“I’ll text Mom and tell her something came up.”
I watched him walk away across the courtyard. He didn’t look back. His footsteps echoed off the old stone, and then he turned the corner and was gone.
I’d stood there for a long time. Long enough for other families to stream past me—graduates laughing, parents taking photos, someone popping champagne on the lawn. The wholeworld was celebrating while I just stood there clutching my scroll.
And I’d thought of the future ahead of me, the one mapped out by my parents and professors. The one where I accepted the professorship offered to me and spent the rest of my life in lecture halls and research labs, being the version of myself that had driven away the one person whose opinion I cared about most.
And I’d thought, what’s the point of being the smartest person in the room if the room keeps emptying?
You’re too much. You’ve always been too much.
Vaughn’s words echo in my head now as I stare at the panels of Joseph, and the warm buzz I’ve been feeling from spending time with Leo evaporates.
“He told me I was too much,” I whisper as I meet his gaze.
The words come out smaller than I intended. Like even saying them aloud is proof of their accuracy.
“You’re not too much.” Leo’s voice is low and fierce, leaving no room for argument.
Looking into his eyes, I want to believe him, but what did I learn from Vaughn? I learned that even someone who’s loved me for years will eventually find me too much.
Vaughn used to laugh at my jokes, ruffle my hair, and tell me I was the funniest person he knew. And then, one day, the laughter stopped, and what replaced it was something cold, tired, and final.
You’re too much, Archie.
Four words. And I’ve been trying to make myself smaller ever since.
Not intellectually—I can’t turn that off, even if I wanted to. But emotionally. I keep things light and funny. I make sure no one ever has to deal with the full weight of me because the last person who did told me it was unbearable.
Because I am a lot. I know I’m a lot. My brain doesn’t have an off switch. Believe me, I’ve looked for one. Checked behind the ears, under the hippocampus, everywhere. There’s not even a dimmer switch.
I talk too much. I know too much. I feel too much. I make everything into a joke because at least jokes make people laugh instead of leave me.
I glance away from Leo’s intense gaze, looking back at the Joseph panels, at brothers frozen in paint for five hundred years, caught in the moment between betrayal and forgiveness.
My stomach lurches.
How long until Leo realizes I’m too much for him to cope with?
“We should probably find Elizabeth,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”
His expression is troubled as he helps me up. His hand lingers on my arm for a moment longer than necessary.
I don’t pull away.
But I don’t lean in either.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Leo
Elizabeth leaves on a Tuesday morning.
Archie’s in the bathroom when Elizabeth pulls me aside in the hallway. She’s already wearing her coat and her bag is by the door.
“You look after our boy,” she says quietly.
