Stay With Me (17 page)

Caleb points the whisk at him. “Shut it, or no pancakes for you.”

“I won’t say a word. Not one.” Jamie mimes zipping his lips and pulls a stool next to me. He slings an arm around my shoulder, his blonde hair falling over his forehead.

“So,” Jamie whispers conspiratorially, “if you need a getaway, I’ll create a distraction. You can give him the slip. One night stand his ass.”

“I think I’ll pass.”

“You sure? You know what they say, right? Blonds have more fun.”

Caleb puts down a fresh batch of chocolate chip pancakes. “Hey. Stop hitting on my girl.”

“Ohhhhh. She’s your girl.”

“My baby sister is more mature than you.”

“Duh,” Jamie says, taking a few pancakes and drowning them in maple syrup. “That’s because she’s a female. Women are much smarter than us. I realized this a long time ago. Like five seconds ago.”

I laugh, then grab another pancake, biting into it.

“Where did you end up last night?” Caleb asks.

“I ended up crashing at Kai’s place.” Jamie heaves out a sigh. “Alone, sadly.”

“I wonder why.”

Jamie shakes his head. “Kai brought Steph home.”

“Really?” I ask. “So, are they back together?”

“Well, they were last night.”

Caleb frowns. “I hope he doesn’t dick her around again.”

“Steph can take care of herself.” Jamie eyes the remaining pancakes. “Where is everyone else?”

“No idea.”

“You want another one?” Jamie asks me.

“No, I’m done,” I say.

“You?”

“I’m set.” Caleb pushes the plate of pancakes toward him. “They’re all—”

“Not so fast.” Nick enters the kitchen, and I jump at the sound of his voice.

“I see you’re taking lessons from Griff,” Jamie says. “On being silent and all.”

“You three were yammering away and didn’t hear me, obviously.” Nick piles some food onto a plate, leaning against the counter. “Hey, Hailey.”

“Hey.”

“Dylan’s training,” Nick adds. “I ran into him on my way here.”

“No word from Griff yet?” Caleb asks.

“I’ll text him,” Jamie offers, already typing away on his cell. A few seconds pass before he gets a response. “Griff is working at his brother’s.”

“I thought that’s where he might be today,” Caleb says and pours some coffee into mugs. “Nick, don’t we have tea somewhere? Hailey doesn’t like coffee.”

“I think there’s some in that drawer over there.” Nick bites into a pancake. “Good stuff, Cal. You should cook more often.”

“I’ll even get you an apron,” Jamie says. “Maybe one that says ‘Kiss the Cook.’“

“Kiss my ass,” Caleb says, putting a kettle on the stove.

“Sorry, don’t swing that way.” Jamie ducks, and the wadded up napkin sails over his head and sinks into the trash can. “Nice shot.”

“I’ve had some practice.” Caleb gets out another mug for the tea. “Anything in it?”

I shake my head. “No, I like it plain.”

Jamie turns in his stool to look over at Nick. “What happened to you last night?”

“Nothing exciting,” Nick says.

I think I’m the only one that caught that slight hesitation before Nick answered. I wonder why there was that pause and if . . .

Nick looks over at me and notices me studying him.

“I should check in on Daphne,” I say slowly. “Make sure she’s okay.”

“She’s fine,” Nick says.

“How do you know that?” I take the tea from Caleb and set it in front of me to cool for a bit.

“Because I walked her home last night and saw her into her dorm room. She was drunk, but otherwise fine.” Nick eats the last of his pancake. “She probably has a wicked hangover though.”

“Thanks, man,” Caleb says. “For making sure she got home okay, and for looking out for her.”

“No need for thanks.” Nick shrugs. “It’s Daphne. Any of you would have done the same.”

“Yeah,” I say, taking a sip of the tea. “Even though she complains about it, I’m sure Daphne loves having all you guys. Instead of one big brother, she gets you, Nick, Jamie, Griff, Kai, and Dylan. So, six big brothers.”

Nick doesn’t say anything, but his hands clench around his coffee mug.

I duck my head, hiding my smile. Perhaps there’s one guy among Caleb’s friends who doesn’t want to be viewed as a big brother.

As we clean up, everyone starts talking about what they’re going to do for the rest of the day. I mention that I need to finish up a paper for tomorrow, and after we’re done, Caleb drives me back to my place.

He brings work with him.

And a bag.

“I don’t have to stay over if you don’t want me to,” Caleb says much later when we’re both done with our work and just hanging out, watching a horror flick. I’m all snuggled against him, and his fingers idly run through my long, dark, wavy hair.

“Don’t be silly.” I grab his other hand, entwining my fingers with his. “Stay.”

And he does.

I
’M ON MY WAY FROM
my Monday morning class, having said good-bye to Caleb earlier in the parking lot, when I see Daphne standing outside the theatre building, her grip tight on her bag. She’s just standing there, looking at the glass doors.

“Daph?” I tap her on her shoulder. “You okay?”

She shakes herself. “Yeah. Fine.”

“Do you have a class in there?”

“No.” Daphne glances at me, her warm, hazel eyes shadowed. “I got your messages from yesterday. So you and my brother are official?”

“I guess. I think so.” Caleb did call me his girl, but it’s still so new that I don’t want to mess it up. But maybe I would mess it up if I didn’t come clean to his sister. “Yeah. We are. I hope so anyway. I like him. A lot.”

“Duh. Anyone could see that.”

“So what happened to you at the dance? You didn’t tell me in texts.”

“Too long to write it out. Basically, I was dancing with one guy until Mr. Know It All stepped in and cock blocked me.”

“Zorro?”

“Nick.”

I was right. Nick
was
Zorro that night. “Well—”

“And he would
not
leave me alone. Watching out for me. Making sure I got home safe.”

“The bastard.”

Daphne narrows her eyes at me. “I’m sure he told everyone about it.”

“No, he only said he walked you home.” I adjust my messenger bag and glance down at my watch. My next class starts in twenty, so I have plenty of time. “Nick never said he danced with you.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“That’s . . . interesting.”

“I thought so, too.”

Daphne frowns when she glances back at the building. “You know, sometimes I wonder . . . about things.”

“Like what?”

“Like would I be happier if I didn’t get into that accident? Like would I be taking theatre and pursuing acting? Like would I not be so looked after? It’s not even just my brother or his friends. My parents worry and hover, too.”

“Well, you could take an acting class here.”

“What good would it do? You don’t see a lot of famous actresses with scars on their faces.”

“Tina Fey has one.”

“Tina Fey is a goddess. She is the exception to the rule.” Daphne sighs heavily. “Besides, it’s like my life is split in ‘before’ and ‘after.’ Before the Accident. After the Accident. I just don’t think I’m the same person anymore. That I want the same things.”

“I know what you mean.”

“But I also don’t know what I want to do. Or that I can do it, even if I knew what I wanted to do.”

“I feel the same way. I mean, I’m known for being famous, Daph. For my music and acting. What if that’s the only thing I’ll ever be good at?” I pause. “What if there’s nothing more to me than that?”

“You have loads more to offer,” Daphne says. “But I know what you’re saying. It’s like your whole identity was wrapped up in the fame, the acting, the music . . . that it’s hard for people to separate the real you from the Hollywood you. My family, I think, keeps expecting me to return to this bubbly, happy, starry-eyed girl I used to be.”

“You, bubbly?”

“I know, I know. I was sickening. I’d probably take a shovel to my old self and hit her over the head. God, I was such an idiot back then.”

We both fall quiet for a while.

“Do you miss it?” she asks.

I think about my guitar that I have stashed under the bed. I think about the untouched sheets of music in one of my drawers. I think of the phone calls that have lessened over the months with offers for roles and singing engagements, only if I returned and left college.

“No. I don’t miss it at all.”

“Really?”

“It’s . . . tiring,” I say.

“But you’re a musician, right? Can you just
stop
being that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe not. It’s not like I can change certain parts of who I am.” I bite my lower lip in worry. “But I don’t have to be famous.”

“No, you don’t.” Daphne looks away from the theatre building. “We both don’t have to be who we were.”

“You don’t want to go in? I’d . . .” I swallow heavily. “I’d go in with you if you needed me to.”

“You’d do that for me? Even though you want nothing to do with all of this?”

“Well, yeah. That’s what friends do.”

Daphne smiles. “I don’t want to go in. No interest anymore, just a moment of feeling sorry for myself. It’s passed. You helped make it pass.”

“We’ll figure out what we want, right?” I ask her, as we walk away from the building and down the pathway. “It’s not bad that we don’t know what we’re supposed to do for the rest of our lives, is it?”

“Of course we’ll figure it out. Eventually.” Daphne swings her bag at her side. “We have all our whole lives to figure it out. But you know what?”

“What?”

“I’m going to really start living
now
. No more harping on the past and what could be. Today is a new day. From now on, I’m going after what I want.”

“And who you want.”

Daphne stops walking. “Well, yes. But that might need some more time. He can be very stubborn, you know.”

“Too bad for him that you’re even more stubborn than he is.”

Daphne laughs. “God, if Caleb messes up this thing he has with you, I’m going to kill him.”

“No need to do that. I can take care of myself.”

“Girl.” Daphne bumps her shoulder against mine. “You’re not alone anymore. Get that through your thick skull. You have me. And though I may be short, I am one fierce motherfucker.”

I smile and am never gladder than I am now that I left all my old life for this new one.

This new one is not set, it’s still scary to me, but oh, it’s so bright.

And full of possibilities.

Chapter 22

“C
LOSE YOUR EYES.”

Everyone in my art class looks up at the professor. Professor Manuel Rodrigo is one of the younger professors on campus, perhaps in his late twenties/early thirties—a tall, lean man with brown hair and soulful dark eyes. Some of the girls in class have dubbed him the Spanish Mr. Darcy . . . if Mr. Darcy was a painter with watercolors and oils often splattered all over his clothes and a soft, almost lilting accent that spoke of sun-drenched summers in Barcelona.

Professor Rodrigo told us to call him Manuel from the first day of class, but I can’t help thinking of him as Professor Rodrigo in my head. Professor Rodrigo—Manuel—often walks around class, periodically pausing at various easels. His fingers stroke his chin, and he’ll tilt his head this way and that and say, “Mmmm,” before walking away.

Sometimes the “Mmmm” is good, and sometimes it’s not.

“Close your eyes,” the professor repeats as we keep staring at him. “And if you find that you want to peek, there are scarves in the box over there.”

“Um, Manuel?” A student raises his hand, his eyes wide behind round glasses. “Why exactly are we doing this?”

“You see too much. Or you don’t see at all.” Professor Rodrigo sweeps his arms wide, gesturing at the space, then taps his forehead. He leaves a smudged charcoal streak above one thick eyebrow. “November 7. Only a few weeks left of this class . . . before finals. Some I won’t see ever again. Some I will.”

We still just sit there.

“Today, and all days, you draw from your mind and heart. But sometimes what you see is not what you see.”

“I don’t understand,” the same student says, and others nod their heads in agreement. “How are we to draw if we don’t see what’s before us?”

“How are you to draw if you do see what’s before you?” Professor Rodrigo counters. “You are supposed to draw this bowl of fruit, no?”

We all look toward the center of the room where a bowl of apples, pears, bananas, and oranges has been placed on a stood.

“Yes,” another student says. “It’s for real life study.”

Professor Rodrigo strides across the room, knocking the bowl of fruit off the chair. The apples and oranges roll along the floor; one apple hits my boots. We all jump back on our stools; there are a few gasps too, but I just wait, trying to understand what he’s getting at.

“No fruit,” he says. “Close your eyes. Paint. Draw. Use whatever you want. But just draw. Just . . .
be
.”

Still a little odd, but there have been way weirder acting and singing exercises I’ve done, so closing my eyes to draw isn’t that abnormal.

I don’t know what he’s getting at. I don’t know what I’m supposed to draw. And looking around at the other students, it looks like most are in the same position as me.

“I expect to have whatever you do by the end of class.”

An hour. Well, fifty minutes really, as ten minutes have been spent with me gawking at his instructions.

With that in mind, a few students get up, take scarves from the box, and cover their eyes when they return to their seats.

Others don’t get up. I don’t.

I pick up a piece of charcoal, pull my stool closer to the easel, and close my eyes.

It’s very odd to close your eyes in a room full of people, knowing that they’re all doing the same but still wondering if some are peeking. It’s odd to sit here, poised to draw, but having no idea what I should sketch. I don’t know what I’m supposed to see. What I’m supposed to do. Or what Professor Rodrigo is looking for.

“Breathe,” Professor Rodrigo says to the class. “Just be . . .
you
.”