Wild Swans (12 page)

“No,” Erica says. “You're the kind of people who drive everyone away.”

There's a part of Erica that loves this, I think. Making a scene. Breaking things. Even if those things are her own daughters.

Still, I'm shocked that she aims her arrow so true.
You're the kind of people who drive everyone away.
Erica doesn't know me, but she's managed to zero in on my greatest fear: that I'm not enough, will never be enough, for anyone to love.

I have to get out of here. Now. I can't be in the same place as her another minute. Even outside, there's not enough air.

I run. I'm halfway down the block, past the Cormorant and the SunTrust, before Connor catches up to me.

“Ivy! Ivy, wait!” he calls.

“I can't. I have to go.” I can't look at him. I don't want to see the pity on his face. I concentrate on my feet instead, on not tripping over the uneven brick sidewalk in my polka-dot flats.

“Let me at least walk you home.”

I steal a glance. He's still wearing the brown Java Jim's apron. Did he just walk out in the middle of his shift?

“I'm not going home.”

You're the kind of people who drive everyone away.
It plays over and over in my head.

Granddad never talked about Erica much, and I figured that was because their estrangement was painful for him. As I grew up though, everyone else started to tell me stories about her. How she was selfish. Reckless. Troubled. Part of me wondered if they were trying to convince me that something broken in
her
made her leave, not something broken in
me
. But both must be true. She is awful, sure, but I am the reason she left. She hated me so much that she didn't tell my sisters I exist—even before Grace's custody was an issue. And seeing me again hasn't changed her mind one bit.

“Ivy.” Connor grabs my hand and hauls me to a stop. “Where are you going?”

I study the roses in front of the post office, afraid that if I look at him, I'll start crying, and I can't—won't—cry in the middle of town. Although I don't know why I'm trying to save face. The scene back in the courtyard will be all over Cecil by suppertime. How could it not?

“I don't know.”

“Do you want me to call your granddad?”

“No!” Granddad will find out soon enough, and then there will be more
I told you so'
s and more fights
.
Probably more wine and cigarettes and slammed doors. Right about now, I'd trade them for all the loneliness and unanswered questions of my childhood.

Iz and Gracie will never know a childhood without all the drama, I guess.

Or was Erica different—better—before?

I swallow hard. Maybe when I'm not around, my mother isn't a monster.

“My apartment's right over on Queen Street. Do you want to go there?”

I finally look up. There's concern in Connor's pretty brown eyes, but not pity. And his fingers are threaded through mine. “Don't you have to get back to work?”

He shakes his head. “My shift's almost over. I'll text Kat. She'll cover for me.” He reaches over and tucks a wayward curl behind my ear, his fingers brushing against my neck. Even now, even when I am a complete mess, his touch sends tingles all the way down to my toes.

“Yeah.” I take a deep breath, clutching his hand. “Okay.”

Connor doesn't let go of my hand till we get to his place and he has to fish in his pocket for keys. He's renting an old two-story house that's been divided into apartments, one upstairs and one down. Inside, there's a cluttered living room with an ugly, blue-plaid couch, some plastic crates that serve as end tables, and a big TV with an Xbox hooked up to it. Java Jim's coffee cups are scattered on every surface, and books are stacked knee-high along the front wall beneath the curtainless windows.

Connor shoves his keys into his pocket and starts picking up some of the empty cups. “Sorry it's kind of a mess.”

“I don't care.” I flop down on the couch, sinking deep into the cushions.

“Do you want to talk about what happened back there?” Connor asks. “I can leave you alone if you want. If you need some space. My roommate won't be home for a while. He works up at the college for the IT department.”

“I don't need space.” Not from him anyway.

He puts down the stack of coffee cups and sits on the other end of the couch, leaving a good two feet between us. “So. That was your mom, huh?”

I can't help it. I burst into tears.

“I'm sorry,” I sob, burying my face in my hands. “I don't want to cry in front of you.”

He moves closer. Puts his hand on my arm. “Do you want me to go?”

“No. It's just—she was so
mean
.” I sound like a little kid. “I-I think she likes pretending I'm not hers. That I'm just her annoying little sister. Granddad's s-second-chance girl.”

“Second chance?” Connor moves closer, and gravity and the couch cushions sort of dump us together till we're pressed against each other from hip to knee. “Ivy, the Professor adores you. He brags about you all the time.”

I peek out from between my fingers. “He
lies
. Like telling you I'm a writer. I've only written one poem in the last two months. Nothing I've written is good enough to submit, and it only counts if it's good. Milbourns don't do
okay
. It has to be extraordinary.”

“Ivy, if I thought everything I wrote had to be
extraordinary
, I would never write anything ever again.” Connor shakes his head. “Half of what I write is total shit. You revise it. Or you steal that one good line for another poem. You can't expect yourself to be perfect. It'll just set you up for failure.”

I look right at him, at his handsome, square-jawed face and his crooked nose, and I confess my most shameful truth: “That's what I am—a failure.”

“What? Why would you say that?” He grabs my hand. “Why would you
think
that?”

“I am. I'm not good at anything.” I can't help it; I start crying again. “I love swimming, but I'm not good enough to go to the Olympics. I couldn't even get to state. I love reading, but I'm not a writer, not really. I love baking, but I'm not going to be the next Julia Child. I love languages, but I'm not a natural polyglot. I'm just—mediocre. At
everything
.”

Connor is frowning. “You're, what, seventeen? You don't need to have everything figured out. You don't need to have
anything
figured out yet.”

Jesus, I hate being patronized. “Dorothea did. Grandmother did. Erica knew what she wanted, even if she was too messed up to make it happen. And you do too.” I pull my hand away, annoyed. “You know exactly what you want. And Granddad says you're talented. He doesn't just
say
that, Connor. He doesn't hand out praise lightly. You have to earn it.”

“He says it about you,” Connor insists. “He's really proud of you. Doesn't he tell you that?”

“No.” I can't remember the last time Granddad told me he was proud of me. I was thrilled when I came in second at regionals, but he just said that next year I'd beat that girl from Salisbury. “Whatever I do, I should be doing more or better. I should practice harder, shave a few seconds off my backstroke. I should be journaling every day like Dorothea. I should be writing more poems and submitting them to literary journals. I should be taking classes this summer. Should, should, should. It never ends and I'm so tired of it.”

“Have you told him how you feel?” Connor asks.

As if it's that simple. I glare at him. “Is that what you do with your parents? When they ask you what the hell you're going to do with an English degree?”

He has the grace to look ashamed. “No.”

“Right.” I brush away tears with both hands and stand up. “Can I use your bathroom?”

“Sure.” He leads me through a cramped kitchen and down a short hall with two bedrooms and a bathroom. The bathroom is gross, as befits the apartment of two college guys, I guess. I splash cold water on my face and wash my hands, and when I go back out, I feel calmer. I shouldn't have snapped at Connor like that; he was only trying to help.

I peek in the open door of the first bedroom. I suspect it's Connor's because of the two overflowing bookshelves. The bed is unmade, with a green comforter and rumpled blue sheets, and the only other furniture is a beat-up dresser with some framed photos on top.

Connor's footsteps hurry down the hall and I spin around, busted. “Hey. Can I look at your books?”

“Sure.” He leads me in and immediately starts making his bed, which I could not care less about. I'm actually more interested in the photos than his books. There's one of him in a graduation robe, flanked by his parents. His dad is tall and broad shouldered and white, with glasses and brown hair and a beard; his mom is tall and curvy and black, and she's wearing a cute turquoise maxi dress.

The picture next to it is of him and a short, skinny old lady with curly gray hair and wrinkled walnut skin. His grams. She beams up at him, the pride shining out of her like rays of sunshine. They clearly adore each another, and my stomach clenches at his loss. The third picture shows his family on the beach: his mom in a blue one-piece swimsuit, his dad in board shorts, Connor, and Ani, who is tall and skinny and could pass for a model in her tiny red bikini.

“Is that your sister? She's gorgeous,” I say.
So are you
, I think. In the photo, he's shirtless, his tattoos and abs on full display.

He laughs. “And she knows it. She just turned sixteen and she's such a brat.”

“Are you close?” I wonder sometimes what it would be like if I'd grown up with Isobel. We're only two and a half years apart. Would we have fought each other for Granddad's love and attention or bonded over his impossible expectations and been better for it? Would we have been the kind of sisters who borrowed each other's clothes and asked each other for advice about boys?

“Sort of. Ani thinks I'm pretty boring. I was kind of a nerd when I was her age,” Connor confesses. “Still am, really.”

I scoff and pick up a photo of him and two other tall, muscular boys. “Let me guess—football team?”

Connor laughs. “Yearbook coeditors. I went to a performing arts high school. We didn't have sports teams.”

I put the picture back and sit on his freshly made bed. The comforter is really soft. A little thrill runs through me at my bravery. I am in Connor's apartment. Sitting on his bed. I've never been in a boy's bedroom before, unless you count Alex's. But Alex still uses his old brontosaurus sheets sometimes, and his walls are covered with posters of his baseball heroes. This feels so much more grown up.

“Oh. I guess I just assumed… How did you break your nose?”

“I got my ass kicked.” Connor shoves his hands in his back pockets. “I was bullied a lot in middle school.”

“For what?” I can't imagine him being unpopular.

“Always having my nose stuck in a book. Raising my hand too much in class. Not being black enough—but not being white either. It was bullshit, but I was short and skinny, and I wore glasses, and I talked like an English teacher's kid. I was an easy target.”

I lean forward, intrigued. “What changed?”

“I got my nose broken, and Dad took me to the gym and taught me how to box. Next time somebody hit me, I hit him back harder. I got suspended and Grams gave me hell for it, but kids left me alone after that.” He shrugs. “Then I transferred into Duke Ellington for high school. It was okay to be different there. Or maybe there were just more kids like me.”

“Middle school sucks. Girls can be pretty vicious too. Not so much with physical fights, but gossip. For me it was all about how my mom was a crazy slut and didn't even know who my dad was.”

Connor sinks down next to me on the bed. “You're not your family, Ivy.”

“I know.” I take a deep breath. “I'm sorry for crying. And for snapping at you. I get so mad when people assume things about me, about my family. I shouldn't have assumed it's always been easy for you. I'm just…jealous. That you're so focused.”

He shrugs off the praise. “When I was getting shoved into lockers every day, I decided I was going to become the black J. K. Rowling and those middle school assholes would all be sorry. Then in high school I started writing poetry instead of
Harry Potter
fanfic, so I'm pretty sure I'm not going to end up rich and famous. Oh well.”

Now I totally want to read his
Harry Potter
fanfic. “Which Hogwarts house are you?” This is one of my favorite questions. Claire is absolutely Gryffindor; Abby is Hufflepuff.

“Ravenclaw,” he says without hesitation. “You?”

“The Sorting Hat
says
Ravenclaw, but I think I'm probably Hufflepuff.” I try to keep the disappointment out of my voice. Hufflepuffs: loyal and kind and hard workers, but not exactly setting the world on fire.

“No way. You're totally Ravenclaw,” he insists.

I like the way he sees me. I like that he thinks I'm enough. Just me. Just Ivy.

I lean in, then hesitate because I want to be really clear on this. “Is it okay if I kiss you?”

Connor grins, and for a second I get a glimpse of that shy, nerdy kid he used to be, and I am utterly smitten. “Yeah.”

This time we both lean in. His mouth presses against mine, and his arm goes around me, resting on the curve of my hip. I run my hands up over the smooth muscles of his forearms, over his biceps, and he shudders a little beneath my touch. We kiss and kiss, and eventually fall back onto the bed, our legs tangling together.

He kisses his way down my neck, and it tickles, but in a delicious way. When he moves the spaghetti strap of my sundress aside and presses a kiss to my shoulder, it's my turn to shiver. He pauses. “Is this okay?”