And she knew.
“All right, Letty, I know that you’re probably thinking it’s way better if you do this project with that gal pal of yours, but wait, okay? I got reasons why this is gonna be fine.”
“Is that seriously why you’re here? To stop me asking Harrison to switch us?”
“Well…no. Not stop you exactly. Stop is a really strong word.”
“While I’m glad you’ve learned that—” she said, her voice briefly catching when she saw his wince. He winced, her mind hissed, before she forced herself to finish. “I still think it covers what’s happening here.”
“I just wanted to talk to you about it for a second. Just, like, hear me out.”
“I want to. I really do. But come on. You know I wasn’t born yesterday. This has all the hallmarks of some kind of trap or prank or joke at my expense.”
“How could it possibly be a trap or prank? He put people together based on…I don’t even know what he put people together based on. But it couldn’t have had anything to do with me.”
She searched his face, looking for the lie. Waiting for him to show some hint of bullshit, beneath those too-kind eyes and his spread hands and the obvious logic of what he was saying.
Only there was nothing, nothing, nothing.
And it made no difference at all.
“Okay, I buy that. I do. Yet the fact still remains: I cannot do a project with you. Ever. You have to know that doing anything like that is completely impossible for me. Right?”
“I was just thinking that maybe…maybe you could give it a chance. You know, now that we’re on speaking terms and everything is almost cool between us.”
“You think everything is cool between us?”
“Well, maybe not cool exactly. More like…okay.”
“Still need to dial it back a notch, chief.”
“Reasonable? Not bad? Kind of semidecent?”
“That last one is getting close.”
He sighed, shoulders sagging.
Relenting, she thought. He’s actually relenting.
“Fine, we are a fucking disaster.”
“Now you’re getting the idea,” she said.
“But I figure we can work on it.”
“By doing a project on sex in the cinema together?”
“Well,” he said. “When you put it like that it sounds dumb.”
“There’s no other way to put it! That is literally what you’re suggesting.”
“Yeah, I get that. I just…want to not get that. I want it to be easier or better or just not the way this is.”
“That could have been my daily prayer in high school, Tate.”
He didn’t react the way she expected to, with more weird arguing.
He just closed his eyes.
He closed them like someone had just told him his family had been in a fatal accident.
“I wish I could go back and start over again. More than wish—I would give everything I have to start over again. The wrestling, this scholarship, every party I ever went to and every fun thing I ever did. And you can choose to not believe me about that, but—”
“I believe you.”
“You do?”
“I’m as surprised as you are, but yeah.”
“Then why does this have to be such a big deal?”
She thought of Lydia saying attempted murder.
The terror that used to flood her when he walked down the hall.
That ever-present sensation of a grille barreling into her body.
“Because understanding that someone is truly sorry and wanting to spend huge amounts of time with them are two different things. I might see that you mean this, and know rationally that I can almost sort of trust you. Maybe I even want it to be that easy, too. But your face is the one I had nightmares about for two years. Your smile doesn’t seem happy to me. I associate it with cruelty.” She shook her head. Glanced away from him so she didn’t have to see the defeated look on his face. “It’s hard for me to look at you, Tate, no matter how much I appreciate what you’ve done here.”
“That was a really well-thought-out and logically sound speech.”
“I know it was. I’m pretty proud.”
“And I have no argument against it.”
“You don’t need one. What you’ve done here…” She gritted her teeth hard and looked at the ceiling. But this time it didn’t stop the tears. They were already welling up by the time she explained the rest to him. “It means a lot. And a million men would never have done the same, I can promise you. I don’t have any messages from Jason on my phone. Patrick Whitworth isn’t going to call anytime soon. It’s just you, a rare fantasy in the middle of all this dismal reality.”
He turned around when she was done. All the way around—and then his arms went up to cover his head and she understood. What she said had affected him, strongly. Maybe more than his words had affected her. It took him twice as long to get it together, and even after he had he couldn’t quite look at her. He just kept staring at the wall and clenching his jaw.
And saying things. Oh yeah, he said things, in a strained, shaky voice.