“No, it’s definitely that you are super awesome. I mean, I have zero distance from it right now. The accomplice to the attempted murder just sort of apologized to me in a stairwell,” she said, half laughing over it as she did. So it came as a shock when the half laugh suddenly tipped over into something else. One second it was light and happy, the next it sounded almost like a sob.
And then it soundeda lotlike a sob.
A big, wrenching one that she had to cover her mouth to contain.
Much to Lydia’s consternation.
“Oh my god, Letty, okay. Okay, babe, it’s okay. It’s fine…hey, it’s going to be fine,” she said, and then that hug was suddenly happening. Arms were surrounding her. Strong, insistent arms, squeezing tight without having to ask. When Letty finally managed words, she had to do it from within the tight swaddling of the greatest embrace she’d ever experienced.
And they were better for it.
More honest. More heartfelt.
“No, no, you don’t understand. I’m not crying because I’m afraid or sad. I keep trying to be, but then I think about how much I longed for and dreamed of getting some kind of sorry, how hard I knew that it would never come because in dismal reality it never does, and then he’s just here and he says that he’s in the red. He says he’s in the red and that it’s going to take tons of good deeds to put him in the black.” Another sob snuck out, wet and rough against Lydia’s neat little red sweater. Not that Lydia minded. She was busy stroking her hair and helping her get the rest out. “He told me that I’m at my very best, when he was at his worst. Who says something like that in real life? No one says that in real life.”
“Thatistrue. And it’s definitely awesome. Way better than a Lifetime movie. But to be clear on this, no matter how much he contravenes the laws of dismal reality, you don’t have to forgive him,” Lydia said.
“I know. I know.”
“He didn’t just sit by and let that dude do that to you. He stole your self-esteem.”
“That is a really great way to put it,” Letty said. “How did you know how to put it so great?”
“I know because when I offered to help you move in you looked at me like you were just waiting for the punch line to a joke I wasn’t telling. And that’s what bullies do to people. They don’t just hurt you or make you feel bad for five minutes in high school. They create the backbone of every friendship you try to have from then on. They change your life forever.”
“Oh my god that’s an even better way to put it. They should just give you that psych degree right now. Freud should come back from beyond the grave to hand it to you,” she said, and now the laugh they shared was easier. Less fraught, and more relaxed.
It didn’t even change when Lydia said she was funny.
And her thoughts were suddenly all Tate, saying the same thing.
Chapter 6
She wasn’t looking for him specifically among the crowd flooding into the lecture hall. But something did happen inside her when she spotted him. A kind of lightness, or a lifting of some heavy part of herself. He had listened to her. Everything was settling into a nice, normal routine. They were going about their daily lives in an ordinary manner, and they were doing it completely separately.
He sat in the fourth row like the first time, and she sat at the back. Only now there was no rising sense of dread. She didn’t keep her hand to herself when Harrison asked a question. She answered, without the background sound of someone snickering. And even when it felt as though he was looking at her, when she snuck a glance at him she only ever saw the back of his head.
He bent low over his notes, and his head occasionally lifted a little as he really listened to whatever Harrison was saying. Once or twice she actually caught him nodding, or doing a little staggered-looking half laugh over some ridiculous concept.
As if he loved it all now.
He loved it so much he was sometimes at the lectures early. She would come in with Lydia, still giggling over something ridiculous, and get the faint prickle that told her he was already there. Only now when it happened it didn’t make her want to cover herself up, or run and hide. There was nothing to hide from.
Everything was going to be super cool and totally fine from here on in.
Or it would have been, if it were not for the group project. The one that she was so excited for that she didn’t process it when Harrison started reading out the names. She would be working with Lydia—that was a given. They were going to watch ridiculously filthy movies together and laugh about bobbing butts and ogle Ewan McGregor’s penis.
And then she heard his name.
Followed by hers.
Distantly, like in a dream of being in class.
In a second she would realize she was naked—or worse.
“Miss Carmichael, do you have a problem with that assignment?”
Everyone was looking at her now. No—not just looking.Examining,as though she had become a new and baffling species. The girl who was not excited about being carried by Tate Sullivan. The creature who seemed horrified at the prospect of working with him. It made it difficult to do anything at all, even with Lydia urging her to sayyes, yes I do have a fucking problem.
