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“Yeah. Me too.”

“Are you…?” She hesitates. “Are you where you want to be?”

“Yeah. I am.” Cameron’s watching me, his eyes soft in the dim light of his bedroom.

“Okay.” She sighs. “Lucien, I need you to listen to me. If you’re really doing this—if you’re really not coming home—you need to understand what that means.”

“I know what it means.”

“I hope so. Because I don’t think you’ve thought this through.” Her voice sharpens, takes on that older-sister tone that used to make me want to throw things. “Mom and Dad aren’t going to keep paying for everything if you walk away. You know that, right?”

“I know.”

“That means no more frat. No more car. No more phone plan. No more credit card. Nothing, Lucien. They’ll cut you off completely.”

Cameron’s hand stills on my back. Can he hear her?

“And then there’s the trust,” Gwen continues. “You can’t access it until you’re twenty-one. That’s a year away. What are you going to do until then?”

“I don’t care about the money.”

“But what about your education?” Her voice rises. “You’re only two years in. You need Mom and Dad for tuition, for housing, for everything. Have you thought about that?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“Lucien—”

“I said I’ll figure it out.”

She’s quiet for a long moment. When she speaks again, she’s resigned. “I’m here for you. You know that, right? If you need anything, just call me.”

“I will.”

“Okay.”

“Love,” I say, using our shorthand.

“Love.”

She hangs up. I sit there, phone in my hand, staring at the dark screen. Cameron’s hand is still on my back, warm and solid, but suddenly, it’s not enough to keep the panic at bay.

“What did she say?” Cameron asks quietly.

I turn to look at him. He’s sitting up now, his hair mussed, his eyes sleepy. He looks fucking adorable. And I’m about to lose everything for him.

“She said…my parents are going to cut me off, completely.”

As I say the words aloud, they become real. The panic that’s been lurking at the edges of my consciousness crashes over me like a wave. I won’t have anywhere to live, so I really will be on the street. I won’t have classes to go to. I won’t be able to pay my tuition. Everything I’ve built, everything I’ve had, will disappear.

I try to push it down, try to keep my face neutral. I don’t like panicking in front of Cameron. But when I look at him, I can see from his expression that I’m not hiding it well. His face has gone pale, his eyes wide.

“Lucien, are you going to leave? Go back to them?”

I open my mouth to answer, but nothing comes out. If I speak, I’ll break, and I refuse to break in front of Cameron. So I sit here, silent, trying to hold myself together.

But Cameron’s eyes are more awake now and a little wild.

“I can’t ask you to throw away your life for me,” he says, and his voice is pained. “I can’t— Fuck, Lucien, I can’t do that to you.”