“Thanks.”
“But I won’t be in California next year. Or ever, actually. I’m moving to Spain after graduation.”
Surprise hits him as a delayed reaction. He turns to me slowly. “Wait, what? Spain? Are you joking?”
I already regret telling him. “Do I look like I’m joking?”
“What’s in Spain?”
“An art history program. I don’t want to pursue psychology anymore.”
“Jade!” he admonishes, and I’m reminded of the first time I told my father about my plans. “What a colossal waste! Please tell me you haven’t already committed to the program.”
“Why do you care?”
“Because I care about you,” he huffs. “You’re such an intelligent girl, and you’ve worked hard for that psych degree. I don’tunderstand why you can’t simply stay focused on one goal. You have these fleeting bursts of ambition and you throw away everything you’ve worked for.”
I laugh bitterly. “I never thought I’d have to hear another lecture from you in my life, but here we are. And bonus: You’re even more condescending than I remembered.”
“I’m trying to help.”
“If you want to help, drive faster.”
“I know you don’t like being told what to do?—”
“Then don’t test me.”
“You’re so hardheaded, Jade! Listen to me, I don’t know who in your life is telling you Spain is a good idea,” he says, spitting out the wordSpainwith complete disdain, “but they’re either ignorant or they don’t care about you. I just want what’s best for you.”
The one perk of being around intelligent people who know they’re intelligent is that rare shining moment when they’re dead wrong and you’re the only one who knows it. All the irritation I’ve been feeling since I saw Sam in the parking lot evaporates. He can’t tell me anything about my relationship with Reeve or where I went wrong, because he never bothered to get to know me. “Maybe so, but you don’t know what’s best for me. You only ever supported the parts of my life that you approved of. That’s not what I need.”
We ride the next two minutes in silence before he stops in front of my building. Sam looks dejected as I get out of the car, and I feel a flare of guilt. I don’t know what he was really after tonight, but knowing him, he believed it was something he needed to do.
“I appreciate your apology, Sam, but you don’t have to worry about me or anything that happened between us. We don’t need to be in each other’s lives anymore.”
I close the door and walk into my building. Any minutenow, I’ll feel a rush of satisfaction at having told Sam what I wanted him to hear, but what I feel instead is an urgent sense of regret. Because while I was wasting my breath, where was the man who has supported me through every step and misstep these last few months? Reeve might think my postcollege plans are brilliant or utterly stupid, but he doesn’t say because he’s been too busy making me believe I could turn them into reality.
So why did I just walk away from him?
No one answerswhen I knock at Reeve’s door early the next morning, but my car is parked out front in the Bronco’s usual spot.
I call him again, knowing he won’t pick up, just like he didn’t when I called twice last night and again three times this morning. I get his voicemail. Anger flickers inside me, and I pound on the door with a fist a few times. I should never have gone with Sam last night. In the morning light, it’s so crystal clear that I could kick myself. But was it so horrible that Reeve is going to completely ignore me? It doesn’t seem like his style. After what happened at the pizza place the other night, I didn’t expect him to be so possessive.
I sit down on the front step. Reeve doesn’t have his first class for over an hour, so either he’s inside ignoring me or he’s gone to work out, in which case he probably won’t be home until this evening, when practice is over.
It occurs to me he might have left my key hidden in the car—did I ever tell him I don’t have a spare?—so I get up to see if it’s locked. As I do, a black SUV stops a few feet ahead of my car and Reeve climbs out of the passenger seat. He laughs at something the guy driving the car says, then shuts the door. Hissmile fades as the SUV pulls away and he sees me standing there.
“Hi. I was starting to worry.” I take a step toward him, feeling uncertain. “I kept calling you.”
“Yeah, sorry. I crashed at my buddy’s place last night.” He looks past me, his expression flat. “I’ve got your keys here.”
I catch the keys he tosses me. “I’m the one that needs to apologize. I’m sorry about last night with Sam. I don’t know why I said yes to him.”
He studies me, his eyes extra blue and extra cold in the light. “I guess because it was important.”
“No, it wasn’t important. You wanted to talk to me about something; that was more important.”
He looks out at the empty street, his mouth a tight line. “Yeah. Well. Doesn’t really matter. I need to go shower and get to class.”
