“I’m only on campus on Mondays and Wednesdays this term, so I may be able to find something now. I can apply for all the fast food places, retail, delivery—wait, no, you need a car for that…”
“Have you ever had a job?”
“I worked at a fast food place in sophomore year. Mother wouldn’t pay for a game I really wanted. Too much blood and guts for her little boy’s sensitive eyes. So, I got a job to pay for it myself.”
Charlene brightened a bit. “Well, that’s something.”
He grimaced. “Not really. I got fired in two and a half days.”
“How did you—?”
“Long story.”
The two hastily packed up what little had been taken out of their bags and headed down the stairs. The others had finished packing, and Catherine was waiting outside for everyone to leave.
Charlene found Elisa and Camila. Colin followed close behind.
“Can you drive?” she asked Elisa. “I’m a bit buzzed, still, and Colin’s…” She trailed off.
“I can’t focus on the road right now,” he said.
Elisa nodded. “No problem. Is everything okay?”
Charlene faltered, her eyes pricking with tears for the first time that night. “Nothing’s okay. But it will be. We’ll figure it out.” She took a breath. “Colin’s moving in with me.”
She stared at them, but it only took three seconds for her to piece it together.
“She kicked you out?” she whispered to him, stunned. He shrugged wordlessly.
Charlene nodded. “And cut him off.”
“Christ.”
“I’ve got some money put away,” Colin said, “but once that runs out, I’m broke.”
Elisa touched his arm sympathetically. “Welcome to the dark side,” she said, trying to joke. “And if you need any help getting moved in, or applying for financial help, or finding a job—call me. My family’s perfected the art of surviving while broke.”
Colin, Camila, and Charlene followed Elisa to the car—the car that would be Catherine’s again by the end of the weekend. Catherine stared her son down as he passed her, but he didn’t even look her way. He definitely knew she was there, though. Charlene saw his bottom lip shake and how hard he was fighting to keep his gaze straight ahead. She squeezed his hand in solidarity.
Once they were in the car, Elisa hooked up her phone to the speakers and put on some music, correctly guessing that no one was in the mood to talk. Charlene leaned her head against Colin’s shoulder, closing her eyes. She just wanted to sleep forever—or at least until this godawful day was over.
Chapter Nineteen
In Which Elisa Brings Charlene Up to Speed
Elisa and Camila returned home on Friday night—or, more accurately, early, early Saturday morning. Alejandra had never liked Colin much, but when her daughters told her what happened, she’d immediately gone into “mama bear” mode. She’d been happy to give him some pointers on how to create a budget. Although $5,000 was far more than she had in the bank, she understood that when you didn’t have any income, whatever money you had suddenly didn’t seem like so much. When she heard that he still had some things left in his old room at Catherine’s house, she’d downright insisted on going to retrieve them herself.
“So you can focus on getting out of your old apartment,” she said. Elisa, however, knew the truth: she didn’t want to make him see his mother.
Elisa was glad. She hadn’t asked how Colin had gotten that scratch on his face, but she could guess. Her own mother often drove her crazy, but as she watched her drive off in the minivan to go get his things from the dragon’s den that was the Burger estate, she was suddenly feeling pretty lucky.
Colin had managed to load almost everything from his apartment into his car, though it was packed so tightly, he’d had to use some bungees to hold the doors shut. It took them about half an hour of working together to get everything out. Finally, though, all the boxes were sitting on the front desk of Longbourn’s lobby, and he called his father to come and collect the car.
Mr. Burger took the keys from his son and gave him a sad look and a hug. He said, “You’ll be fine,” before driving away.
He didn’t, Elisa noticed, apologize for what Catherine had done, or make any move to stop what was happening.
Once Mr. Burger, and Colin’s beautiful Mercedes, disappeared over the horizon, they began the tedious process of moving each box up to the apartment. That took the better part of an hour, the elevator being as slow as it was. But finally, they got the last box off the counter and could start unpacking. This wasn’t how Elisa had planned to spend her Saturday afternoon, but she doubted this was how they had planned to spend theirs, either.
“We’re making two piles,” Charlene said. “Stuff we want to keep and put away, and stuff that I already have, or we just don’t need. We’ll try to sell that stuff first and give it to Goodwill if we can’t.”
“Makes sense,” Elisa replied, pushing the apartment door open with her foot. Her arms were full with a box labelled: BOOKS, NONFICTION—1/4. Colin had almost as many books as her father. She was sure there would be a bit of debate about how many he really needed to keep. Charlene was a reader herself, but, well…limited floorspace.
“Thanks for helping us out, Elisa,” Colin said.
“No problem. I’m just sorry you’re in this position.”
He sighed. “Yeah, me too. But it’s for the best. If she acted like that when we’re just dating, imagine what she’d be like wh—if we got married.”
Charlene leaned over to look in her own box, which conveniently hid her grin. “Okay, hon, do you really need the candelabras?”
“They could class up a Friday night dinner.”
“Of ramen and diet root beer?”
He considered this. “Fine, we can sell them.”
She began moving the candelabras to the “get rid of” pile, saying, “You heard from your mom at all?”
He shook his head. “Not a peep. This whole thing is a mess.” He tried to smile. “Congrats on dodging that bullet, Elisa.”
Elisa snorted. “I’d laugh if this wasn’t all shot to hell.”
He nodded in agreement, sorting through his own box (button-up shirts, casualwear). “In all seriousness—I’m so sorry about all that. About how I acted. I was a jerk.”
She patted his shoulder. “Thanks. I actually like you a lot better now that you’re into someone else.”
“Eyyy, she’s talking about me,” Charlene said with a cheesy grin in her boyfriend’s direction.
Elisa smiled then went back to the box she was digging through. “What was your mom even doing there, anyway?” she asked. “She said you could have the cabin, right?”
Colin groaned. “Ugh, I should’ve known—she’d figured out I was hiding something. I don’t know how I ever thought I’d get away with it for long. I mean, I asked to borrow our secluded, romantic cabin over Valentine’s Day. She knew something was up. That’s why she had me invite Darcy, too. She was supposed to be a spy for her, but she sort of failed at that.” He rolled his eyes, muttering to himself, “Darcy giving us a heads-up would’ve been nice, but nooo…”
“You know, I was expecting an exciting weekend, but this isn’t what I had in mind,” Elisa said. She opened a new box and found herself faced with a collection of Beanie Babies. This was somehow both surprising, and not even slightly surprising at all.
“Did you at least have fun before everything went to shit?” Charlene asked. “I’ve been so preoccupied with this, I nearly forgot there were other people there.”
“Uh, it was…interesting,” Elisa said, opening another box. “Willow and Cam sang karaoke, I lost a game of euchre, Willow told me Darcy broke up Bobby and Julieta, Darcy told me she’s in love with me, I found a stick that I could use to hit Cath—”
She was cut off by Charlene and Colin saying, “What the hell?” at the exact same time.
“Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you—Darcy broke up Bo
bby and Julieta, and she’s in love with me.” She was trying to be casual, trying to hide how much her mind was reeling.
“She said she loves you?” Charlene said, eyes wide. “Like, her words?”
She nodded. “Her words.”
“What did you say?”
She rolled her eyes. “What do you think I said? I shot her down. Hard.” She glanced at Colin. “Congrats on dodging that bullet.”
“You shot me down pretty hard,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, but compared to how I was with Darcy, I was downright pleasant.” She sighed. “She opened up this whole thing by saying she hates my family, that they’re embarrassing, that our social standing is so inferior to hers.”
“Wow, I never knew Darcy was a romantic,” Charlene said.
“And she didn’t deny what she did to Wick. Or what she did to Jules. I mean, she seemed proud of that. She’s convinced Jules is a gold digger, so she pulled Bobby away from her.”
“Does Julieta know?”
Elisa shook her head. “No. Cam and I talked about it before we went to bed last night. Julieta was already hurt by Bobby leaving. The full truth would kill her. And if Mom knew, she’d kill Bobby and Darcy.”
“I mean…would that really be so bad?”
“Only because I’d like to keep Mom out of jail.”
“Oh, please. Your mom would take over within a week, and we all know it.”
She snorted. “I’d rather not find out. So, we’re keeping it to ourselves. Cam hasn’t even told Lucia. They normally tell each other everything, but, well…if Radio Lulu knows something, so does all of Longbourn and the entirety of Steventon Public High.”
“I can’t believe this all happened yesterday,” Charlene said. “It feels like we’ve all aged about ten years overnight.”
“I knew she liked you,” Colin said, “but I had no clue about her breaking up Bobby and Julieta. I thought it was obvious Julieta really, really liked him…”
She stared at him. “You knew Darcy liked me?”
“I knew she had a crush.” He shrugged. “Willow told me.”
“Willow knows?”
“And so does Bobby.” He paused. “And Gianna, probably.”
Elisa groaned. “Wait, is that why you didn’t stop her from following me?”
He nodded, looking guilty. “I didn’t realize just how much you hated her, or what she did to your sister. I told her you wanted to be alone, but then she told me she had a present for you, and I thought, you know, if you two got together, it could be…cute.”
“You wanted someone to double-date with, didn’t you?”
“So much.”
She snorted. “Well, you’ll have to keep looking, because me and Darcy is never gonna happen.” She straightened from where she’d been hunched over a box of ceramic figurines. “Char, do you have any coffee?”
“No. I ran out yesterday.”
“I’m gonna pop over to my apartment to get some, then. I didn’t get nearly enough sleep last night.”
“Hurry back,” Colin said.
Elisa slipped out of the apartment, heading down two floors to her own.
Stepping out of the elevator, she saw just about the last thing she expected or wanted outside her apartment door.
Darcy Fitzgerald, in the flesh.
“Oh, come on,” she groaned.
Darcy jumped, glancing up. She’d been bent over and looked quite undignified as she scrambled to her feet. She shrunk away slightly as Elisa approached her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, words sharp.
“I—um, I…” Darcy stammered, which was a side of her she had never seen. “I was delivering this.”
She held out an envelope with Elisa’s name in loopy cursive writing on the front.
“A letter?” she asked, confused. She didn’t take it.
“Don’t worry. It’s not a repeat of last night’s…embarrassment. It’s just to clear a few matters up. You—you…you don’t have to take it if you don’t want to. I understand if you don’t. I just…um…” She trailed off, still holding the envelope in front of her.
Elisa let out a huff and snatched the letter from her, not sure if she intended to open it or not, but taking it would get her to leave faster. “Anything else?” she asked, crossing her arms.
“No. No. I, uh…no. Goodbye.”
Darcy began to leave, and Elisa called after her, “How’d you find my address?”
She turned back to face her. “After Willow began to sober up this morning, I told her what had happened. It was her idea that I write a letter for you, and she knew where you lived. I hope you don’t mind she shared the address with me.”
“No, it’s…fine,” Elisa said with a sigh. Dammit, Willow. “So she knows? About this whole…whatever the hell this is.”
Darcy nodded. “She actually helped me write this letter.”
“Colin told me he knew, too,” she said. “About your…feelings.”
She sighed, shifting uneasily on her feet. “I could’ve killed Willow when she told me she told him.”
“So, everyone in your…group…knew you…”
“Knew I was pining away over you? Yes.”
“I was gonna say ‘had a thing for me.’”
Darcy tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Willow said that the only reason she had not yet attempted to, quote, ‘hit that’ was because she was aware of my feelings.”
Elisa briefly considered saying that had Willow asked, she probably would’ve taken her up on the offer. Then she realized she really didn’t hate Darcy that much. So instead, she said, “Anything else? Or are you just gonna stand there all day?”
She winced. “I’m sorry. I’ll go,” she said. “Tom’s supposed to drive me back down to Columbus in an hour.”
“Have a safe trip,” she said, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Thank you. I’m—I’m sorry I bothered you.”
Darcy practically ran away, leaving Elisa with the envelope in her hands. She leaned against the wall outside her apartment, debating whether to open it. She wasn’t convinced she wanted to hear anything Darcy had to say.
But the curiosity was killing her.
Finally, before she could talk herself out of it, she ripped open the envelope and unfolded the letter.
Chapter Twenty
In Which the World Gets Turned on Its Head
Dear Elisa Benitez,
I have spent the past few hours thinking of nothing but our last conversation. About what I said to you. About your rejection of me. About your reasons for rejecting me. About your accusations against me.
About things I could’ve done or said differently.
This letter is not intended to change your feelings toward me in any way. I understand that the odds of your feelings changing are highly unlikely, if not outright impossible. It is only intended to deliver my side of the story on both crimes of which you have accused me. I realize, as Julieta’s sister and an acquaintance—or possibly more—of George Sedgwick, you may have an incomplete view of things. Not always false, but incomplete. I wish to provide you with information you may not have, so you can draw your own conclusions. You are, of course, not obligated to read this letter. Given your dislike of me, I wouldn’t blame you for not wanting to hear anything I have to say, and I respect that. So, this will be my last communication with you for the foreseeable future, unless you are the one to initiate it. That’s a promise.
If you’ve gotten this far, I’ll assume you’ve decided to at least grant me the time it will take for you to read this. You do not have to reply to it, unless you wish to do so. Feel free to tear it up, burn it, make it into a papier-mâché project if you wish. But please, please hear me out.
Your first accusation: that I broke up Bobby and your sister. This is true. I stand by what I did. However, upon further contemplation, I’ve realized that if anyone were to know the true depth of Julieta’s feelings, it would be you. Perhaps
I was wrong, about Julieta’s apparent lack of affection for my friend. I am willing to concede that your sister may have indeed had real, genuine feelings for him. But this, ultimately, doesn’t change a thing. If Bobby was so easily swayed, then maybe I was wrong about the depth of his feelings, too. In any case, I think telling them the truth of what happened would only cause them both more heartache. Bobby’s moved on with his life, and from what I’ve heard, Julieta has, too.
Now, on to your second accusation: that I had Wick kicked out of school for no reason. This is a lie—with one tiny nugget of truth buried within it. I don’t know what details—or rather, his version of all the details—Wick told you, so I’ll start from the beginning.
Wick’s father went to military school with my own. Although the Sedgwicks were of a lower social standing, they were often over at our home as I was growing up. Dinners, playdates, game nights, parties, even just to hang out—Wick and his parents were a frequent presence in our lives. He was about three years older than me, but I never let that stand in the way of our friendship, and neither did he. He was practically a brother to me. He always talked about how he wanted to go to Winchester Military Academy in Columbus, where we were living, like his father. But it was expensive, more than the Sedgwicks could afford. So, my father promised Wick that, when he was old enough, he would pay to send him.
My parents died when I was fourteen. Wick was seventeen at this point. Gianna and I were in the custody of Willow’s father—my father’s brother—and our parents’ finances were divided between my aunt, my uncles, my sister and myself, although Gianna and I were not to access our funds until we were eighteen. So, when it came time for Wick to start at military school, my Aunt Catherine asked me if I still wished for his way to be paid. I said yes. I didn’t hear from Wick again after that.
At first, I tried to tell myself that he was simply busy. He was in college now, preparing for his future. However, as I continued to reach out and he remained silent, it gradually became clear to me that he had moved on—and that his future, apparently, didn’t include me. It hurt, but I survived. I’d known Bobby all my life, but this was when we really became close. He was there when I was reeling from the loss of both my parents and my surrogate brother. I’ll always love him for that.
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