about her. I’ve been open and vulnerable with you, and you’ve been hiding who you are from me.”
My chest is pounding. For a while, all I hear is my rapid breathing and the librarian’s aggressive “shh.” And then school bell chimes, indicating the end of the lunch period.
The hurt is clear in Davi’s eyes as he watches me. Maybe I said too much, crossed a line. Maybe everything I said was necessary.
“We can’t see each other anymore,” I add. “We’re done.”
There it is. Finally. The breakup. Though not the goodbye. With the overwhelming ache that reverberates through me, I know I can only manage to do one today.
I clench my books against my chest and rush away from him.