“It’s okay,” I told him, and dumped my stuff on the couch. I suspected he’d already blown through most of the fudge.
“No, it’s not.” He took a pull from his bottle. “I was a jerk, and that wasn’t cool. I was just…surprised.”
I nodded. “I know.”
We didn’t speak for a minute. “How long have you known?” he asked, and I hesitated—not sure if I wanted to tell him. Part of me wished he could just know, and then we could go from there. But when Nick nudged my knee with his, I knew that wasn’t happening.
I took a deep breath. “A while,” I admitted. “Years.” I fiddled with the old rope bracelet on my wrist, remembering when I was twelve: first feeling a flame of something after Cal laughed at one of my jokes. The way my heart had gone in and out. Charlie, Charlie, he’d said. You kill me.
It wasn’t until later that I untangled the truth. The yearning for his approval, the obsessive staring as he and my sister held hands, and the curve of his jawline—so strong and confident. Not to mention the massive meltdown I had when they’d broken up. While Kitsey drowned her sorrows in chocolate, my fourteen-year-old self had full-on sobbed. “Well, Charlie’s also taking it pretty hard,” I’d overheard Dad on the phone with Uncle Theo, chuckling. “You’d think it was him who’s had his heart broken!”
I’d known then, everything in me shuddering. But in bed that night, I stilled the shudder to a clench. Ignore this, I told myself. Forget him and ignore this.
But I never quite could. That clench became a constant, impossible to ignore.
“Oh, wow,” Nick said now. “Years?”
“Yeah.” I rubbed my forehead.
“So you were faking with all those girls?”
I sighed. “Pretty much.”
“That must’ve been”—he ran a hand through his hair—“really hard.”
I shrugged and sort of smiled. “Just a little.”
“But now you have Luke.”
“Right…” I raised an eyebrow. “Now I have Luke.”
Nick started picking at his bottle’s label. “I talked with Sage earlier.”
“Ah,” I said, feeling a rush of relief. They’d talked, they were talking. Hopefully that meant I hadn’t royally screwed things up between them, that they could work their way back to each other. Maybe this was the first step. “You know she’s always known too,” I added. “Way before I ever told her.”
He nodded. “She said that.”
“Okay, good.”
“Are you going to tell Mom and Dad?” Nick asked.
I sighed. “That’s complicated. I sort of wanted to tell them at Christmas, but then…” I trailed off, not knowing what to say.
Nick took another sip of ginger beer. “When do you think it’ll become uncomplicated?”
“I’m not sure.” I suddenly felt really tired. “I’ll figure it out.”
My brother nodded. “Now tell me about Luke.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Tell me about Luke.”
“Uh…” I started, again not sure what he expected me to say. “He’s cool…and nice…I really like him…” An understatement, but I didn’t want things to get uncomfortable.
“Oh, come on,” Nick said. “You’ve had to listen to us talk about girls for forever, and that must suck. So I’m all ears. What’s he actually like?”
My heart flickered. “Seriously?”
“Yes, take it away.”
“Okay, well, he’s pretty epic,” I prefaced, and then started telling him random stuff. I told him that Luke drank a minimum of three cups of coffee in the morning, taking it pitch-black. I told him that Clue was Luke’s favorite board game, and that he took legit notes whenever he played. I told him that Luke drove his dad’s sweet Land Rover Defender back home, and dipped his fries in vinegar. That he was a terrible singer, but could play piano without missing a note. About how he wanted to be in the FBI someday. “And you should see him when he sleeps,” I found myself saying. “I can always tell when he’s dreaming, because his mouth quirks up in this little smile, and his breathing hitches, and then his eyelids flutter without actually opening—”
Nick coughed. TMI.
“He’s a really great cook,” I said, swinging back around. “You need to try his pancakes; he makes them from scratch and adds cinnamon. His family has two cats, and his Spotify playlist is also totally on point, but One Direction is his guilty pleasure…”
I went on like that for a long time, but Nick didn’t cut me off. It was only when I yawned that things wound down. Nick switched off the lights and climbed into bed as I zipped myself into my sleeping bag. “Thank you for telling me,” he whispered after we said good night.
“You’re welcome,” I whispered back.
“I’m happy for you,” he added. “You know, happy about you and him.”
I smiled to myself. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Good night, Nick.”
Nick was quiet, and then, “I love you, Charlie.”
“I love you too,” I said.
And then we went to sleep.
Chapter 29
Sage
“I think Luke has a boyfriend,” Reese declared one night, beaming confidence. The four of us were in her room getting ready for Brooks’ seniors-only “Wild West” mixer. I stopped braiding Jennie’s hair, hoping I’d heard her wrong, because if not…
“Wait, what?” I said.
“I think LM has found himself a boyfriend,” she repeated. “Kinda obvious, isn’t it?”
“What’s obvious?” Nina asked, walking into the room with her phone charger. She hopped up onto Reese’s bed and plugged it into the nearby outlet, looking perfect in her orange flannel and brown fringy skirt.
“Luke has a boyfriend,” Reese said for the third time.
“Oh my god.” Nina nodded quickly. “He totally does! All the texting!”
“And he cuts out early,” Jennie chimed in. “He hasn’t watched a movie with us in forever.”
I wanted to groan. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” was Luke’s signature exit line. “My bed won’t stop calling me.” And then he’d try not hard enough to hide his smile as he left to go meet up with Charlie.
“Exactly,” Reese agreed. “Don’t you think, Sage?”
You have to weigh in, I told myself. If you don’t, they’ll think you know something.
“Sage?”
“I guess it’s possible,” I finally said, starting over on one of Jennie’s braids.
“Okay great.” Reese clapped her hands together, and then with a twisted smile, said, “Now who do we think it is?”
* * *
“I have to tell you something,” I said when Charlie and I reemerged from tonight’s “saloon.” The kitchen island had been transformed into a bar, with a card game going on at the table and people mingling all around. We’d gone in for a couple of root beers, and now we retreated to a quiet-ish corner of the common room. The girls and Luke were on the far side, caught up in the madness of the mechanical bull. So far Nick had the record for longest ride, but Charlie had made a PSA that he planned on topping it later. (“I thought you were working on his ego,” I’d whispered to Luke, who’d sighed and whispered back, “It’s been a process.”)
Charlie twisted off his bottle cap and took a slug of his soda. I reached up and adjusted his cowboy hat. Tonight he belonged in a John Wayne movie. “What is it?” he asked.
“Okay, so…” I took a deep breath. “The girls are pretty sure that Luke has a boyfriend…and are, um, trying to figure out who it is.” And they’d been warmer rather than colder, suspecting it was someone in the closet since Luke told us last month that Tristan Andrews wasn’t his type.
I wasn’t sure how I expected Charlie to react, but he r
olled his eyes à la his better half. “Of course they are,” he said. “Can’t anyone mind their own freaking business at this school?”
I didn’t answer, thinking, Why can’t you tell them? They’re your friends.
“I can’t wait for this weekend,” he added under his breath. “To just get out of here.”
My ears pricked up at that. “Where’re you going?” Bexley was giving us a long weekend in honor of MLK Day. My mom was picking me up tomorrow so we could go skiing in the Pocono Mountains. Mr. and Mrs. Carmichael were away right now, so the twins were staying on campus.
Charlie glanced around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “Charlottesville, Virginia.”
“Charlottesville?” I asked. “What’s in Charlottesville?”
“UVA.”
I raised an eyebrow. “UVA?”
Charlie shrugged. “Luke wants to visit.”
I smiled, and launched into my version of the Gilmore Girls theme song: “And where Luke leads, you will follow…”
“Dear god, Sage…”
“…anywhere…”
Charlie groaned and pulled down the brim of his cowboy hat. I resisted the urge to ask him about college, assuming he was still choosing a school. He’d mentioned nothing about his ED choice, so something told me it hadn’t worked out. I didn’t want to rub salt in the wound.
“How do you plan on pulling this off?” I asked, since leaving campus was far from a piece of cake. If we weren’t just going into town, Bexley housemasters required permission from parents before allowing us to go anywhere.
“Simple,” Charlie replied. “[email protected].”
“But of course!” I exclaimed. [email protected] was Mr. Carmichael’s secondary email account. Apparently, he’d created it a few years ago, saying that he wanted to “separate” work stuff from home stuff, but ended up neglecting it completely. However, it took less than three seconds for Charlie to hack into the account—Mr. Carmichael was notorious for using the same password for everything—and he proceeded to take full advantage of it whenever a situation arose. He’d given himself countless permissions.
“So basically, the school thinks I’m going home for the weekend, and that…” He trailed off, plastering on a smile. “Oh hey, you two.”
I turned to see Nick and Emma—in their own flannels and cowboy hats, with Nick also wearing a gold sheriff’s badge—approaching us. Emma was smiling brightly, but Nick looked stressed, rubbing his forehead.
“Do you want to get a drink, Emma?” Charlie asked after a few minutes of mechanical bull chitchat. He gestured his empty root beer toward the saloon. Once they were gone, Nick’s tense shoulders unwound.
“So…” he said. “Skiing this weekend, right?”
“Yup.” I nodded. “Cross your fingers it doesn’t rain.”
Nick chuckled and held up a finger-crossed hand.
“What are you doing this weekend?” I asked, even though I already knew. Staying here.
“Oh.” He rolled his eyes, but I detected a slight smile. “Charlie’s put me on dispatch. I’m fielding any parental calls while he and Morrissey go off the grid.”
I laughed. “You’re a wonderful brother.”
Nick reached up and ran his fingers through his hair. “I almost wish I could go with them, though.” He coughed. “I mean, not really. Because obviously they’ll be…uh…”
“You’d be third-wheeling so hard.” I smiled.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I just don’t want to be here.”
“So come skiing,” I blurted, heart suddenly fluttering. “Come to the Poconos. My mom won’t mind. She has your garage code, to get your stuff…”
Nick shook his head. “Sage, I can’t,” he whispered, stepping closer. “I have to stay here.” He nodded at Charlie and Emma, returning with sodas. “I need to do something here.” He glanced at the floor, then looked back up so we made eye contact. His were so very blue.
Hope sparked. He was going to do it; he was going to break up with Emma. I reached for his hand. Not to hold, but to squeeze in support. My feelings aside, I would always support Nick.
“Okay, guys,” Emma said as I snatched my hand away from her boyfriend. “Charlie has officially challenged the bull. He’s up in a couple of rounds.”
“She speaks the truth,” Charlie confirmed. He began rolling up his sleeves. “Wish me luck.”
“I hope you get knocked all the way into next week,” Nick said blankly.
I nodded, a swirling in my stomach. “Or the week after.”
“Oh, come on.” Charlie flashed us a smile. “That’s poor sportsmanship.”
We both gave him middle fingers.
He rolled his eyes.
Emma laughed.
Chapter 30
Charlie
The train Luke and I caught wasn’t as early as I would’ve liked, but we found an empty section and stuffed our duffels in the overhead compartment before flopping down into our seats. The plan was to do homework on the ride, so I was surprised when Luke unzipped his backpack and pulled out his Ray-Bans. He silently offered them to me.
“What’re those for?” I asked.
“To complete the disguise,” he replied drily, gesturing to my outfit: my wool coat overtop his Adidas sweatshirt. Its hood was pulled up over a black hat Mrs. Morgan had knitted me.
“Oh,” I said, biting the inside of my cheek. Our train had a changeover in DC, and a bunch of Bexley kids lived there. We hadn’t been the only ones waiting on the station platform. “Sorry.”
Luke gave me a long look. “Is it going to be like this the whole weekend?”
“No.” I shook my head. “No, I promise.”
Then I tugged down the hood.
* * *
We got to Charlottesville after dark, and took an Uber to our Airbnb. It was an apartment just a few streets over from UVA’s campus, courtesy of Luke’s Keiko Morrissey–tracked American Express card. Unlike me, Luke had real parental permission to leave school. “Does she know I’m with you?” I asked, to which he responded, “You mean with me here? Or with me, with me?”
Both, I guessed. She knew both.
That rattled me a little. What if she told my aunt and uncle?
The apartment was a studio, with hardwood floors and each corner serving as a different room. The kitchenette was against the far brick wall, complete with a tiny Ikea table and two aluminum chairs. Taller than the fridge, Luke opened it to find only a bottle of ketchup.
A small sectional couch sat atop a cool ropey rug and faced a flat-screen, and I checked out the bathroom only to almost walk into the sink. Very compact.
“Should we flip a coin?” Luke joked as we eyed the bed. “To see who has to rough it?”
“No way,” I said, falling back against the mattress. After a long day on the train, it was the most comfortable thing ever—a queen with a soft striped bedspread and simple white pillows. “I will happily rough it here,” I told him. “You can have the couch.”
Luke laughed, and then he was on top of me and kissing me. “Such a gentleman,” he whispered. “Thank you for coming.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” I asked, a hand now in his hair. “I mean, I’m also—”
Luke’s stomach rumbled.
I tipped my head back and laughed. “Should we go find dinner?”
“Eh, not yet,” Luke said. “Maybe later. Right now I just want to…”
I didn’t let him finish the sentence.
* * *
Both our stomachs were grumbling by morning, since maybe later never came to fruition. So we walked over to The Corner, one of UVA’s main social hubs, a street lined with everything from Starbucks to a student center and plenty of stores and restaurants. Pretty much postcard-worthy. There were also a handful of side streets that I kne
w Luke and I would explore at some point. But first was a trip to Bodo’s Bagels before a campus tour. “I did some research,” Luke admitted as we pushed through the doors. “And this is the place to come for breakfast.”
“Sounds about right.” I nodded. “If this…” I gestured to the winding line of students, most of them looking pretty hungover from a wild Friday night. “Is any indication.”
Luke smirked and pressed closer to me, and two cups of coffee and sausage-egg-and-cheeses later, we crossed the street to the school. I’d downloaded a map, but Luke already seemed to know his way around. “My dad took me to one of his reunions,” I remembered him once saying, but it was still hard to believe. He’d been so young then.
We started with The Lawn. “Good, similar jargon,” I joked, but unlike Bexley’s circular Meadow, UVA’s lawn was rectangular and rambling, a historical court outlined with neoclassical brick pavilions and rows of individual rooms. “Our founder Thomas Jefferson called this the ‘Academical Village,’” I overheard a nearby tour guide saying, a group of parents and prospective students trailing behind him. “It’s the symbolic center of campus, and for their final year, forty-seven students are selected to live in its dorm rooms—a true honor.”
“Follow me,” my own personal tour guide then said, leading me off the grass and onto the stone walkway. Luke stopped in front of a black door whose gold placard read: SYDNEY BLAIR. Outside sat a rocking chair, along with a small trough full of wood. I too had done some research, learning that each lawn room had a fireplace. “This is it,” Luke said. “This was my dad’s room.” His throat bobbed. “He was a Jefferson Scholar.”
GRAHAM MORRISSEY, I imagined embossed on the nameplate, and four years from now: LUKE MORRISSEY. It seemed inevitable.
We stood there in silence for a minute. “How do you remember this?” I asked eventually. “Weren’t you only ten the last time you were here?”
One side of Luke’s mouth quirked up. “Charlie, I remember everything,” he said, knocking his hip against mine. “Everything.”
I waited a second, but then leaned over to quickly kiss his cheek, not bothering to check if people were watching. You can do it, I’d realized earlier, at breakfast surrounded by strangers. You can be anyone here, nobody knows you here. You can be you here. This is what college is for, and you can start right now.
If We Were Us Page 21