Cap will be here in less than an hour, and at some point this weekend I’m going to tell him about Beth and me. But I’m not bugging out about it. I can’t. I have to keep my shit together, or it will all come out wrong, and he won’t understand.
But this time—this time it’s too late. I can’t walk away from her. Not now that I’ve tasted her in every way imaginable—now that I’ve become addicted to her company, to her goddamned smile.
So this weekend there’s a good chance my longest friendship is going to end.
But seeing Beth stand up to her family—to her father—that way, witnessing her inner strength and her perseverance, especially after having just learned the truth of how much she’s actually survived…It made my excuses seem weak. Worse than weak—pitiful.
But it was hearing what she said about what makes a man—how she rejected basically everything my father ever told me about success—that reinforces my resolve. It’s the way she met my eyes without even realizing it when she talked about sticking around…
Somewhere inside my chest, that new, full, floaty sensation surges hard, before calming with a strange, mellow kind of high. Beth makes me feel such weird fucking shit.
Still, I may never be rich or powerful, but if there’s one thing I know I can do for Bea, it’s that. I can stick the fuck around. Always.
And the more I’ve thought about it these past couple days, the more I realize she’s right. That is what fucking matters.
It’s more than her father did, and it’s more than fucking Falco did. But I can do that. For her, I can do better than that.
For her…I can be honest.
I swallow anxiously as I decide, finally, after all this time, to tell her the truth about my role in her breakup with Falco, and I silently admit to myself that it may not just be Cap I lose tonight.
I could lose fucking everything.
I blow out a long exhale. This is going to be a serious fucking night. Cap is heading straight to the BEG house for the party. Beth is going with Toni—and Rectum, whether she realizes that or not—and I’ll meet them there. Reeve is out with Lani, believe it or fucking not, but Bogart promised to keep an eye on Beth until either Cap or I get there.
Because I have a late meeting with the head of the theater department to discuss my play. The one that has now become a finalist for the production grant. My head shakes automatically in denial like it has every time I’ve thought about it—like it can’t process the reality. But at the same time, I have to admit, nothing would stick it to my father like proving to him that writing can have value. Not just academic value, like the scholarship I earned to come here, which he easily dismissed. But a production is a business, and a grant is real, green money.
Still, it isn’t my father I want to win this grant for. It isn’t him I want to impress. There’s only one person I give a fuck about impressing—the girl it will earn me a real, genuine smile from, the kind that shows in her eyes and in her cheeks.
I can’t stop thinking about Delia, and all that time I lost—some due to my own stubbornness, but much of it because of my father, and his stupid fucking quid pro quo about the PSATs, and all his crap about how meeting my birth mom would be a distraction, when really he just wanted to hold it over my head to ensure I studied the way he wanted me to. I knew Delia for barely a few months. But the reality is I would have had double that amount of time if I hadn’t let someone who didn’t give a fuck about what I wanted stand in my way. And I’ve been doing the same damned thing with Cap—letting him call the shots, and steal time from me I’ll never get back. But when you never really know how much time you’re going to get, any time at all is too much to ask.
If Beth can stand up to her parents, then I can stand up to my own fucking friend. I can stand up to myself—to every notion about my worth as a man my father worked so hard to beat into my brain to try and deter me from choosing the future I knew I wanted. It backfired on him, big-time, because instead of backing off, I embraced the picture he painted, accepting my role as the perpetual disappointment—a failure—even as I earned success after success in essay contests and scholarships and even fucking test scores. But I couldn’t even see my own achievements, not with my father’s disdain casting such a wide shadow over all of them.
And I know exactly what has opened my eyes, and it isn’t my play being chosen as a finalist for the production grant. There’s only one thing in my life that shines bright enough to vanquish that shadow.
Like she can read my thoughts, a text comes in from Beth at that very moment:
At BEG safe and sound. Phone is going to die. Looking for a charger. Just want to tell you that I don’t have to have read your play to know it’s brilliant. Because you are. Brilliant. And you’re going to nail the shit out of your meeting.
I grin. Damn right I am. And then I’m going to man the fuck up, go to that party, and take what’s mine.
Okay, I’m bugging out.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Beth
The BEG party is loud, and everyone is drunk. Even I’m kind of tipsy. I’ve never been nervous to see my own brother before, but with everything going on—with our family, with David—I don’t even know how to behave in front of him right now.
An incoming text from Lani shows a picture of Reeve’s denim-clad ass, something she’s a particular fan of, as he walks away to use the restroom on their “non-date.” She complains about his attitude as much as she gushes over him, and God knows I can’t read Reeve for my life, but I’m starting to suspect his interest in her is more than casual, considering she’s just about the only girl I’ve ever even seen his attention on, let alone seen him talk to for more than five seconds.
Sammy texts me that his train was delayed, and he should be here soon, but my phone is dying, so I decide to go ask one of the pledges for a charger.
But first, I shoot off a quick text to David, wishing him luck at his meeting tonight. He didn’t let me read his play, but I have no doubt it’s brilliant, and I tell him so, sending the message a split second before my screen goes dark.
Shit.
I turn to see if I can find Dicknose or Rectum, and a tall, blond head stops me in my tracks.
