One & Only (Canton) (22 page)

None of this was easy. It hadn’t ever been with Dylan. It never would be with Hannah. I’d known it wasn’t going to be easy. But I thought it would be enough. Hard, yes, and maybe unpleasant for a little while, but worth it in the end because we loved each other. We wouldn’t have bothered with all of this unless we truly loved each other.

“Tell me what you want,” I said to him. “Do you want me to go away? Do you want us…to…wait? Do you—” A lump formed in my throat and I found I couldn’t speak anymore.
Do you not want to be with me now?

I felt like I could handle any option but that last one. The silver T around my neck seemed heavy enough to leave a mark. What had all this been for? How could I face the rest of the semester, the rest of this project, without Dylan?

“I don’t know.” His jaw was clenched. His hands gripped the table. “I shouldn’t have come here tonight. I’m not ready. I need to work some things out.”

“
Work some things out
”? I repeated. The room closed around me. I couldn’t breathe. I was standing here, wearing his necklace like a talisman, waiting for him like it would be okay, like it would happen, like I deserved to be happy after I’d stolen my sister’s boyfriend…and of course I didn’t. Of
course
I didn’t. I wasn’t that kind of girl. I was the kind you sneaked around with, the kind who was only exciting if it
meant
sneaking around.

I whirled on my heel and headed back to my bag. It was self-preservation, really. If I didn’t leave, I was going to fall to my knees and beg. “Fine, you work some things out. I’m going home.”

“No, wait. It’s not like that. I just—it’s just really complicated, and I—”

Oh, did I ever understand how complicated it was. I had a lifetime worth of experience with complications. He had no idea how complicated it all was. And he never would. I made a beeline for the door, not even daring to look back. It was against the rules. All of this was against the rules, and I’d been a fool to think I could break them.

***

On Thursday, I was the one to skip Biotransport. I didn’t want to see Dylan. Clearly, I needed space just as much as he did.

I logged on to Facebook. I’d been so good all this time. But I had to know. Hannah’s profile had, in fact, been updated. It listed her status as “Single” and her wall was filled with “you go, girl” and “he doesn’t deserve you” posts from those pretty blonde friends of hers. I thought of what Dylan had said about the lack of support she’d been getting from her female friends over the past week. I didn’t know her relationship with the redhead in the coffee shop, but Hannah had kept quiet about her medical news to her. Was Hannah as self-contained in her way as I was in mine? I wondered how many of these posts were from people who really knew Hannah, who knew what she’d been dealing with, who knew how she felt about Dylan, what she wanted from him.

If she loved him.

There was no message from her, no comment about why they’d broken up. Nothing at all, really, in her updates except pictures of her and her mother on their recent trip to Manhattan. Marie Swift was very pretty. A good decade, at least, older than my mom, and blonde, like Hannah and Dad were, her hair a sleek cap that shimmered on her shoulders.

But there was little hint as to Hannah’s state of mind. Was she happy about her medical news? Devastated by Dylan dumping her? Had she been talking to friends about it? Had she gone out drinking with a bunch of Ladies Who Lunch to drown her sorrows in martinis and girl-power anthems? If so, it hadn’t been at Verde. Sylvia would have told me.

I did finally drag myself away from my laptop and go to Verde for my shift, but around three thirty, I asked Sylvia if I could go home. I claimed a headache, but the pain was much farther down. Close to my heart.

Mom was out when I got home, off helping an artist friend with a studio crisis, so I curled up on the couch and watched mindless TV for hours. At some point I realized I hadn’t eaten, so I grabbed some junk from the kitchen and snacked, flipping channels. How long had it been since I’d just vegged out? Forgot about work, about classes, about the lab—just let everything go? No wonder I hadn’t been thinking straight. I hadn’t even given myself
time
to think.

Not that I was deep in contemplation now. I wouldn’t let myself be. If I found my mind wandering to anything other than the show I was watching, I flipped channels. Thrillers, sitcoms, reality shows—it didn’t matter. Anything to distract me from obsessing over whatever had gotten Dylan and me so messed up. Anything to keep from wondering if all along, our case had been hopeless.

After a while, though, the thoughts crowded in, too adamant to ignore.

Fact:
He’d been mine first.

Fact:
He’d told me he didn’t love Hannah and wanted to be with me.

Fact:
No one was married. No one was even engaged. We were just in college. It was normal to date lots of people, to break up with lots of people. What, he should marry Hannah just because he’d dated her?

Fact:
I’d been fair to Hannah. I’d refused to sleep with her boyfriend while she was still with him.

All of this was fine. But I didn’t think I’d spent enough time thinking through the rest of it.

Fact:
Even if Dylan didn’t love Hannah, he broke up with her for me. For me.

Fact:
Dylan wasn’t used to deception, and he’d deceived her twice. First when he’d kept dating her after we’d made out. Second, when he didn’t tell her he was dumping her for me.

Fact:
I was deceiving Dylan, too. If he knew Hannah was my sister, he’d never be with me.

Fact:
Never.

Because of me, Dylan had become a liar. Maybe this was my fate. I was the child of lies. Everything I did was touched by that poison. I’d been so stupid to think there was a happy ending here. Every time Dylan looked at me, he’d remember the look on Hannah’s face when he broke her heart. And really, if I stepped back from it all, what did I envision? Keeping my connection to Hannah a secret from him forever? What did my parents envision? What became of our rules when I got old enough to actually bring a guy home, to start my own family? Who was my “father” on the day I got married? Had my parents thought about it at all? Did Dad expect me to wear his aunt’s heirloom pearls on my wedding day? Would he even come to my wedding?

Ugh, I was really going down the rabbit hole now. I wasn’t getting married, to Dylan or anyone else. I was barely twenty-one. Like Mom had said, I had a whole PhD to wrangle before I started making those kinds of life decisions.

I picked up the remote and switched channels again, finding some sort of home improvement show marathon. Good. No familial dramas there.

I awoke a few hours later to the jingle of Mom’s keys in the door. Outside the apartment, the windows were dark, which meant it could be any time from six to eleven.

“Hey, sweetie. I didn’t expect to see you home. No work tonight?”

“I was feeling a little under the weather,” I lied. Again. All I did was lie.

She switched on the light and looked at me as I blinked. “I’m worried you’re pushing yourself too hard. Is it a cold? Did you take anything for it?”

There was nothing to take. And as I sat there under her examination, it all bubbled up inside me, hot and slimy and impossible to ignore. My throat closed up, my eyes burned, and before I knew it, I was overflowing, tears rolling from my eyes and choking sobs emanating from my throat.

“Oh, honey! Honey, what’s wrong?” She sat down beside me and slid an arm around my back. “What’s going on? Is it your classes?”

I shook my head miserably.

“Is it the money? Because if I get this new commission, I’ll be able to help you some with those costs. I knew it was going to be more expensive than you’d figured—”

Another shake of my head. I buried my face in her shoulder. I’d heard the “new commission” talk before, and it never amounted to anything.

“Sweetie, talk to me.”

No way. What was I going to say?
Mom, I’m a real chip off the old block. I make men into cheaters, too. Sure, I did insist the guy break up with his girlfriend if he wanted me, but it turns out that doesn’t make it any better.

“I messed up with a boy,” I sniffled at last.

She squeezed me tight. “A boy? For real? Oh, Tess…” She chuckled a bit. “You know, most moms I know would figure that was it first off. It says a lot about you that I didn’t even think of it.” Taking me by the shoulders, she looked into my face. “What happened?”

“I…thought we were going to be together, and we’re not.”

She gave a knowing nod. “Well, that one, sadly, I have some experience with. Is it Mr. Necklace?” She gestured to the silver T.

I bit my lip, tears flowing anew.

“That’s secret admirers for you,” she said. “Like I said, there’s a reason they’re secret. Either you don’t want to be with them or they can’t be with you. What’s up? He have a girlfriend?”

“No.” Not anymore.

“Religious differences?”

“No.” I didn’t even know if Dylan had religion.

She eyed me warily. “He didn’t—did he just want to get you into bed?”

I groaned. “I didn’t sleep with him, Mom.” Not this time, anyway.

Back at Cornell, what Dylan and I had was pure and perfect. We’d met, we’d fallen in love, we’d had sex. There were no rules, no restrictions. No Swifts or secrets hanging over me. We’d both been free and clear and we’d chosen each other. Now, I feared that was all tainted. Tainted by our deception, by my lies, by the rules I lived by and the ones we’d made in the past week. No wonder once he looked at the whole picture, he didn’t want me anymore. Maybe I
was
that girl—the one who only worked if it was all a lie.

“Well, that’s good!” Her expression had lost none of its concern. “Oh, honey, I don’t know what to say. If he doesn’t realize what an amazing person you are, then he doesn’t deserve you.”

It was the right thing to say. It was the patented mother script. It made perfect sense. But Mom hadn’t followed it herself. Dad didn’t love her enough to leave his wife, and she let him have her anyway.

“Mom,” I asked now, in a voice so soft I wasn’t even sure it was audible. “If it hadn’t been for me, do you think you and Dad would still be together?”

Her eyes widened. “Don’t even think about getting pregnant to tie a guy down, Tess. I’ll wring your neck.”

That wasn’t what I’d meant, but it was all the answer I needed. Even now, she was defining it as losing Dad, rather than choosing Dad.

“And don’t measure yourself by the choices Dad and I have made.”

How could I avoid it, when history kept repeating itself?

NINETEEN

“And then what happened?” Annabel asked. It was late Friday morning, and we were seated at a big-top table at Verde, rolling silverware in cloth napkins. The powers that be at the restaurant had decided to change from green napkins to black for a “sleeker” look, but that meant doing a buttload of rollups before our shift today.

I was giving the Warren girls the rundown on the latest Dylan developments. Annabel was staring with her mouth open as if I was relating the end of an action movie. Sylvia had stayed very, very silent.

“Then…nothing,” I said. “I haven’t heard from him since. I even skipped class on Thursday so I didn’t need to see him.”

“You?” Sylvia gasped. “Skipped class?” She pressed a hand to her heart in mock shock. “Jesus. Annabel, check to see if the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are on the reservation list for tonight.”

“Ha-ha,” I said and grabbed a few more forks.

“But seriously,” said Annabel. “What’s the next step?”

I shrugged as that squeezing feeling started in my chest again. “I don’t know. I think…I think maybe we’re doomed.” My fingers went to the T hanging around my neck. I don’t know why I’d put it on again today. Funny how in four short days it had become such a part of me.

Sylvia snorted. “Doomed? Come on, Tess, I’m supposed to be the dramatic one around here. You’re the practical, scientific member of the group.”

“Fine,” I replied. “The hypothesis doesn’t fit the data set and is therefore invalidated. Satisfied?” I rolled up a napkin full of silverware and slammed it a little too hard onto my finished pile.

“The data set being what, exactly?” Annabel said. “That he didn’t want to jump into bed with you the second he dumped his girlfriend?”

“No…”

“Do you blame her for being suspicious?” Sylvia cut in. “He didn’t seem to have a problem jumping into bed with her when he had one.”

Annabel pursed her lips. “What kind of man do you want him to be, Tess? The kind who cheats on his girlfriend with you or the kind who actually cares about a person he dates enough to not want to go running into some other woman’s arms before his ex has even had time to process the situation?”

“Haven’t you been listening?” Sylvia said. “Dylan’s both.”

“Dylan’s neither,” I said. “He didn’t cheat—”

“That’s debatable,” Sylvia mumbled.

“—and not wanting to be with me the other night…that had nothing to do with Hannah. She never would have known what Dylan was up to.”

“She didn’t have to know what he was up to if he just sneaked around with you, either,” Annabel pointed out. “Lots of people cheat on their significant others without their significant others knowing anything about it.”

She was telling
me
this? Honestly, sometimes hearing the comments people made about Cheaters and Other Women and Sugar Daddies and Mistresses and whatever else made me want to, first, laugh out loud and, second, give everyone a lesson in reality. We weren’t exactly living in a penthouse suite, and my mom’s boobs were one hundred percent real.