“And you’re an English major?” I nearly choke. I force myself to swallow the barely chewed bite in my mouth. “I take it all back. That’s worse.”
“There are a lot of British authors. I haven’t gotten through them all.”
This is not an acceptable excuse. “How can you be sure they’re better if you’ve never read the greatest American novel before?”
“Settle down, Ford. I’ll get to it.”
But I’m already on my feet, grabbing my copy.
“You’ll get to it,” I grumble as I drop it in her lap. “You have to do better than that.”
“I’m not sure I can accept stolen goods,” she teases.
“Just read it,” I say.
“Why?” she asks.
“Because it’s the Great American novel,” I tell her.
She purses her lips before shaking her head with frustration. It’s not the answer she’s looking for. “No, that’s not what I mean. Why do you love it?”
“I’m not sure I can explain it to someone who’s never read it,” I say. There’s no way Adair can understand Gatsby like I do, but she should read it anyway.
“Try,” she says dryly.
I breathe so deeply it hurts a little while I consider my response. “I guess I just always got him. Gatsby, I mean. He never quite fits in anywhere. No matter how hard he tries.”
“I get that,” she says softly.
I look at her—really look. Does she get it? This girl, who has everything, doesn’t fit either? It doesn’t seem possible. But I’ve seen the wall she’s built around her. The one she hides behind while raining insults and barbs down on anyone who tries to breach it. I saw that wall, but I didn’t ask myself why she felt the need to build it.
“Thanks for letting me hang out here,” she says, finally breaking the heavy silence lingering in the air.
I force myself to look away from her. “Any time.”
I’m surprised to discover I mean it. Adair isn’t cold. That’s a veneer she wears like armor. I’m not sure what’s underneath yet, but I want to know about the girl with the green eyes. She’s not easy. She’s work but that makes me like her more. There’s sunshine underneath her thunderstorm. When the light peeks out from the storm clouds in her eyes, it’s all worth it.
For a moment, I consider closing the gap between us. I’ve held Adair in my arms but that’s not what I want right now. I want to taste her. I want to run my tongue over those freckles on her shoulder and then explore her until I’ve kissed every last one on her body. I want to see if she breaks like a sunrise or shatters like lightning strike.
She bites her lip, turning her face from mine. Can she see it in my eyes?
“They put the tombstone up at my mom’s grave,” she whispers.
Her words settle like light rain, and just like that there’s no sun or storm on the horizon. She didn’t come here to hook up. She came here to be understood.
“I’m sorry,” I say, meaning it.
“My dad wants the whole family to go so that reporters can see us being sad together,” she says.
“What?”
“I know, right?” She sinks into the couch, drawing her knees to her chest. “We had a big fight about it.”
“No wonder you didn’t want to be at home.” I say.
“I can’t avoid it forever.”
“Maybe you should go on your own first,” I suggest. I have some experience with this. I’d been so young when I saw my mother’s name carved into stone—young enough that I’d had to ask my foster mom to take me. Old enough to feel the heavy finality of those words in marble.
“I’m not sure I can,” she confesses in a small voice.
“I’ll go with you,” I offer.
She peeks at me, half her face hidden behind her knees. “You will?”
“If you want,” I say quickly. Maybe I shouldn’t invite myself to such a private moment.
“I don’t want to go alone, and I don’t want it to be a spectacle,” she says.
“We can go tomorrow.” It’s too dark now, but I know the longer she waits the more reasons she’ll come up with to avoid it. There’s no way I’m letting her go with her dad for the first time. Not if he’s just going to stomp all over her broken heart. I don’t know him, but I already get the sense I don’t like him. Maybe that’s just how he works—like those assholes who take pictures of their entire lives to post online. Or maybe everything is a publicity stunt to him. It feels too personal to ask her.
“I don’t know how to fix this.” She blinks and tears spill down her cheeks. “I don’t know how to fix me. I just feel broken.”
I reach over, cradling her face in my left hand, my thumb moving to brush off the tears. “The truth is that when something breaks, you don’t put yourself back together the same way. You make something new with what’s left.”
“When do the nightmares stop?” she asks. The question is so small and hopeless that I don’t want to tell her the truth—that they’re never going to go away. That you just get used to them. That someday it might be all she has left of her mom as time steals away the sound of her laughter or the way she smiled or how she smelled. That someday she might look forward to those nightmares.
“It gets better,” I promise her.
“Can I stay here just a little longer?”
I can’t say no. I don’t want to.
“Okay, but I’m going to make you listen to The Great Gatsby,” I warn her.
She shifts toward me on the couch, carefully resting her head on my shoulder as though testing it out. I put an arm around her, hoping this doesn’t remind her of the last time I did this. If it does, it doesn’t seem to bother her. She relaxes against my body, fitting perfectly against me.
I open the book. “‘In my younger and more vulnerable
