“Maybe I also have a stepsister who’s a giant pain in my ass,” I retort with a smile.
The look he narrows me with is comical. “Watch it.”
I raise my palms up. There’s his overprotective nature. “I’m just saying, it could be true.”
He shakes his head and opens the door. “You coming in or not?”
I sigh and shut the car off, glance at my phone one last time, and mumble, “Yeah. Let’s go.”
Because I have a feeling that if I don’t, I’ll wind up staring at my phone all night like a girl waiting for her first crush to call.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Winter
Istare downat the paperwork that’s been in a folder collecting dust since I graduated from college. I’m not sure why I kept the award letters and semester grade reports. Maybe because I was proud to have gotten any scholarships at all. I wasn’t exactly an A student, but I did okay. By my senior year of high school, I realized how hard I’d need to work to get money for college because we didn’t have any.
Community college wasn’t cheap, so any help I could get was better than none. The school guidance counselor helped me apply for some of the scholarships, and I’d researched others. But the one thing I refused to do was use my parents’ death as an excuse to earn pity money. My counselor told me not to think of it that way; that my mom and dad would have been happy to help me fund college. It never sat well with me, though. I wanted whatever I got to be because I earned it, not because people felt bad for me.
As I search through the paperwork to find the one I’m thinking of, anxiety bubbles under my skin. I’ve been out of work for two days now, but I’m doing whatever I can from my phone at home. After hearing Ashton Dessen’s explanation, Janel told me to take time for myself, and I appreciate her kindness.
But I don’t deserve it.
Ever since Thomas walked out, everything I’ve done has caved in around me. Not out of regret. Well, notonlybecause of that. I’d done something for myself for once. Not because ofwhat was the right choice, but because I needed to put myself first. He helped me do that.
It was the shame that ate at me whenever it got too quiet. And since I haven’t been to work, that silence has been deafening here.
Thomas’s parting words haunted me, and I knew I was unfair to him. He didn’t deserve to be hurt just because I was. My anger didn’t justify the horrible things I threw at him like daggers.
And yet, he’d still gone through with it.
He could have left.
He probablyshouldhave.
But what was it he told me at his place?Just because youshouldn’twant something doesn’t mean youdon’twant it. He’d wanted me as much as I wanted him. Maybe even more.
He stayed.
For me.
And I treated him like garbage.
Closing my eyes, I rub my chest where a tight ball is coiled deep inside. It spreads, pressing against my lungs until I struggle to suck in a breath.
Then I remember the other reason there’s a weight resting on my chest. When I open my eyes, I look down at the letter in front of me and feel my jaw quiver.
Dear Ms. Bronte,
On behalf of the Marjorie D. Essen Foundation, I am delighted to announce that you have been awarded the Student Excellence Scholarship for the 2018 academic year. This award is granted to students who show exceptional achievement throughout the academic year—
I stop reading when a teardrop lands on the paper and soaks into it. My eyes blur, and I close my eyes to stop more from flowing.
Marjorie D. Essen.
Dessen.
The name had nudged something deep, deep inside of me when Thomas first asked about Ashton. I’d chosen to ignore it because it didn’t seem important, and I soon forgot about it entirely until two days ago.
