by Nia Stephens
“Actually, only you can break your own heart. But what you’re doing to Justin is just plain wrong. If you can live with that, fine. Your love life’s your own business. But you know how evil this is.” Kylian smacked his forehead. “Now you’ve got me talking like I’m on a soap opera! This has got to stop.”
“Where are you going?” Bree asked, watching Kylian shuffling into his massive puffy coat. He looked absolutely idiotic, like a midget Michelin man, but he stayed warm all winter.
“I’m meeting Lucas for coffee, then we’re going to hear Kelly Link at KGB.” He swooped down to give Bree a kiss on the cheek. “Just for the record, I think you’re going to be on Santa’s naughty list this year if you keep this up.”
“Who cares? It’s not like Santa ever put true love in my stocking.”
“But he did bring you that vintage ballgown you wanted so badly last year, remember?”
Bree groaned. “Of course I remember! It’s the most beautiful thing I own!”
“Well, then. Nighty-night, sweetheart.”
“Nighty-night.”
Bree put on her darkest, reddest lipstick and frowned at herself in the mirror. She didn’t like it when guys used her; she couldn’t like herself if she used guys. It really was as simple as that.
But, it was too late to call Justin and cancel. His limo should be downstairs within the next five minutes, if he was on time. And she had to give him Jason’s books anyway. She had devoured them during the week since she had a lot more free time without Sutton hanging around her apartment, distracting her. She decided not to give Jason her number, though. If he could convince his brother to give it to him, great. If Justin wouldn’t pass on her number, fine. It was a lot to ask of someone, and, if he really cared, Jason could try to hunt her down.
Bree was slipping into her black silk evening coat, lined with a superfine, superwarm merino, when the night doorman called to let her know that her ride had arrived.
“Thanks, Calvin,” she said, giving herself one last once-over in the full-length mirror. Golden silk stilettos peeked from the bottom of her coat, the same color as her hair. She approved of the packaging, but she was unimpressed with the soul inside.
“Time to get this over with,” she said sternly to her reflection, then she marched resolutely toward the elevator as fast as her high heels would allow.
Justin relaxed in the back of the limousine as if he spent every night in a custom-tailored tuxedo. He gleamed like a polished statue from the top of his freshly shaved scalp to the tips of his night-black shoes. Before he could say anything, even hello, Bree got in and dumped Jason’s books in his lap.
“I can’t go out with you tonight,” she said in a rush. “I don’t think we should see each other anymore. I’m really sorry. Bye.”
Bree flung herself towards the door, but Justin caught her hand.
“Wait! What—”
“I don’t want to talk about it, and you wouldn’t want me to talk about it. So let’s just say goodbye, all right?”
“No, it’s not all right! I know we just met, and we barely know each other, but I feel connected to you, Briona! I want to get to know you better!”
“Jason?”
“I knew it was wrong to try to trick you. But I didn’t know how you would feel about Justin giving out your number—”
Bree took a closer look at Jason, fully realizing what he’d done for her. “You shaved your head just for tonight?”
He shrugged, a desperate look on his face. “It’s just hair. It’ll grow back. I wanted to see you!”
Bree knew it would sound melodramatic, like something from A World Apart, but she had to say it: “You do see me. From the moment we met, you saw through to the real me.”
Jason smiled, then pulled Bree into his arms. “So you feel it too? It’s not just in my head?”
“Yes,” Bree assured him, cuddled to his chest. “But what about your brother? How did you get him to switch with you? I feel so bad!”
Jason laughed. “I bribed him.”
“With what? Basketball tickets?”
“I told him he didn’t have to come see any of my plays for the next six months.”
Bree giggled. “Glad to hear I’m so cheap!”
“You’re not cheap, Briona. You’re very precious. If Justin couldn’t see how much there was to you, that’s his problem.”
“Well, in that case—” Bree kissed him, first lightly, then fiercely, clinging to him with both of her tiny gloved hands. She had come so close to losing any chance with Jason, she would never take any moment with him for granted, even if things didn’t work out for them in the end. But it was hard for Bree to think about the future, good or bad, when she was twined around Jason, locked in a kiss that would melt all the ice in the champagne bucket if they didn’t stop. Bree hoped that there was an icemaker hidden somewhere in the limo, because she didn’t think she would ever let him go.
BREE SEEMS HAPPY ENOUGH WITH HER CHOICE. WHAT DO YOU THINK?
turn to page 93 to see what would have happened if she decided to dump Justin, or turn to page 53 to choose another boy.
So you think Bree should come clean with Justin and tell him she’s no longer interested in him? Read on to find out what happens!
Chapter 7
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Bree waited an hour after waking up to call Justin—she never called anyone before noon on Sundays. After all, she was wide awake but had yet to crawl out of bed.
“Hello, Bree,” Justin said after the first ring. “Decided to come to the premiere?”
“Um, no actually,” she said, burrowing further under her blankets. It was a warm, flannel-soft world under the covers, unlike this uncomfortable conversation. “I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”
“Oh. I see,” Justin said flatly. “Then goodbye, Bree.”
“Wait! I want to—”
Before Bree could even try to explain, her phone was flashing Call ended 00:00:47. She wasn’t about to call Justin back.
But how was she going to return Jason’s books? Just dump them in the hall outside of their suite, maybe with her phone number tucked inside? It was so . . . forward. And maybe even weird. What if this whole Jason thing was in her head? Justin and Jason would both laugh at the poor, deluded high school girl who didn’t know a good thing when she saw it, throwing away a chance with the twin who was into her after one short conversation with his brother?
Another problem for another time, Bree decided, turning her phone off and diving deeper into her sheets. Maybe her dreaming mind would have more plans for her when she woke up.
“It’s the nicest toilet you’ve ever seen. It’s made of black marble, and the flusher-thingie is made of gold. It’s got the bluest, prettiest water inside, and all you want to do is—”
“Sutton, what the hell are you talking about?” Bree asked, bolting upright. Sutton was kneeling on one side of the bed, whispering in her ear. Kylian was standing by the doorway, trying to smother hysterical laughter.
Rather than answer her, Sutton patted the bed experimentally. “Sorry, Kylian, it’s bone dry. We’ll have to try again when she’s sleepier.”
“I couldn’t be any sleepier. I was asleep,” Bree sighed, collapsing back into her pillows.
“More deeply asleep then,” Kylian said, joining Bree on the bed. “Scoot over, piglet.”
“What are you guys doing here?” Bree demanded as Sutton squeezed in on the other side.
“We came to comfort you after making a hard decision,” Sutton said, tucking Bree’s covers in on her side.
“You mean you came to yell at me until I agreed to dump Justin and give up on Jason,” Bree said accurately. “I already did, so don’t bother.”
“Seriously? Did you call him last night?” Kylian asked.
“No, around noon. What time is it now?”
“Almost two! Come on, we weren’t out that late. Get out of bed! Get dressed! Your mother will think you’re
suffering from teen depression.”
“Mom reads too many parenting books,” Bree said with a sigh. Ameera’s teenaged years could not have been more different from Bree’s, and Ameera always worried that she was making terrible parenting mistakes. She worried so much that Ameera didn’t do much of anything to parent Bree at all. But she made sure there was food in the fridge, that she was home at least two or three nights a week, and that Bree was not staying out past eleven on school nights and two-thirty on the weekends. And she paid obsessive attention to Bree’s grades. Otherwise, Bree was largely on her own, which made Ameera the most popular mother among Bree’s friends.
“Probably. She knows more about adolescent psychiatric disorders than my mom does,” Kylian replied. And that was saying a lot. Kylian’s mother was a child psychiatrist who treated lots of child stars and, coincidentally, a lot of their classmates at Rittenhouse. That was one reason Kylian didn’t get bullied about his sexual preference—students were afraid he could get into his mother’s secret files. He probably couldn’t, since Dr. O’Connell-Mercer kept them locked up, but her office was in their apartment, so people left Kylian alone.
“Well, Mom would be right this time. I am depressed. I just know that things would have worked out for Jason and me. It was like a bolt of lightning connected us—”
“Puh-lease,” Sutton teased. “Save the theatrics for the camera, Bree, and get over yourself. Didn’t the website recommend three other perfectly nice boys without evil twin brothers to lead you astray?”
“Jason wasn’t the evil twin,” Bree insisted. “He was the good twin.”
“Justin wasn’t evil either,” Kylian said. “He just wasn’t for you.”
“It was pretty evil for him to hang up on me.”
“He what?” Sutton and Kylian gasped at once.
“Yep. I was in the middle of a sentence, trying to explain—”
“Whoa. Stop right there,” Sutton said, signaling a time-out. “You actually tried to explain that you’re into his brother? You’re out of your mind!”
“I didn’t even get that far. I was just going to say that I didn’t think we were really compatible.”
“Were you going to finish off with, ‘I hope we can still be friends?’” Kylian asked with raised eyebrows.
“All right! I’ve had enough! Why don’t the two of you just get lost!” Bree wailed. “I’m having a really bad day here, and you two are not helping.”
“Stop being such a whiner,” Sutton said, making no move to get out of Bree’s bed. “You barely know this Jason guy. There’s plenty of worms in the ground.”
“Plenty of . . . ?” Bree shook her head, unwilling to think too hard about that one.
“If you really want us to go, we’ll go,” Kylian said.
“In fact, we were on our way to the park. They said on the news that several snakes disappeared from the zoo overnight. Think about it, Bree: missing snakes!”
“Sutton, why am I supposed to find that tempting?” Bree asked, utterly mystified.
“What could be more tempting than snakes in Central Park?” Sutton crowed.
“There might be a wedding to crash at Tavern on the Green,” Kylian suggested.
“If you two will leave me alone for ten minutes, I’ll get dressed,” Bree promised. After shooing them into the living room and locking her bedroom door, she thought seriously about going back to sleep. Of course, knowing those two, they would pick the lock.
So she got dressed and followed them to the park, then on to Starbucks for coffee, then to Sutton’s apartment to do homework. The whole time, though, Bree’s mood never really improved. Once she finally wandered back to her place and saw the stack of books Jason had loaned her, she felt even worse.
The least I can do is read them, she decided. It’s the one way I can get to know him better.
Over the next five days, she devoured plays by Wole Soyinka, the Nobel Prize-winning African playwright, essays on black writing by Toni Morrison, poetry by Amiri Baraka, and everything else Jason gave her. They taught her so much about what the arts could mean in black culture, she knew she would always be grateful to Jason, even if she never saw him again. She wanted to talk with him, especially about the place of film and theater in terms of black culture—she had some ideas to bounce around with someone else who cared about that kind of thing. It all just strengthened her belief that they belonged together. But there was still the problem of getting in touch with him.
A week later, after reading the last word of Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman, Bree decided to drop off the books at Jason’s dorm. If she was lucky, he would be hanging around his room when she dropped by. It was a Sunday evening and chances were good that he would be finishing his weekly assignments. Nine o’clock seemed late enough that he wouldn’t be at dinner, so she headed over to Columbia at eight twenty-five.
Light seeped from under the door to the common room, and Bree could hear the tinkle of feminine laughter soaring above a bass chuckle. The soprano had an awfully cultivated, charming laugh—an actress’s laugh. Bree knew one when she heard one.
Damn, she thought. Jason’s a director. Of course he’s dating an actress. That’s just how it works.
She dropped the books on the floor and turned to go when the door swept open behind her. Justin seemed to pose in the door, his arm just high enough to reveal the girl reclining on his futon. Bree’s first thought was, runway model—she had that impossibly tall, impossibly elegant look, emphasized by skinny white jeans and a white sweater. It made her pale brown skin look rich as caramel.
But then Bree realized that she knew her. It was Ashleigh Chambers, an actress who shared her agency. In fact, she had heard from Fiona that Ashleigh had a bit part in Heart-Shaped Box—as a stripper.
Ah, she thought. They met at the premiere.
“Hi, Bree. This is Ashleigh,” Justin said, his voice louder than it needed to be. He didn’t even look surprised to see her. In fact, he was smirking, a smile so smug and nasty Bree wanted to smack him, even though she wasn’t the least bit jealous of Ashleigh.
“Yes, I know.” Bree smiled up at him, genuinely happy for them both. Ashleigh was beautiful, but completely brainless according to Fee—Bree thought the two of them would be perfectly happy together.
“You saw the picture from the premiere in Variety?” Justin’s smirk had fallen just a bit, but not much.
“No, I know Ashleigh. Hi, Ashleigh!”
Ashleigh dropped her elegant pose long enough to wave.
“Well, you two have fun!” Bree said, turning again to go.
Justin followed her down the hall and halfway down the stairs.
“You’re a better actress than I thought,” he said when he caught up with her, actually grabbing her wrist to stop her. “You expect me to believe that you don’t care at all?”
“I probably am a better actress than you think, but that wasn’t acting,” Bree said, gently removing his fingers from her wrist. “I don’t care that you two are dating. I think you deserve each other.”
Bree bounded down the stairs before Justin could try to convince her that she really was jealous. She knew that her ego was on the chubby side, but Justin’s ego could be a float at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. For a non-actor, he was being awfully dramatic about a rejection after just two dates. Bree was actually laughing out loud by the time she reached the dorm lobby, and had to lean against the door to catch her breath.
When she looked up, she realized that she was face to face with a poster for Jason’s play, a rainbow of black faces with glimmering gold letters. Slashed across the middle was a white banner proclaiming Final performance tonight!
She glanced at her watch and raced across campus to the theater. She was late enough that the usher let her in for free. The theater was crowded, but she found an open aisle seat near the center of the theater and watched the rest of the play with her fingers crossed. She hoped she could find the way backstage, or corner a tech w
ho knew Jason’s number.
Watching the colored lights sweeping across the stage, Bree wondered how they were controlled. She followed the rainbow to the control booth at the back of the theater above the lobby, and saw light glinting on a familiar pair of glasses.
It can’t be, she thought to herself. That was too easy.
When the play was over, while everyone else gave the phenomenal cast standing ovations, Bree dashed to the lobby and looked for stairs to the booth.
“Over there,” said a confused usher when Bree demanded to know how to get to the control booth. He pointed at a plain white door that led to a black iron, spiral staircase. Before Bree reached the top of the stairs she saw Justin coming down the steps toward her.
“I thought that was you in the audience,” he said, surprising her with a hug. “I saw that hair and the white coat, and I thought it had to be you! What are you doing here?”
“I had to return your books,” she said, her face still pressed against his chest. She could feel his heart thrumming behind his ribs in triple time—that strange connection that had tormented Bree all week was not just in her mind.
“My books? Oh, right. Well, anyway, I’m glad you came.” Bree kept thinking that he would step away, or she would, but she didn’t want to let him go. Being in Jason’s arms felt perfectly right: less like the summer wildfire of his brother’s kiss and more like a cozy fireplace in the middle of winter.
“Uh, Jason?” called a voice from the booth above. “You’re supposed to be bowing. On stage.” When Jason and Bree didn’t move, the voice continued: “They’re waiting for you.”
“Let’em wait,” Jason said faintly, his arms tightening around Bree. “I’m not going anywhere for a little while.”
Bree gave him a kiss that made that little while a lot longer.
THAT SEEMED TO WORK OUT FOR BREE—BUT DO YOU THINK SHE MADE THE RIGHT DECISION?
turn to page 85 to see what would happen if she decided to stick with Justin, or turn to page 53 to choose another boy.