“I already deleted her number.”
Jennie blinks once, twice. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Um, well.” She winds her braid around her hand, tangling her fingers, and her cheeks turn pink as she tries to free herself. I reach forward and pull her hand from her hair. She promptly starts picking at imaginary lint on her hoodie. “Just remember that we should end this before you start seeing someone else, because I don’t want to feel stupid, or be embarrassed, or whatever.”
“I’m not seeing someone else, Jennie, and we’re not ending this. Is that all?”
“Is what all?”
“You don’t want to feel stupid?”
Her nose wrinkles as she pulls her bottom lip into her mouth and drops her gaze again. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to the shy bits of her that peek out here and there, but I’m learning that I like them just as much as her loud, confident bits. Whether she roars or whispers, she’s still beautiful, strong, and uniquely perfect to me.
“What else would it be?”
My eyes roll to the ceiling with my sigh. She likes to do this every now and then, answer my question with one of her own. It’s how she avoids any serious conversation that might force us to address where things are heading, or at least where I want them to head.
So with a dopey grin, I clasp a fistful of her hoodie and tug. She comes tumbling into me, grasping my biceps to catch herself, and I angle her face up to mine.
“You’re fuckin’ infuriating sometimes, sunshine. You know that, don’t you?”
There it is, right there in the corner, the hint of a smile. Her dimples start pulling in, and when her beam blooms across her face, I wanna kiss them right off her cheeks.
“I’m no one’s sunshine.”
“Fuck, I love when you’re wrong.” My mouth covers hers, coaxing it open, and her tongue meets mine for a slow, sweeping kiss. “You’re my sunshine.”
CHAPTER 22
FUCK.
JENNIE
“The reservations are for seven.”
“And everyone’s coming?”
“Everyone. It’s gonna be amazing. I’ve got us on the list at Sapphire for afterward.”
“Sapphire? How did you make that happen?”
The tip of my pen taps incessantly against the desktop, and my eye twitches as I dream about shoving my turquoise-blue BIC right through Krissy’s eye socket.
Is it extreme? Maybe. Is it necessary? Also maybe.
Simon takes the weapon from my hand, replacing it with a Starburst. I can’t put a Starburst through Krissy’s eye. Plus, it’s a pink one. I’m not wasting that.
“Have some candy. You look like you’re plotting a murder.” He opens his laptop and fucks around on YouTube until he finds one of those funny dog videos he knows I like. He checks it’s muted and flips the screen to me before focusing his attention back on Leah at the front of the lecture hall.
I’m wound tight right now. Krissy’s sitting directly in front of me, talking loudly about their Friday plans, putting emphasis on the everyone who’s coming.
I’m not part of the everyone, and I definitely don’t care. It’s not like they’re going to the best, most exclusive dance club in Vancouver, and it’s not like I love to dance. It’s not like the entire graduating dance class is attending, and it’s not like I care that I’ve been sitting on the sidelines all these years.
I’ve been an outlier from the beginning, the rich girl who didn’t have to try to get accepted to one of the most elite dance schools in the nation, the scholarship that was handed to me.
Except I’m not rich, and I never have been. And that scholarship I rode in on? I earned every cent of it by busting my metaphorical balls for seventeen years, when all I ate, slept, and dreamt about was dance.
My fate was set the moment Carter Beckett’s little sister strolled in on the first day of orientation, and like I’d learned to do, I accepted it, choosing instead to sink back into the shadows, to be my own friend.
I’m tired, but now the fear of rejection is all too real for me to even try.
My friendship with Garrett has shown me the types of connections I’ve been missing all these years, and has sparked a deep craving for more. Coming to this place where I’m forced to hide inside myself is draining. I want the freedom I feel with Garrett, the one that lets me be unapologetically myself, and I want to experience it always, everywhere I go.
Is the connection we share the kind you find regularly? Is it the type of connection you create with all your friends? Or is this connection unique to him? To us? Is it fleeting and rare, the powerful kind that allows a deep and meaningful relationship to bloom? The kind you grab hold of and tell yourself, no matter what, don’t you dare let go?
My mind sees Garrett, and it clasps onto his face.
Things have been quieter with him, gentler. Like we’re both treading lightly, tiptoeing that line but careful not to cross it, afraid even.
It’s confusing, daunting, and maybe a bit frustrating. Does the line even exist anymore? I don’t know where it’s drawn, but I know what sits on the other side of it, and that makes things all the more frightening. Because where there’s something beautiful to be found, there’s something beautiful to be lost too.
When I thought Garrett had a date, a tsunami of feelings I’d been refusing to acknowledge rushed through me. Feelings that had been simmering on the back burner for weeks, growing stronger with every good morning text, every kiss hello, every night in on the couch, watching movies with mugs of hot chocolate, every quiet, mundane conversation in bed where his fingers drift up and down my spine before we eventually say good night.
The logical part of my brain examines each of Garrett’s actions, his words, every smile he graces me with, the way his gaze floats down my face before he presses his lips to mine. That part convinces me there’s something vibrating between us, something strong and tangible. So tangible I can feel it even when he’s not right next to me.
But then there’s that weak part of my brain, or rather, my heart. The pieces that have been shattered and bruised, those still-jagged edges, they remind me that sometimes not everything is as it seems. That some people are so good at convincing you they care, or worse, that they love you.
My judgment may be flawed, but every part of me knows Garrett’s not that person.
But that doesn’t mean he feels what I feel. I’ve been wrong before, and I don’t want to be wrong about Garrett. That feels a lot like losing him, and he’s not a loss I’m willing to risk.
“That’s it for today. Have a great weekend, everyone.”
Leah brings a welcome end to my spiraling thoughts, and chairs skid across the linoleum floors as everybody rushes out of the lecture hall.
Simon packs up his laptop while I wait for Krissy and A? to leave. Ashlee—Ashley number two—smiles at me, waving. She’s always been nice, quiet, and I don’t understand why she hangs around with this group. Maybe she’s as desperate as I am to fit in somewhere, anywhere.
Simon takes my hand, helping me to my feet. “Wanna be my date to Sapphire tomorrow night?”
“Thanks, but I’m not going.”
“What? Why?”
“You know exactly why.”
Simon sighs. “C’mon, Jennie. Come with me. We’ll have fun.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. I wasn’t invited.” I’m never invited. “Sapphire sucks anyway.” It’s amazing, impossible to get into unless you have a rich connection, like, for example, a professional hockey player for a brother.
Going to a dance club with your overprotective older brother is not fun, by the way. Carter conned his friends into forming a barricade around us girls that made the Great Wall of China look like a white picket fence. I stomped off the dance floor two minutes later, and Carter made it up to me with a chocolate banana milk shake topped with crumbled Oreos on the way home.