At last I decide it’s safe to leave the room. And when I open the door, I find her seated on the couch with her face in her hands.
She looks up, her miserable gaze meeting mine. “Oh. I wasn’t sure you were actually here.”
I can’t tell from her voice if she’s glad I’m here or if she wishes I weren’t. I stuff my hands in my pockets, uncomfortable and out of my depth. Sure, she’s been upset after talking to her parents before. And we’ve had our share of clashes too. But I’ve never seen her like this—pale and withdrawn and lifeless. Even when she gave me her cold mask when she first started, it was clear that she was simply reserving her warmth for someone else.
But this? It’s like all the life has been drained out of her. My jaw clenches involuntarily. I want to tell her that she has the right to make her own decisions. To enforce clear boundaries, even with her parents. But the memory of the last time I tried that tack flashes through my mind, and I keep my mouth shut.
After several more minutes tick past without a word passing between us, me staring at her, and her staring into the middle distance, I can’t take it anymore. “So that was your mom?” I ask gently.
She lifts her head again, glancing at me and nodding. “How much did you hear?”
I shrug. “Not very much. But enough to think maybe you didn’t want your parents to know about us. Is that why you were hesitant to go to the awards show with me last night? You didn’t want them to see pictures of us together? To know that you’re slumming it with me?” I force my voice to remain light as I ask the questions that are searing my chest like branding irons.
Her mouth drops open. “Slumming it with you?”
I shrug again, trying to keep that same forced lightness. “Sure. I’m the college dropout. A drummer in an indie rock band. Sure, we’re doing good now, but how long can any of that last, right? Especially to two college professors, I must seem like the worst kind of boyfriend for their precious daughter.”
She recoils from the venom infecting my voice by the last sentence. I take a deep breath, trying to rein it in. I shouldn’t be lashing out at her. It’s not her fault her parents are the way that they are.
But it is her fault that she lets them have as much influence over her as they do. They don’t want her here. She’s said as much multiple times. How much worse to have her romantically involved with a band member?
“Do they slut-shame Blaire as much as the media does?” The question slips out before I can call it back, and I can tell from the blank look on her face that my barb has hit its mark. “They do, don’t they? You heard it for the last few years at every family dinner. No wonder she never wanted to go home to visit with that waiting for her.”
She’s shaking her head. “No. She thought they didn’t want her, but it wasn’t true. My parents wanted to adopt her after her parents abandoned her. They’ve only ever wanted what was best for her.”
“But their version of best, right? Not what Blaire wants. And Blaire’s parents left her to go back to their lives as touring musicians, right? That’s the story I heard, anyway.” At her slow nod, I continue. “Right. So your parents don’t exactly have a rosy view of bands and tours and musicians, do they? Maybe they didn’t harass Blaire to quit and come home the way they do with you, but they never had the same hold on her either. They aren’t her real parents, no matter if they wanted to adopt her or not. She went her own way, made her own life, chose her own family. And now they see you following in her footsteps, in the footsteps of her parents, and they’re panicking. Aren’t they?”
She doesn’t respond. But I know I’m right. She does too, even if she won’t cop to it right now.
“Which makes me the bad guy, tangling you up even more in this world of glitz and glamour and sex and music. Pretty dresses. Awards shows. Nonstop sex. What else did they say about me? Did they warn you to be careful? What was their big worry? That I might get you pregnant? Give you a disease? Get you hooked on drugs? Make you fall in love with me and then cheat on you?”
I wait, curious if she’ll answer. Curious what they actually said.
Her lips part, and I think maybe she’ll say something, but she doesn’t. Instead she swallows hard and seems to be trying to pull herself together. Standing, she faces me, that cold, unfeeling mask back in place for the first time in ages, and I hate it. I hate it so fucking much I want to scream. I want to throw things. I want to punch a hole in the wall. Anything to break past that facade she uses to shut me out.
She let me in, and now she’s shutting me out.
Because I am a dirty little secret. I’m my parents’ secret shame. And I’m the weight dragging Viola down. Keeping her from whatever life her parents have mapped out for her.
“I need to go,” she says quietly, her voice barely louder than a whisper. “I think …” She swallows again, her throat working hard like she’s having trouble forcing down her bile. “I think I need some space. I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”
And that’s it.
Something shifts. There’s an almost audible break deep inside me. And just like that, I know this is over.
Chapter Forty
Viola
I walk out of Mason’s suite on autopilot and
