For a moment, we looked at each other as though we werebothlikely to bite.
One of us was going to have to be brave, and I wasn’t the one who’d been crying.
“Do you want an orange juice?” I asked. I had half a memory of Delilah taking the last of it one morning over breakfast. Tastes changed, but it was as good an opening line as I could think of.
Delilah sat up, her gaze locked on my face. Her mascara was shockingly intact, barely smudged from the crying. I’d have to ask her later what brand she used and get some for Ellie, who’d complained to me more than once that waterproof mascara was a lie and she couldn’t ever go on dates to movies that might make her cry because of it.
“Sure.” She sniffed.
I nodded and headed for the fridge, finding exactly the fancy orange juice I’d been hoping for.
“Can, umm,” Delilah spoke up from the table, sniffing again. “Can you cut it with soda water? There’s a dispenser on the front of the fridge.”
“Sure,” I said. “Half and half?”
She nodded. I kept half an eye on her as I poured for both of us, pausing a second and then deciding to cut my own juice the same way. Maybe it’d be disgusting, maybe she was onto something. Either way, I’d learn something new.
“Thank you,” Delilah said in a tiny, childlike voice as I set her juice down in the only clear three-inch square on the whole table. She’d sat up completely straight now and was wiping tears away from her lashline with a perilously sharp stiletto nail.
I looked over the papers on the table—spreadsheets of names and details, a stack of silver-edged cards scattered all over the place, catering lists…
Wedding stuff.
“Did Corey leave you to do all this alone?” I asked. It looked like a whole lot of work. I could believe it of him. Asshole.
“No,” Delilah sniffed. “I… Mom was taking over, and I wanted… this ismywedding. I only get one.”
Part of me sincerely doubted that. Not that I planned on saying so.
Who knew? Maybe it’d last. Maybe I was wrong.
“And I wanted to do it because everyone thinks I’m stupid,” Delilah continued, pitch rising. “They see the boobs and the hair and the nails and they don’t take me seriously, but Iamsmart. I’m just as smart as Theo and Madelaine. I can be pretty and smart at the same time. Corey thinks I’m smart. He’s going to help me go to college and be something other than just pretty. I can do this. I’m smart enough for this.”
Her voice was ragged by the time she stopped, swallowing thickly. I nudged her juice a quarter-inch closer. She grabbed it, tilted her head back, and drank the whole glass without pause, which was an incredible feat of breath control.
I traded her glass for mine when she put it down and she accepted that one, too, but only sipped it. There were tears glistening along her lashes again.
I pulled out the chair beside her and sat down.
“What are you going to college for?” I asked. “I mean, what do you want to study?”
Delilah looked at me warily. That was fair. The last time we’d talked, she’d called meTheo’s dork boyfriend he isn’t even fucking. You could say our relationship wasn’t the closest.
“You can’t laugh at me,” she said, chewing on her lower lip.
“I won’t,” I promised, raising my hands in submission. “I wouldn’t.”
She had no particular reason to know that about me—or even believe me—but I hoped she would. I hated to see anyone upset like this. Even people who were knowingly and intentionally marrying my best friend’s ex who broke his heart. And forcing him to attend the wedding.
“I want to be a vet,” she said. “For, umm. Horses.”
That… took me by surprise.
Delilah had always seemed happy enough playing the part of glamorous heiress. I had no idea how smart or studious she might have been, although it was occurring to me that I might’ve made some ugly assumptions.
She’d never done me any favors or anything—except the dubious one of having this wedding, which had ended in mealmosthaving Theo, for a weekend. I wasn’t sure yet whether that counted as a favor or not.
“Wow.” I blinked at her. “That’s, uh?—”
