Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute(50)
“Applying pressure,” he says serenely. “I learned about it in therapy.”
“Did you?”
“Nah.” Before I can flick him between the eyes for being so deeply annoying, he reaches out and squeezes one of the pom-poms on my socks. (Yes, there are pom-poms on my socks. It’s cold, okay?) I watch him pinch the soft red ball between finger and thumb. But when I look up, he’s not focused on my socks; he’s focused on me. “Tell me the truth,” he says so, so softly, not like it’s an order but like he’s really asking. Like it really matters.
I swallow hard and admit it. “There’s…something satisfying in the fact that my dad’s going to see me win this scholarship.”
The corner of Brad’s mouth twitches.
“What?” I demand, self-consciousness creeping in like fog.
“Nothing.” He lets go of the pom-pom and squeezes my ankle. I very nearly die. “I just like how certain you are, that’s all,” he says. “What else?”
My mouth is dry. “What else…”
“What else are you doing because of him?”
“Not because of him.” I frown. “I don’t want to be a lawyer because of him.”
“But you want to work in corporate law,” Brad says. “Is that because of him?”
My frown deepens into a scowl. Annoyance is easier and much more familiar than whatever I feel about the weight of his hand, which is still on my ankle, Jesus Christ, Bradley. It’s nothing, it’s nothing, I see him touch all his friends. “How do you know what field I want to work in?”
“Because I was at that party where you announced it,” he says mildly, “and I thought it was weird how the people you admire—like Katharine—work elsewhere, but you’re not remotely interested in following in their footsteps.”
“It’s not that I’m not interested,” I protest, then cut myself off because—
Well, what does it matter? These decisions, practically speaking, are years into the future. And yes, I am someone who plans her decisions in advance, but, well—
“For God’s sake,” I mutter, “what are you asking me all this for? You’re supposed to tell me I’m great and Giselle’s wrong and everything is fine.”
“You’re great,” he says, and the tension in my muscles slides away. But it snaps right back when he adds, “Giselle’s not wrong. Everything…may or may not be fine?”
I pull my ankle out of his grip. It immediately feels ten degrees cooler. “Brad!”
“What?” he laughs. “I’m not gonna lie to you, Celine. Your life plan is coming off slightly bitter and vengeful—”
I make that cough-laugh sound people do when they are both astonished and amused. “I beg your pardon?”
He ignores me. “But it’s warranted! It’s not a capital crime to have bad feelings when bad things happen to you.”
Well, I do realize that. It just feels like a crime to have any feelings at all—like I should be okay no matter what. My dad doesn’t rattle me. I can prove it.
A voice that sounds very like Giselle’s asks, By letting him shape your whole life?
“What am I supposed to do?” I demand. “Just…forget about him? Let him get away with what he did? How is that fair?”
A sad little line forms between Brad’s eyebrows. “It’s not.”
Something inside me that was venomous and ready to bite stands down. Now I feel deflated and directionless.
“But you know what I care about?” Brad’s eyes are huge and lovely behind his glasses, like a cow angling for gourmet daisies. “Whether or not you’re happy with your bitter, vengeful choices. Are you? Happy?”
I open my mouth, then close it.
“Ah, ah! No thinking. Do you want to be an overachieving corporate lawyer who goes camping with Katharine Breakspeare on the weekends? Yes or no? Answer quickly.”
“I mean…I want some of those things.”
“You’re talking about the Katharine Breakspeare part,” he says, “aren’t you?”
I roll my eyes. “Shut up.” I think I’ve had enough public self-reflection for one day. I feel uncertain, now—in my decisions, in myself. And if I can’t be sure of me, what exactly do I have to hold on to? But I can’t dump all that on Brad. I can’t dump it on anyone. “Do you want to be an overachieving hotshot lawyer who goes camping with Katharine Breakspeare?” I ask, trying for a smile, trying to tease.
“No,” Brad says instantly, thoughtlessly. Then his throat flushes brick-red.
I blink. “You mean no to the camping part.”
He shifts awkwardly. “Yeah?”
Is he lying to me? He is. He definitely is. But that means…“You…don’t want to be a lawyer?”
He doesn’t reply. I see a muscle move in his jaw, clenching it shut.
“Brad?”
He winces. “I don’t not want to be a lawyer.”
What would Minnie do in a moment like this? Be sensitive. “But you don’t not not want to be a lawyer?”
“No,” he says, “I do. I do. It’ll be fun.” But I recognize the hopeful tone in his voice, like he’s negotiating with himself—I recognize it because sometimes I use it, too.