Begin Again(98)

“Immediately.” As she dutifully starts fishing it out, I can already feel the spark of a plan coming to life. “And you know what—I think I’ve got some ideas for fixing things with Shay and Milo.”

“You like him too, don’t you?”

Even if I had it in me to lie, Valeria’s eyes are all too knowing on mine.

“He’s leaving.” When I swallow the words down, my entire throat feels like a bruise. “I just need to fix our friendship, is all. I can get over a little crush.”

Valeria searches my face for a moment, but doesn’t pry. Just rolls up the sleeves of her cardigan and asks, “What can I do?”

I nod, grounding myself as I pull up a recipe on my phone. “Hope you’re not scared of food dye.”

Valeria takes the phone from me as she hands over the manuscript, a smile blooming on her face. “Never a dull moment with the All-Knighters, huh?”

I grin right back. “Not a one.”





Chapter Thirty-Two


Valeria and I are up half the night, me reading through her manuscript and sending it to Shay, Valeria in the kitchen creating an unholy rainbow concoction as I walk her through tomorrow’s plan and start gathering supplies. The next morning Gammy Nell kisses both our cheeks, Grandma Maeve sneaks us a bottle of cheap white wine in the trunk, and my dad hugs me and tells me he’ll see me on Saturday. We may be piling into Valeria’s car with the terror of two people with a whole lot on the line, but at least we’re on that line together.

Valeria drops me off at Cardinal first, where I feel more than a little silly carting my full, mostly untouched suitcase back up the stairs. I’m only halfway down the hall when Milo emerges from his room with the same bleary-eyed countenance he has after doing the show on very little sleep.

I open my mouth to say hello, but he spots me first. I grip the handle of my suitcase, expecting Milo to tell me off for disappearing yesterday.

“You’re here,” he says instead.

There’s no sarcastic remark. No pretense of annoyance. He just crosses the hall like this moment is something inevitable, like there is no other thing to do except pull me into his arms. His embrace is so firm that I can’t help melting into it, can’t help wrapping my arms around him too, and we pull each other in.

“I thought . . . shit,” he says, his voice so close to my ear that I can feel the low rumble of it all over my body. “I don’t know. I’m glad you’re back.”

He rests his chin on the top of my head, and I bury my face in his chest, inhaling the warmth of him, the Milo-ness of him. All the thoughts that have been scrambling in my head for the past few days are gone now, replaced by this steady, low hum.

I reach for something to say before we pull apart. An apology. A joke to ease the tension. Anything other than the words “I love you,” which are the only words left in my bones.

I close my eyes then, the magnitude of them rushing through with full force. These feelings I’ve had for Milo—the burn, the ache, the need—it’s like Valeria said. They’re so much louder, so much scarier than anything I’ve ever felt. At first it made them easy to dismiss. I’ve never let myself be led by my feelings before; I’ve only ever been the architect of them. I told myself how to feel, and I felt it. There was order. There were rules.

And now there is this boy with his hands pressing into the backs of my shoulders and the whole of him beating in every pulse of my heart, smashing every one of those rules to pieces.

It’s not a crush. But whatever it is, it’s about to crush me.

When we pull apart I nearly stumble, suddenly unmoored. He looks every bit as unsteady as I do, those green eyes searching mine like he’s finally spotted a lighthouse in a storm.

“I’m sorry,” I say, pulling my suitcase closer to myself. “I thought—”

“C’mere,” he says, dismissing the apology before I even get a chance for it to land. “I wanted to show you something yesterday.”

I follow him to his room like I’m in some kind of trance, the words I love you, I love you, I love you like a mantra in rhythm with my every step. He leaves the door wide open again, not even checking to see if I’ve followed before grabbing a small stack of papers on his desk.

“I was supposed to meet with my sister Cleo the other day. The one who works in admissions. After the radio thing sidetracked us I ended up meeting with her yesterday, and . . . well.”

He hands me the pile of papers. I’m expecting them to be Milo’s transcripts, or some kind of official documentation for his transfer. Instead I see the familiar “Bed of Roses” logo that heads all the articles I did for our high school paper.

“Where did you . . .”

“You said you were worried about a ‘pity admission.’ That it had something to do with your mom.” He taps his finger on the papers in my hands, insistent. “They had no idea who your mom was, Andie. This is why they let you in. It’s all in your file. Cleo showed me the whole thing.”

I leaf through the pages, realization dawning on me. There were two envelopes the day I sent these. One had a paper copy of my transcripts to supplement the electronic files for my Blue Ridge State application. Another was the “Bed of Roses” clips my dad had asked to see.

“That’s why you went to see Cleo?” I gather up the papers and hold them to my chest. “All this time . . .”