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“I got my MCAT score back. I failed again.”

“Fuck, Pea.”

“That was pretty much my reaction too. Well, with more crying.”

I wish the joke made it easier to hear, but I know what she looked like when she was studying for this attempt, disappearing beneath a mountain of flash cards at my kitchen counter. She gave that test everything she had again, and I fucking hate knowing she opened that score to see another number telling her it still wasn’t enough. I pull her against me, and Calliope comes without making me ask, fitting herself along my side with her cheek against my chest.

“I thought the third time would be different.” Her fingers curl into my shirt. “The sad part is I still want to be a doctor, but I have no idea how to make that happen anymore.”

I hate hearing the uncertainty in her voice almost as much as I hate knowing how hard she worked for a different answer. She still wants this. Even after three tries and another score telling her no, that hasn’t changed. Part of me wants to grab onto that and find some way to help her get there, but wanting it has never been the part she struggled with. Right now, she doesn’t know what comes next, and I can’t give her an answer she doesn’t have.

“You don’t have to figure it out right now.”

“I know.”

I run my hand along her back, wishing like hell I’d been there when she found out. I couldn’t have changed what was inside that envelope, but she shouldn’t have had to open it after everything that happened with her dad and me. I hate thinking about her sitting there with one more thing hurting her while I was already halfway across Charlotte.

“I almost called you.”

I’d kept my phone close for the last two days, wanting to call more times than I could count but knowing she needed time to figure out what came next. Every time I picked up the damn thing, I remembered how overwhelmed she looked, and I put it back down. The last thing I wanted was to add one more thing for her to deal with when she already had enough. What I didn’t realize was that she’d been wishing I would call.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because everything was already such a mess.” Her finger traces along my ribs beneath my shirt. “Then yesterday, I kept thinking about calling, but I didn’t know what I was supposed to say to you first.”

I tighten my arm around her. I spent yesterday trying not to push her before she was ready, while she was apparently trying to figure out how to reach me through everything else. Knowing she wanted to call doesn’t give me back the hours I spent staring at my phone, but it takes some of the sting out of remembering them.

“What changed?”

“I stopped trying to figure out everything else first. I knew I loved you, and I knew I needed you to know that. So, I came here and told you.”

I spent two days wondering what would happen when she was ready to close the space between us. Turns out, she wasn’t waiting for every other part of her life to make sense. She only needed to be sure about this, and the certainty in her voice gets me all over again.

“You could’ve shown up here with nothing but that, Pea.”

“I kind of did.” Her mouth curves against my chest. “The rest of my life can be a disaster for another day.”

I hate that she can say that and have it be even a little bit true. There’s so much she still doesn’t know, and I know her well enough to understand how much that has to scare her. But she isn’t asking me to make any of it less uncertain tonight. She’s curled against me, making a joke out of the mess because she can.

“I wouldn’t call it a disaster.”

“You didn’t fail the MCAT three times.”

“Fair.”

I know how much it hurts beneath the joke, but the smile I can hear in her voice keeps me from arguing with her. My hand moves slowly over her back while she stays tucked against my chest, and I let her decide what comes next.

“And my dad is still mad at us.”

“Also fair.”

I’m not looking forward to whatever comes next with Coach, but the thought of dealing with him doesn’t put the same knot in my stomach as it did when I walked out of his house Thursday. Calliope is here, warm against my side, and for today, that’s enough to keep my mind from chasing every way that conversation could go wrong.

“And I drove over here in plaid pajama pants.”

I barely noticed the damn things when I opened the door this morning. She was standing there with her braids half pulled back and her face completely bare. Then she said I love you, and I stopped giving a shit what she was wearing. She could’ve shown up in a fucking mascot costume, and I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

Calliope settles against me again, finding my hand beneath the blanket and threading our fingers together before tucking our joined hands against her chest. “I love you, Old Man.”