The question is: which one will be brave enough to finally tell me?
Chapter Fourteen
The Hotel Room
Wilder
I know we’re on a road trip to meet Cash’s pen pal or whatever. But it didn’t stop him from starting at Ingrid all through dinner.
His face made that perfectly clear.
Oh Ingrid, remember the time my parents took us to the lake house for spring break?
Or the time we took that safari ride at the zoo?
I was noticeably absent from every single “memory” he brought up.
I know I shouldn’t care, but there’s a part of me that knows Cash will always have a piece of Ingrid that I never will.
He was her first love.
And apparently that’s supposed to mean something forever.
My mom always says some weird shit about a girl never forgetting her first love.
I hope that’s not true.
It’ll kill me if it is.
As if she can sense the storm brewing in my head, Ingrid lays a hand on my arm.
“Do you want to take a shower?” she asks, her big brown eyes soft and warm.
Do I want to? Yes. But I feel guilty. Guilty that she’s talking about living in a new city with me and I have an acceptance letter from NYU hidden back home in my bedside table.
Doesn’t matter. I can’t go.
She needs to finish school, and I’m not leaving her.
I know she’d give it all up for me, but I love her too much to ask her to put anything on hold so I can chase my dreams.
“Earth to Wilder,” she chuckles softly as she snaps her fingers in front of my face. “You in there?”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “Still here. Just thinking.”
“About what?” she asks.
About Cash eyeing her like a rare steak all through dinner. And how I refuse to fuck this up.
I can’t lose her.
Which means I can’t keep lying to her either.
At least about Margot.
But not tonight. I’ll tell her in California. We’ll be too far for her to insist we turn the car around.
Ingrid loves her family. She may want to love them from a distance in another city, but she’dnever understand why I can’t be there for Elowyn.
