“What does that have to do with anything?” Mom says quietly.
I try to laugh, but it comes out as this choked sound. “Everything. It’s the reason I’ve been scared to tell you how I really feel about working for B+B, the reason I’ve been scared to leave. Because I don’t want this to fall apart without me—not because I’m some integral piece of the business, but because I’m constantly worried you’re going to start fighting about flowers, or candles, and there won’t be anyone there to intervene. You’ve just—you put on this act for B+B’s sake, pretending you’re so in love and you have this perfect marriage, but I can see through it. I know it’s not real.”
“Quinn.” Dad shakes his head, disbelieving. “We’re not pretending. I don’t know what gave you that idea, but… that was so long ago. We’re all past that now.”
“How can we be past it when you’ve never talked to me about it? When Mom just moved back in one day and we were supposed to pretend the previous six months weren’t the most miserable of my life?” I blink blink blink to soften the pressure building behind my eyes. I won’t cry in front of my parents. I won’t.
My mom gets to her feet, readjusts her glasses, and squares her shoulders. Back to no-nonsense Shayna Berkowitz. “I think we’ve had enough. This whole circus needs to stop, Quinn. You’re acting like a child.”
“Funny,” I say. “You’ve never treated me like one.”
25
I have to find Tarek. After pausing in the bathroom to thumb away mascara smears from beneath my eyes, I race through the museum and back into the tiny restaurant kitchen, where he’s helping unpack a tower of bakery cakes.
His back is to me, his shoulders stiff.
“Tarek?” I say, reaching for his arm. “What’s wrong?”
I want him to tell me that this whole thing is a mess, but we’re going to fix it. Even if I’m not supposed to want that from him.
I should be glad, then, when he says, “That was… an enlightening conversation you had with your parents.”
Aware we’re not alone in the kitchen, I lower my voice. “You heard that?”
“Parts of it. I’d just gotten back with the cakes, and I wanted to make sure you were okay.” He must see I’m about to lose it because finally, he softens. “What you told them, about not being part of the business anymore. That was… a lot. Are you okay?”
And then he is comforting me, even after I said something so horrible about him.
Slowly, I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I just need to—” I break off, unable to catch my breath, unsure what I’m apologizing to him for. Tears back up behind my eyes, and I smash my hands into them, again willing them not to fall. I can only hold them back for so long.
He gets me a glass of water before asking Harun if he can cover when his parents get back and guiding me out of the kitchen and into an employees-only corridor with too-bright lighting and a geometric-print carpet that looks like a relic from the eighties. These are all the things someone would do to comfort a girlfriend, and even if I’m not a girlfriend, not his girlfriend, I don’t ask him to stop.
I lean against the wall, focusing on the blue-green hexagons on the carpet and taking slow sips of water. “I—I really fucked up.”
Tarek moves closer, places a hand on my shoulder. It’s not enough. It’s nice, but it’s not enough. I want to bury my face in his chest and lose myself in him, shut out the rest of the world and my parents’ demands and the daughter they wanted that I will never be again.
I’m no longer the girl who always says yes. I didn’t just tell them no—I told them never, and it feels worse than I imagined.
“They’re your parents. They’ll forgive you,” he says into my hair in this steady voice that makes me want to believe him. “They’ll understand.”
Sure, they might understand I want to find something I’m passionate about. But this will forever alter my relationship with my family, Mom-Dad-Asher on one side and me, all alone, on the other.
Another thought occurs to me. “Please tell me I haven’t completely ruined things for your parents too. No, I don’t deserve that. Let me have the worst of it. Tell me how bad it is.”
“You haven’t ruined anything for anyone,” he says. “My parents are fine, and your parents are going to bounce back. They’re good at what they do. People will understand that this was a mistake. It could have happened to anyone.”
“Maybe.” A future in which B+B doesn’t exist is too terrible to contemplate, regardless of how much I’ve wanted to separate myself from it.
“This is going to be the worst part. You’re in the thick of it now, but it’s going to get better. And hey—you finally did it. You ripped off the Band-Aid.”
“I just have to hope the wound doesn’t get infected.”
He cracks a smile at that. “Not sure how much longer we’re going with this metaphor, but hey, even if it does, I’ll get you some antiseptic.”
God, he’s too good. “I can’t believe they had the audacity to suggest the reason I haven’t been ‘myself’ this summer, or the version of myself I’ve been pretending to be for all these years, is because of you.”
Tarek’s eyebrows draw together a little too tightly. “But you told them I’m not the reason. That I’m—that I’m nothing.”
He heard that, too.
Fuck.
“Tarek. That’s obviously not—you’re not—I mean—” I stumble over my words, trying to backtrack. “I said there was nothing going on between us. Not that you’re nothing. You’re—you’re not.” I can’t even give him a compliment.
He pins his shoulders to the opposite side of the corridor. “Right. A huge difference.”
“You don’t know my parents like I do. This is everything to
