But it did start to matter to twenty-six-year-old me, twenty-seven-year-old me, and twenty-eight-year-old me when she finally woke up and realized being chosen didn’t mean being loved and she was never, ever going to get to come first.
Scott swallows, clearing his throat with measured patience. “Are you going to sit so we can have a civilized conversation?” He glances pointedly towards the lab chair, but I dig my heels intothe tile. His eyes roll skyward when he pinches the bridge of his nose before continuing. “You weren’t qualified, Ren.”
Inhaling, I start to rhyme off the education section of the job posting. “‘Though a PhD is increasingly preferred and expected, extensive experience and specialized skills—’”
I wilt when he interrupts, all the confident petals of me I’ve worked so hard to grow furling inward. “‘Increasingly preferred and expected.’ A completed doctoral degree. Not a double master’s and however many years of experience.”
Ren ten minutes ago might have stood up, straight and proud, responding with the lift of a singular brow and a cutting “And whose fault is that, that I was never allowed to reach for more?” But Ren now, shoulders slumped under all her inadequacies sniffs, whispering, “Yes, but I have unique skills that Graham thought—”
“Renny,” he says, the old nickname laced with condescension disguised as sympathy.
“Please just go,” I whisper, stretching my fingers out in space, tugging on them as some sort of distraction to try and stop the tears from spilling over. “I need to finish prepping the titanosaur egg.”
Scott shifts in the chair, taking a measured exhale before two exasperated fingers find his forehead. “At least switch to an air abrasive.”
I say nothing as he stands, blinking down at the tile floor, waiting for the admonishment and Scott-shaped sermon—that an air abrasive is better because he, fossil finder and preparer extraordinaire, prefers them, and what he says goes.
Or maybe it’ll take a different shape now that our power dynamic has shifted. It doesn’t matter that I’ve been the collections manager for the better part of four years. Even though they feel so much more like my fossils than his, he’s the curator. It’s his job.
The one he took from me. Just because he could.
But it’s not what he says.
Scott pauses at the door, head angled to the side, words sharp like the edges of his jaw. “I saw you with him, you know.”
I glance up, frowning. “Who?”
“At the café. Last weekend.” The corners of his mouth curl up, each word coming out clipped and cold. “Miller Colson-Burke. Your shortstop. Your knight in shining armor.” He grins, but there’s nothing friendly about it. “You always did like those.”
“He was just being nice,” I mumble, wrapping my arms around my stomach.
The way I tried to be nice to him when I thought he could use saving, too.
“You’re beautiful, and you always have been,” he states, like it’s a clinical fact, not meant to be a compliment, and with an errant shrug, he adds, “And Miller Colson-Burke likes pretty girls.”
“As is his right.” I shake my head, exasperated.
My petals are shriveled and in desperate need of light, and they’re only going to get it when the dust and debris of Scott aren’t blanketing my earth and blocking the sun.
Scott gives me a flat look. “I’m trying to help you, Ren.”
“Stop. I didn’t ask for your help.” The conviction in my words drops into nothing. Because we both know, once upon a time, the only thing I wanted more than to be loved was Scott’s help.
He gives a slow, disappointed shake of his head. “Be careful. Miller Colson-Burke is only good at three things.” He starts ticking them off on his fingers, a cruel imitation of me earlier. “Fielding ground balls, dating women, and if the press is to be believed, getting his cousin killed.” Scott brings the three fingers closer to his eyes, inspecting them like he might a particularly difficult-to-unearth specimen buried under layers of shale and silt. Flipping them around, he holds the inside of his hand up tome. “And none of those three things are you. See you both at the gala on Saturday.”
Miller
Remember. One photo smiling with the girl and a dinosaur bone won’t kill you.
My thumb smashes down on the side of my phone to ignore the text from Yas when another pops up on the screen.
In fact, I think it would serve you well.
I hit the last one with a thumbs down so there’ll be no confusion on her end about what I will, and won’t, be doing at the gala tonight.
There are dinosaur bones everywhere. That part would be easy.
But there’s been no sign of the girl all night.
