Idon’t know what to make of him living here.
Any of it.
I loved him once. Part of me always will.
Thinking back to my conversation with the girls the other night, my admission that his presence reminded me of the love I had for him. Until I spoke with them, I wondered if there was something wrong with me.
I mark Malik’s test with an extra five points for successfully helping tutor students after school. Autumn also gets an additional five points for documenting tutorials for our online tool—IXL.
I’m so absorbed in my work, I don’t realize anyone’s at my door until I hear the knock—one firm. Three fast. One firm. My heart skips. There’s only one person who has ever knocked on my door like that. My red pencil tip breaks on Autumn’s paper as realization hits—Brennan’s on the other side of my door.
As I surge out of my chair, fury wars with curiosity. “What the hell is he doing here?” I don’t question how he figured out where I live as there’s only two Delgadinas in this town. Still, “He has some nerve.”
I don’t bother with grabbing a robe. Brennan has seen me in less than the pair of oversized pajamas—a gift from Maya she had made in Italian silk decorated with a mashup of calculus, geometry, linear algebra, and physics-inspired notations.
I fling my door open ready to blast him. Only, I’m taken aback by his red-rimmed eyes and tear stained cheeks. I can’t stop the concern that escapes my lips. “Brennan? Are you okay? What happened?”
He inches closer. “You. You’re what happened.”
The doorway suddenly feels overwhelmed with his size and the heavy tension bouncing between us. Not wanting to air my dirty laundry in the hall, I step back to invite him in but don’t allow him past the entryway.
“I’m sorry to interrupt your work.”
“What makes you think I was working?”
A sad smile wafts over his face before he splinters what’s left of my heart a little more when he demonstrates how well he knows me. “You always wore pajamas whenever you were working on something important for school. I remember…” His voice trails off as he must come to the conclusion that whateverhe was about to say doesn’t belong to the two people in this space today. They belong to the couple who loved each other years ago.
A couple that no longer exists.
Brennan looks like he’s aged a decade since we ran into each other at Cedar Market. Like he’s suddenly carrying a burden far too weighty for him to manage. His shoulders are slumped, head bowed like he’s bracing for the impact of another blow instead of avoiding it.
Then he looks up and his eyes are the same impossible blue, but they’re dimmed. Like the light behind them was turned off.
Warning bells go off.He knows.I’m certain of it. “What was so important you had to come to my home this late?”
“I needed to talk to you.”
“Eight years, and whatever you have to say is suddenly urgent?”
He flinches. “That’s why I’m here.”
Well, this should be interesting.
Silence stretches thin while he tries to find the right words. His gaze flitters around my cozy apartment before he deliberately forces his gaze back to my face. “I just came back from OKC,” Brennan says.
“Do you want a trophy?”
He steps forward. “Amy, Mark told me the truth.”
My anger flares first and hot, but it’s the hurt underneath that threatens to crack me open. I tried to tell Brennan the truth back then. No, I begged for him to listen to me and he chose to walk away. Now, years later, because someone else finally corroborated what he should have believed, he wants to do what? Apologize?
He opens his mouth but I hold up a hand, still processing what I feel. It’s not relief; it’s grief. A final ending for the girl who begged to be believed, for years that could’ve been different. Thesystematic feelings of sorrow and rage I lived with from knowing my truth was never enough on its own.
That I couldn’t compete with the lure of fame.
I pull myself together before drawling, “Congratulations. What do you want for finally knowing what I’ve known since the day you walked out of my dorm room?”
“He confessed. Showed me conversations where Brielle admitted she was the one who uploaded the photo.” His voice breaks. “He admitted that he knew.”
