For now I kept Charlotte’s secret, knowing Elle needed to stay focused on the play. Being sound assistant hadn’t involved much so over the last few months I’d become a general assistant, running around after crew and actors and getting them what they needed.
Walking through the halls that night with a cooler filled with bottled water, I passed students and their parents as they milled around before curtain-up, smiling at those I recognized.
“India!”
I whipped around and found Patrick striding toward me.
“Hey.”
“Let me help you.” He took the heavy cooler out of my hands before I could protest. “Where are we taking it?”
“Backstage.”
“Ah, behind the scenes.” He grinned. “Lead the way.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
I began leading him toward the backstage door. It was awkward between us because I’d been deliberately keeping my distance from him. He seemed more than a little confused considering I’d flirted with him at Hayley and Theo’s engagement party.
I led him inside and we headed to the large dressing room. “We come bearing water!” I called out cheerily, and we hadn’t even breached the doorway when we were bombarded by actors.
When the crowd dispersed I found Eloise.
And she wasn’t alone.
Finn stood next to her...and he did not look happy to see Patrick next to me.
Ignoring his narrowed eyes, I strode over to Elle, sensing Patrick fall into step behind me. “Here,” I said, handing her a bottle. “Hydrate.”
She smiled wanly. “Thanks. I hate that I get so nervous.”
“It goes away, right?” I said.
“Yes. As soon as I hit the stage...” She trailed off, turning pale. “Excuse me.” She pushed past us, possibly heading somewhere to upchuck.
“Will she be okay?” Patrick said.
Finn didn’t do a very good job of not scowling at him. “She’s always sick before a performance. She’ll be fine.” He looked at me. What is he doing with you? his look said.
I shrugged.
“Should you go after her?” Patrick said.
Finn looked insulted by the implication that he wasn’t fulfilling his boyfriend duties. He was. Just...to me. I was getting the possessive boyfriend treatment.
“I will.” I brushed between them, wondering if Finn ever gave a thought to how it made me feel when he and Elle got affectionate in public. At first it seemed to bother him, but now he didn’t give me silent “sorrys” with his eyes. It was like he thought I was used to it or something.
But God forbid I should walk by another boy’s side.
I thought of Gabe and how much of an idiot he was acting about Charlotte.
Finn wasn’t looking any smarter than his friend.
Guys were such dumbasses.
* * *
As it turned out, Elle did get over her nerves as soon as she set foot onstage. The audience was, like me, mesmerized by her. In the last act, when I watched the scene again when the boy playing Emily’s husband, George, throws himself on his wife’s grave as she looks on, and she turns to her mother-in-law and says, “They don’t understand, do they?” I knew now why I got those goose bumps every time Elle delivered Emily’s line. The real emotion she put in it didn’t just come from losing her mom; it came from having her secret. It came from knowing and feeling things her classmates just couldn’t understand yet, and maybe never would.
And while last time I watched Elle on that stage I’d been in awe, now I knew her, now I cared about her and now I was proud of her.
When the play was over, after her roaring standing ovation, I left Elle to get dressed and take off her stage makeup and I headed out front to see our parents.
Hayley’s cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were bright as I approached.
“Wasn’t she wonderful,” she gushed. “I just... Theo, you never said how talented she was.”
Theo frowned. “I think I did, you know.”
“You did,” I agreed. “So did I. But I guess you have to see it for yourself.”
“Why isn’t Eloise pursuing acting?”
“Eloise is going to do something useful with her life and become a doctor. Don’t fill her head with nonsense about acting.”
Hayley raised an eyebrow at Theo’s tone. “It’s not nonsense.”
“Hayley,” he warned, and I stepped back, not really wanting to be there for a public spat.
“Don’t Hayley me,” she said, glancing around to make sure no one was listening. “Eloise can be a doctor, a pilot or an actor for all I care...as long as she’s happy.”
They had a stare-down but Hayley refused to back down. I was kind of impressed.
Theo finally sighed. “I see Donald Keating.” He disappeared, and Hayley glowered after him.
“Was that your first disagreement?” I teased, trying to lighten the mood.
Hayley shot me a look. “No. It’s not.”
I frowned. “Trouble in paradise?”
“No.” She hurried to my side, threading her arm through mine. “Our different backgrounds make for different attitudes. Theo has expectations for Eloise and now for you. I just don’t want either of you to feel pressured by them.”
“I don’t feel pressured,” I assured her.
Hayley brushed my hair from my face, her expression turning tender. “Have I told you lately how proud I am of you?”
I tensed, still not so evolved that I could easily accept praise from her.
“I am,” she insisted, her grip on me tightening ever so slightly. “You came into this strange Boston world, not happy to be here, and yet you grabbed it with both hands and made it your own. And you’ve charmed everyone, including Eloise.” She smiled. “That kid was so lonely before you got here. You know, I think you might be her best friend.”
The truth was Hayley wasn’t wrong. And she’d shocked the heck out of me with her perceptiveness. “Elle wants to be a doctor,” I said. “Just to reassure you. It is what she wants.”
“Good to know.” Hayley grinned. “Guess I should go find my fiancé and smooth his ruffled feathers.”
“Ugh, Hayley, no dirty talk, please.”
She guffawed and lightly pushed me. “You’re so bad.”
And just like that she reminded me of a teenager again. But instead of it annoying me, it made me laugh as I watched her float through the crowds, oblivious to other men looking at her, when her entire focus was Theo.
“What are you laughing at?”
I glanced up at Finn, sobering. “Hayley.”
He nodded absentmindedly. “Can I have a word?”
I nodded and followed Finn as he led me through the crowded hallways and into a part of the school that was empty. The lights were low here and it felt eerie and quiet.
“Finn,” I whispered.
But he ignored me until he found a classroom door that would open. He gestured me inside and then closed the door behind us, pulling the blind down over the small window at the top.
“What’s going on?”
He leaned against the door and crossed his arms over his chest. “Why is it Patrick Donaghue can’t seem to stay away from you?”
I rolled my eyes at the exaggeration. “Oh, come on. I’ve spoken to him twice in the last few weeks.”
“I heard he’s going to ask you out.”
“Finn, I’m not doing this.” I was tired and hungry and so not in the mood for Finn in jealous boyfriend mode.
“Do you like him?” He narrowed his eyes on me.
Apparently when hungry and tired it didn’t take much to blow my fuse. “Are you kidding me?” I snapped.
“Well?”
“Are you listening to yourself? You can’t get mad at me for talking to a boy, Finn! I spend nearly every day having to watch you hold hands with Elle, give her kisses and hugs. You don’t seem to care how that makes me feel. You do not get to be pissed at me for talking to another boy—another boy who would have no problem holding my hand in public!”
Finn’s head jerked back, like I’d hit him.
My words seem to echo all around us as we stood staring at one another in silence.
“It’s...” Finn looked flabbergasted. “It’s just Elle. You know it’s... How can you be jealous?”
It wasn’t about Eloise. I knew rationally there was nothing going on between them.
Honestly, I didn’t know for sure what exactly it was that was driving me so crazy about the situation. “Forget I said anything,” I said. “I’m tired, that’s all.”
The apprehension didn’t leave his eyes but, as if he, too, was scared to take this conversation any further in case it led somewhere we couldn’t turn back from, he strode carefully toward me, cupped my face in his hands and pressed the sweetest kiss to my lips. “Let’s get you home,” he murmured.
* * *
Two days before Hayley and Theo’s wedding, I couldn’t believe we were finally becoming a family.
I stood in my walk-in staring at the bridesmaid gown I’d be wearing. Finn was in my bedroom, lying on my bed with the freedom of knowing that Hayley and Theo were out.
“Fast-forward ten years,” I called into the other room. “If you could have it exactly as you want it, what would your future look like?”
“I travel the world taking photographs for a living,” he answered immediately. “When I come home it’s to Boston, to an apartment in Back Bay where I live with you. You have a rock on your left finger that I put there, and we’re arguing about what we should name our first kid. My dad is not a part of our lives. At all.”
I smiled at the thought of that future, taken aback Finn was even thinking of “us” that far in the future, never mind the marriage and babies bit. I didn’t know a lot of guys our age that wouldn’t run screaming in the other direction just thinking about it. But Finn wasn’t like other guys our age. He got what was important. Like me. “Eloise lives a few blocks from us with her girlfriend, who happens to be very understanding about Elle’s crappy hours as an intern.” I strode out into the bedroom, and my smile died.
Finn wasn’t laughing. He looked completely serious. “Do you know why Patrick’s interest in you drives me crazy?”
I shook my head, surprised he’d mention it after we’d done such a good job these last few days pretending there wasn’t this horrible friction between us.
“Because you’re right. If you were with him he would have no problem telling the whole world you were his girlfriend. I can’t do that and I hate it.”
I stared at him, blown away by his honesty, and not quite sure how to reciprocate without giving away too much of myself.
Finn’s smile was tired. “So it’s hard for me, too. Just so you know.”
I leaned against my bedpost. “Okay.”
He nodded and shifted on the bed. He frowned as his hand moved under my pillow, and when he pulled his arm out, he was holding my ereader.
My heart lurched as he moved to switch it on. “Hey.” I jumped on the bed. “Private.” I waved my hand at him, gesturing for him to give it to me.
A slow smile lit up his face as he handed it over. “You can chill. I know you read romance novels.”
Heat flooded my cheeks. “Wha—how—what?” I sputtered.
He laughed and sat up, grabbing hold of my wrist so he could haul me none-too-gently against him. I collapsed onto him as he fell back against my pillows. He cupped my too-hot face in his hands, looking deep into my eyes. “I’ve known about your secret for a while,” he whispered. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”
“I—” I realized I didn’t know how to explain why I liked romance novels so much, or why I was so embarrassed by my addiction.
“It’s okay. You want the happy ending. There’s no shame in that, India. No shame in that at all.”
It was the way he said it. Just something in his voice.
It was like it flipped a switch inside of me.
I started to cry.
I pressed my face into his neck and bawled like a baby while he held me tight in his arms.
* * *
Sometime later, once I had calmed down, I settled my cheek on his chest and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
“Never be sorry,” he said.
“I want to feel happy for her without resenting her, without resenting myself,” I blurted. “Before I got here, met you, Eloise, I was this awful person who didn’t want Hayley to have happiness. I didn’t think she deserved it. Now... I want her to be happy but I’m not even sure if it’s because her being happy means my life here is permanent or if I just want her to be happy. And if I do just want her to be happy, then I feel angry at myself for giving her that. It’s so messed up.”
Finn stroked my back. “Hayley left you. She walked out on you for years and left you to a man who abused you. And the only reason she’s back in your life is because he almost killed you. I’m the last person to give you perspective on this because I’m angry at her, too.”
“Hayley did what?”
We bolted upright at the furious tone, my heart dropping to my stomach at the sight of Elle standing in my doorway. She was pale, with two red spots flushing high on her cheeks. Disbelief, horror, blazed in her eyes.
“Eloise.” I scrambled off the bed. “Elle, please.”
“No!” She held up a hand to ward me off. “You tell me everything, right now.”
Stomach sick, I could only stare at her, because I knew the moment I opened my mouth there was a possibility everything Hayley and I had built here would just go up in a puff of smoke.
“If you don’t tell her, she’s just going to make it up in her head for herself out of what she heard,” Finn said.
“I know you want to protect your dad,” I started, “but it’s not—”
“My dad,” Elle cut me off. “Yes, I do. But it’s not just about that... Jesus, India, is what Finn said true? Did that happen to you?”
Eventually I sat with my back resting against Finn’s chest, him supporting me physically and emotionally, as I told Eloise my story. Every little piece.
“That night with the food,” she murmured, looking a little lost. “That was because of your dad?”
I nodded.
“Oh God, I told Bryce of all people.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay!” Her eyes flew open and her anger blazed out. “Hayley left you to a monster! She just left you!” She stood up, hands shaking. “Does Daddy know?”
Fear choked me and I shook my head.
“About any of it?”
I swallowed past that fear and it was painful. “He knows my father wasn’t a good man. I don’t think he knows Hayley wasn’t there for all the times he wasn’t a good man.”
“Or that Hayley is the reason he wasn’t a good man,” Elle snapped.
“Elle, please. Please don’t tell Theo.”
Her eyes grew round with shock. “You want me to let him marry her not knowing who she really is?”
“She’s not a bad person,” I found myself arguing. “She made a mistake.”
“That mistake almost cost you your life. Do you forgive her for that?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “I don’t know. But I don’t think I could forgive myself if I destroyed what she has with Theo. She loves him, Eloise. We can’t take that away from her.”
“But what about my father?” she cried. “He doesn
’t know what the woman he’s marrying is capable of.”
“Yes, he does, because I told him.”
I immediately jumped away from Finn as Hayley pushed her way inside my room.
“People really need to stop eavesdropping around here,” I heard Finn mutter, and a little hysterical giggle escaped from my lips.
Hayley drank us all in, her features tight with pain, especially when she saw my reddened eyes. Finally she focused on Eloise. “I told Theo last week, a few days before your play. Things have been a little tense between us, but he’s come to forgive me. You can ask him yourself when he gets home.”
Eloise glowered at her. “He may have forgiven you, but that does not mean I have.”
“I don’t expect you to.”
“Why did you leave her? My mother was dying and all she cared about, all she kept apologizing for, was leaving me.” Tears glimmered in Elle’s eyes. “How could you willingly leave her?”
I tensed at Elle’s question and the way Hayley struggled to control her emotions. For some reason it was the question I’d never had the guts to ask Hayley, and she’d frustrated me over the years for never having the balls to bring up the answer herself.
Now she turned to look at me. “May I speak to India alone, please?”
Finn touched my arm, and I looked over my shoulder at him. Although my heart was pounding in my chest and I thought I might be sick, I nodded.
He slowly got up and walked, stone-faced, by Hayley before taking hold of Eloise’s hand. She stiffened and shot me a look.
I nodded at her, too, and she reluctantly let Finn lead her out of the room.
The door clicked softly shut but the noise might as well have been as excruciating as nails down a chalkboard for the way it made both of us flinch.
Hayley shook out her hands and lowered herself onto the stool by my vanity table. I sat on my bed and let the silence thicken. My stomach churned.