“It is.”
She drew in a shaky breath. “Talk to your parents lately?” She forced out in an obvious change of subject.
Tension drained from my shoulders, but guilt quickly took its place. I hated shutting her out. She didn’t deserve it.
“I saw my mom right before I flew out. It was…” Sad. Horrible. Frustrating. “…heartbreaking.” She’d begged me to understand, but I couldn’t. All I saw when I thought about either of them were a pair of liars. “Dad has sent a bunch of emails apologizing, but I can’t get past my anger long enough to write him back. I understand his reasons—getting me back to Dartmouth and away from a guy he thought would break my heart—but all he did was break it that much faster.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. I’m so angry at them both, which is kind of ironic since I was adopted to save them from divorce the first time they thought about filing. Man, everything is just shit right now. Is there anything happy to talk about?”
“Maybe,” Penna said, resting her air-casted leg on the chair in front of her. She’d lost the cast over Christmas break, but when the doc told her she should be okay to walk on it, she didn’t believe him. She’d requested additional support, hence the air cast.
I hadn’t said a single word to her about it. If she wanted to hide behind her injury, then who the hell was I to stop her? I’d blatantly hidden behind her all Christmas, knowing that her house was the one place they’d never look for me.
Funny how the one Renegade who had hated me ended up being my saving grace when shit went south.
“Please, fill my heart with sunshine,” I said with more than a hint of sarcasm.
“Good. I think I may have found something. But don’t get excited until I check it out. We don’t exactly have a lot to go on.”
By not a lot, she meant next to nothing. The only papers Dad had given me were the ones from the court at my adoption. The ones that didn’t mention my name at birth, just that my birth mother’s name was Seo-yun Jhang, which turned out to be one of the most popular names in Korea.
Not so helpful.
But it did have the one thing I needed: the name of her birthplace.
“Do you think you found it?” I asked.
She grimaced. “There’s an orphanage there that did a heavy number of adoptions back when you were placed, but there’s no guaranteeing that’s it. It would be like assuming you lived your whole life in L.A., when in fact you live in New Hampshire most of the year while you go to Dartmouth.”
“Right,” I said, dropping my head into my hands.
“I’m not saying it’s not possible,” Penna reassured me.
I sighed. “It’s a long shot, but I have to take it. It’s the closest I’ll ever be, and even if it’s not where I was adopted from, then…”
“Then what?” Leah asked, squeezing my hand. “Will you feel like you did everything? Because that’s what this is for, you feeling whole. Not the result.”
I nodded. “I think so?”
She looked at me, watching for whatever sign she always used to see right through me. “Okay. Then I’ll go with you.”
“No. You have the Great Wall thing,” I protested.
She shrugged. “Pax is always going to be jumping off something, revving some engine, or generally trying to get himself killed. You’ll only have this happen to you once.”
“Hell, maybe I’ll go, too,” Penna muttered.
“You’re supposed to go with Landon,” I countered.
“I thought you didn’t care,” Penna said, looking at me from over her laptop.
I played with the pen on the table in front of me. “I don’t want him to die. I want him to get his ridgeline. It’s complicated.”
“Love is weird,” Penna said, her fingers furious on her keyboard.
“It generally sucks,” I said.
“I’ve never been in love, so I’m not really qualified here,” Penna said with a shrug.
“Never?” Leah questioned, her eyebrows nearly to her hairline.
“Nope. Never really had the opportunity,” Penna clarified.
“Bullshit.” I laughed. “I’ve never seen a woman who is surrounded by more beautiful men or more uninhibited opportunities to hook up with them.”
She closed the laptop and leveled me with a single glance. “First, I worked my ass off to get where I am. I’m at the top of a men-only division, and I’m respected for my abilities and not just my ass. There’s zero chance I’m going to give it up to any Renegade, or anyone who could open his mouth on the circuit and ruin my badassery. None.”
“And second?” Leah asked, her eyes wide.
Penna sighed. “I’ve never met someone willing to fight past the anti-testosterone barrier Pax and Landon have around me. The guys are all too busy trying to impress them or beat them. That isn’t exactly conducive to relationships.”
“I’d never really thought about it that way,” I told her. “I’m so sorry. As much as I hate what he’s done to me, as much as it hurts, I wouldn’t change it.”
Penna gave me sad smile. “That’s because you still love him.”
“I do.” There was no point lying to her or myself. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll ever give him the chance to do it again. This time is worse than the first, which is something I didn’t think I was capable of surviving. And the funny thing is that it doesn’t hurt. I’m just…numb. It’s like I’m in shock, and my body isn’t willing to admit that it’s somehow breathing without a heartbeat. If I just keep moving then it will be okay, but eventually the rest of me is going to catch on.”
“I know the evidence is damning, but the whole thing with sponsorships is so complicated—” Penna stopped midsentence when my glare cut her off. “Got it.”
“Let’s talk about something else, anything else,” I suggested. It didn’t matter how much I loved these girls—I wasn’t up for spilling my guts any more than I already had.
“Want to pick out a new teapot in Hong Kong?” Leah offered.
“Those are for when we get through the shit in our lives. Not while we’re in the middle of it.”
She squeezed my hand. “I have the utmost faith that you will.”
I was glad one of us did.
…
“Rachel.” Landon sighed my name like he’d seen a ghost or something.
“Don’t,” I said as I slid into my seat in Civ.
“Please,” he begged quietly.
Be strong. I looked over at him and did my best to mask any physical reaction I had to seeing him. He’d lost a little weight, but nothing to be concerned about. After all, his first priority was his sport, not my broken heart. But his eyes, those gorgeous hazel orbs that I had lost myself in too many times, were haunted. They reflected every ounce of pain I hadn’t let myself feel.
“I’m stuck here in this class with you for the next month, and there’s nothing I can do about that. But the least you can do is not make it hard on me to pull good grades. If you want to talk to me, fine, we’ll talk later. But please don’t make me feel like I have to skip class and avoid you. That’s not fair, considering I did nothing wrong.”
His shoulders slumped, and he nodded. “That’s fair.”