Begin Again(76)

Connor lowers his voice, using the tone he only ever uses when we’re alone. Gentle. Intimate. Like there’s a secret we’ve known our whole lives that most people never figure out.

It used to make me feel so special. Right now it makes me feel anything but.

“Andie, let’s just—let me take you to lunch,” he pleads. “I can explain.”

“Oh, I’d love to see you try,” says Valeria, putting a foot between the two of us like a bodyguard. It is clear to me in that moment that her anger for me is bigger than her anger for herself, and I’ve never been more grateful for her friendship than I am right now.

Even so, I want him to explain. I need him to explain, because I need a way to forgive him for it. I’m scrambling for some way to make this okay, for some solution that’ll fix this the way I’ve fixed so many things between us before.

But at the crux of it is a question that can’t do anything but break. I don’t want to ask it, but I don’t have any other choice.

“Why did you transfer back to Little Fells for me, if you’d already found someone else?”

Connor reaches for my hands. I snatch mine back before he can reach them, and the hurt in his eyes is so immediate that it feels like it ricochets right back at me. I’m so used to feeling what he feels that even in this moment I can’t stop myself.

His eyes briefly dart to Valeria’s like he wishes she’d disappear. Valeria straightens her spine, cutting an intimidating figure in her ruby-red coat and unyielding gaze.

“I didn’t find someone else,” says Connor, shaking his head. “It was just a confusing time, and I’m so grateful to you for—”

“You miserable jerk. Tell her the truth.” Valeria’s so riled that there’s a vein popping in her forehead I’ve never seen before. “You ditched half your classes and got academic probation. And I—I felt so sorry for you. I let you cry on my shoulder about it for weeks. And this whole time you were lying to Andie about it and making her feel worse?”

My ears are ringing. It’s not hurt. It’s not sadness. It’s something I’m not used to feeling, something that curls in my fists and burns from my chest all the way to my cheeks.

“You ditched your classes,” I repeat.

Connor’s brows knit in desperation, like he’s trying to meet my eyes even though we’re already looking at each other. “I was overwhelmed. You know the kind of pressure I’m under—”

“And you lied to me, and—and to your parents. To everybody.” I finally take a step forward, and he doesn’t dare move to meet me. “Do you have any idea how guilty I’ve felt? I thought I’d messed with your entire future. You watched your mom come down on me. Your mom, who’s the closest thing to a mom I’ve had for years.”

And then the rage simmers out so fast I can feel myself reaching for it again, trying to use it to tether me. It’s too late. The tears are already streaming down my cheeks, putting the fire out.

Connor stops trying to talk. Even Valeria’s anger seems to be stunned right off her face.

It’s not just that I’ve lost Connor. It’s that he’s been gone for longer than I knew. At some point, without knowing it, it all slipped away: being in love with my best friend. The future we had planned together. A set of parents who loved me like I was their own—who took care of me when my mom couldn’t, and my dad wasn’t around nearly enough to try.

I can’t move, but I don’t have to. The ground already slipped out from under me before I had the chance to fall.

Connor says my name like a lifeline. “Andie.”

I ignore it. It’s Valeria I turn to, grabbing her hand and squeezing it. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

There’s a quiet nod of understanding, one that speaks to something we both already know: Whatever we find out today, we trust each other. This isn’t going to rock our friendship. It’s enough of a comfort for me to take a breath and temporarily stanch the tears as I turn to go.

“I’ll come with you,” Connor offers.

The words form tethers in the air, try to wrap around and soften me. His voice is as familiar to me as my own; the first sound I want to hear when I have news, good or bad or anything in between. Right now it can’t even skim the surface of me.

“Don’t.”

I point myself toward the psychology building, on autopilot until I’m finally standing in the dimly lit studio, face-to-face with the picture of my mother. Staring at her earnest, cheeky smile, at the gleam in her eye, at the determination in her posture. A ghost of a ghost—a version of her I never met, who in the last few months might have become more familiar to me than the one I knew.

The tears start streaming again. “I messed up,” I tell her, touching the frame. “I messed up.”

I don’t even know what part I’m referring to—this thing with Connor might be a grenade thrown into my life, but it was already plenty messed up before then, wasn’t it? My own grades. My own fear. My own fixations on other people’s problems, instead of facing my own. My own way of holding myself back, time and time again, and telling myself I’m not worth the chances people have taken on me. Blue Ridge State for letting me in; my professor for giving me a second chance; Milo for letting me on the show.