Act Your Age, Eve Brown (The Brown Sisters #3)(55)

Jacob wasn’t reacting like one of those people, though. He was simply sitting quietly, watching in silence, letting her speak. Because he was like that, when it mattered. He was like that.

“The look,” she said again. “I didn’t have it. I was too fat and too dark and not entirely symmetrical, so I had to be the evil background character or the comedic relief or whatever. People told me to pay my dues and change things from the inside, and I saw others doing that. But I didn’t want to. And none of us should have to. So I left.

“And I think that was my first taste of failure. I didn’t entirely blame myself—I couldn’t, all things considered. But it was still so . . . bitter.” She could taste it now, on the tip of her tongue, a thousand flavors piled high—from all the classes she’d once escaped by fantasizing about her star-studded future, to the day she’d thrown her gnome costume at that uptight director and walked out. And even though the gnome thing gave her a little aftershock of satisfaction, it just wasn’t enough.

“I probably should’ve kept trying, somehow. It was what I really, really wanted, after all. But I was so exhausted. I loved it, but I was done.” And then the rest of her failures had started. “Being done meant going back to the real world. New A levels, university, choosing a career path. My parents were understanding and supportive, my sisters were always on my side, and I had—God, Jacob, I had every fucking option. Sometimes I feel ashamed, I had so much in front of me. And I didn’t want any of it. I couldn’t do any of it. I went back to school and I failed in a thousand different ways. My parents practically cheated my way into university but I failed my first year. And I’d tried, Jacob. I actually tried.”

She’d never told anyone that. She’d gotten her last coursework grade just before finals and accepted, once and for all, that even a perfect score couldn’t save her. All the hours at the library making her eyes bleed, all the desperate emails to professors clarifying this point or that point because she struggled to follow the lectures, it had been for nothing.

She’d tried and she’d failed. So she’d told her parents she was bored, and weathered their disapproval, and chosen a new course and tried again.

And failed, of course.

But she didn’t need to get into all that—even if she had a sneaking suspicion that she just had, that Jacob could read between her every line even if she stopped the pity party here. Which she fully intended to do. How had she gotten this far off the rails? He’d asked about her voice. She’d told him . . .

Everything.

“Sorry,” she said. “Sorry. It doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t it?” he asked. Except it didn’t sound like he was really asking; it sounded like he was giving her an opening to keep going, to talk more, to release the rest of the bottled-up poison inside her. To say things like, I think I’m only capable of fuckups and not-quite-enoughs, just to get it out there before it burned up her insides.

She was about to take that opening. She could feel the words crowding the tip of her tongue. But then something else came along: a memory of the way she’d felt that morning, serving a fluffy tomato omelet and having old Mr. Cafferty from the Rose Suite dimple up at her and say, You know how I like it, Eve. Oh, you are a wonder.

That hadn’t felt like failure at all. It had felt like creation and nourishment and openhearted generosity—and syrup-sweet success.

“I told you before,” Jacob said into the silence, “that there are different ways to fail. Imperfection is inevitable. That’s life. But it doesn’t sound to me like you’ve failed at all, Eve. It sounds like your dream broke, and you’ve been picking up shattered pieces and blaming yourself when your hands bleed.” In the low light, his gaze almost seemed to shine at her, slices of summer sky warming her up. “Performing was your dream, yeah. Is it still?”

She blurted out the truth without thinking twice. “No.” Because she really did hate being told what to do—or she had, when it came to something that should stem from her soul. To have someone directing her voice, her emotions, her interpretation of words and characters she’d understood in her own way; that had seemed a violation every time, and deep inside she’d hated it.

She loved music, loved performing, but she didn’t want to make it her livelihood. It wouldn’t suit her. She’d learned that at some point over the years.

“Well,” Jacob said reasonably, “do you know what you want instead?”

She couldn’t answer. She couldn’t answer because she’d never had a chance to ask herself that question. She’d been too busy expecting herself to simply know, and get on with it already, and succeed.

Oh, gosh.

Oh, fudge.

What if the thing she’d failed hardest was . . . herself?

Some thoughts were too big to accept all at once. She shoved this one frantically to the back of her mind before it could crack her wide open, but traces of it still lingered—like the ghost of a sparkler after you’d waved it through the air. Bright and dangerous and not-really-there.

“I like it here,” she said out loud. “I like—my job.”

Jacob’s serious expression dissolved into a beaming smile. “You do?”

Oh, she did. And not just because so much of it revolved around this man, with his insatiable curiosity and his blunt impatience and his intense eyes. Not just because of Jacob.