I snatch it up, quickly making note of the fact that it’s still powered off, and boot it up. The moment the screen lights up, I’m pulling up Theo’s contact and hitting the call button. He answers on the first ring.
“Sophie,” he practically breathes out, and my heart squeezes in my chest at his voice. Calm instantly sweeps over me. Just hearing him on the other end makes me feel safe.
“Hi, Theo,” I say. “I just got my phone back.”
“I’m so glad to hear your voice. Today was torture. Are you okay?”
I hesitate, “Yes… and no.” Honesty time.
“I’m almost scared to ask, but… what happened?”
My mind races, my pulse picking up speed, as I try to find a way to frame this. “Well, my mother heard from her friend. She had some… choice words for me. Said that Mrs. Crenshaw saw me with an older man. Honestly, I think she was more upset about you punching Cole than anything else. But I didn’t tell her who you are, and she doesn’t know. I just said you were some guy at the fair, that we hit it off, and were hanging out.”
He sighs deeply. When he speaks again, his voiceis low and hoarse. “She didn’t care to askwhyI punched Cole in the first place?” The anger in his tone is palpable, even through the phone.
My eyes squeeze shut. “No. And she never will. She thinks Cole hung the moon.”
He practically growls, and it sends ripples of electricity zinging through my body. “Sophie, I swear to you. One day, you will be around people whodeserveyou. Who treat you with kindness and love. Your parents… from everything you’ve told me about them… they don’t deserve a daughter as wonderful as you. And I’m so sorry for that.”
I choke up, holding back a sob at his kindness. At his words that fill me with so much hope. “Listen, I’m going to be really careful. I won’t let them find out it was you.”
“Fuck,” he says, his voice exasperated. “I don’t want to keep my distance from you. But that might be what we need to do, just for now.”
I drop my head into my hands, sliding into a seat at the counter. “I don’t want that either. But you’re right. One more month, that’s it. Then we will be free.”
“Well,” he says, voice dropping, hesitant. “Really, until you begin college and we can see each other in the city. Even once you’ve graduated, no one will take kindly to my dating a student fresh out of high school.”
I sigh, knowing he’s right. Anger tears through me, my temperature rising, and I suddenly feel feverish. It’s so fucking unfair. All of it. Who is to say that what we have is wrong? That our love isn’t real, isn’t worth it?
Fuck them all.
I’ll play the game though, because I have no other choice.
39
SOPHIE
Every day this week has felt like punishment. Like being forced to sit in the front row to my own heartbreak.
I mean it. I’d prefer to be water-boarded than to have to see him every single day, but never get a moment alone. No accidental touches, no quick flirty conversations, no early morning meet-ups.
Theo decided I shouldn’t come to class early anymore. It’s too risky. Anyone could walk in, get suspicious, and that’s the last thing we need.
My parents, mostly my mother, have been all up in my business. Creeping outside of my door at night. I haven’t been able to call him, too worried their prying ears will overhear. I’m not on lockdown, but I might as well be.
My mother told me that Cole’s parents are furious about the entire situation. The way Cole told the story, you’d think they have a right to be. According to him, he ran into me and some “old guy” at the fair, and he was trying to protect me from the “creepy groomer.”
The story isn’t even believable. In what world does thatmake any damn sense? Doesn’t seem to matter though, regardless of his plot essentially being made of swiss cheese. My mother, and his mother eat it all up. He can do no wrong, the golden boy of our town.
Despite all of it though, Theo hasn’t been found out. My parents haven’t been able to get anything out of me, despite their trying. The constant questions, interrogations. Every night, it’s like clockwork. “Tell me again about this man?” my mom will ask with a sneer on her face.
They don’t believe me, that much is clear. And the fact that both Cole and Mrs. Crenshaw describe him as old doesn’t help my case. It’s much harder to explain away than if it had been some teenager I’d been hanging out with.
Neither of them, somehow, was able to describe him further. Which protects both of us. It’s a blessing I won’t take for granted.
I see now how naive I was to think we could go together, be out in such a public space. My stupid, teenage self. I’d convinced myself it would all be okay, that we could do this, that no one would ever catch us. How dumb.
I almost ruined everything because I couldn’t just be patient. Because I couldn’t handle Cole myself. No backbone here. The guilt of it almost consumes me when I think about it too deeply.
