My chest crumpled inward. Congestion clogged my nose, and my throat shrunk my breaths to short gasps. The words blurred under tears that poured over my cheeks. Hot trails tickled my skin, but I couldn't lift my hands to brush them away. My fingers shook until they were numb.
Doubt exploded in my mind, multiplying down my brain's synapses and spreading to every corner of me. Once I started shaking, I couldn't stop. My shoulders convulsed, sending ripples through me and jiggling my breasts. A flood of negativity fluttered my eyes closed.
I wasn't good enough.
Stanford didn't want me.
I would never be a doctor.
The letter's descent swept to the floor and swooshed under my bed. Good. I needed the distance, although it wouldn't lessen the pain gouging a hole in my chest.
Walking out of my bedroom and splashing water on my face in the bathroom wasn't enough. The downstairs air was too tight, and the attention from my parents' curious eyes was too exposing. I slammed the front door behind me. My hands shook, grasping around the wheel of my car with enough tension to yank it off. I choked a breath and blinked at the night sky beyond our driveway.
I had nowhere to go.
Nowhere. I was never leaving this one-blink town. I had nothing to offer. The empty sky and sandy pink hills caged around me, compressing the dry air in my lungs.
I couldn't go anywhere, but I could cry. Hard. Painfully hard, to the point my chest seized in pain. Until I couldn't see past my knuckles gripping the wheel. Until the dashboard became unrecognizable blurs. Until my throat turned raw and my nose leaked. Until my body tightened and convulsed. Until a low rumbling sound on my left, cut off, followed by a muted door slam.
Brody's knuckles wrapped on my window. I knew he was coming, yet seeing him hammered home everything I didn't want to acknowledge. Guilt and concern flickered into his eyes, hooded under his brows from the angle he dipped his chin down, and the tip of his tongue wet his lips. He bent over with his hands on his knees and pressed up to stand. A pair of black sweatpants hung loose on his hips and filled the view outside my door before he opened it.
Leaning inside the car and bending over me, Brody's hand pocketed my keys from where they sat in my lap. His humid breath fanned over the tip of my nose. One of his hands hooked under my knees and the other behind my back. I braced his chest as he lifted me, spun, and closed my door with a kick. My feet touched down enough for him to hug me, and we swayed to stillness.
"Paige. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he rushed a breath over my ear.
I couldn't hug him hard enough. He was here. He came without me asking and apologized unnecessarily again. A thick emotion swelled in my chest, twisting with the doubt and negativity from my inadequacy. The way he stood and abruptly cut our call, I knew he was coming, but the reality of him here, sounding worried and gripping my waist as if he was afraid of losing me, was crippling. I buried my nose into his chest and inhaled the spring-fresh detergent on his sweatshirt.
"Thank you."
"Don't." His whisper came with a breath, tickling my hair across my forehead. "You probably don't want to hear this right now, but stop thanking me. I don't care if something shitty happened and you need me, someone messed with you, and you need me, or you're upset and want to see me, I'm here for you. Always. So, please don't thank me. Don't downgrade me into anything I do for you being a favor. If you want me, just ask. I'm here."
"Brody," I sobbed into his chest, curling my fingers into his shirt. How did he know what I needed to hear? My thundering heart pounded the sensible thoughts out of my brain, but they rushed back in a fury. His words held every comfort I needed to soothe my shattered emotions, but reality tore my heart in half.
As much as appreciation swelled in my heart for him being here, he wouldn't always be. And I wasn't ready to confront the reasons why.
"Let's get you inside," Brody murmured into my head.
He ignored the shocked looks on my parents' faces and steered me to the stairs.
"Brody? Paigey?" Mom approached with a look of concern. "Are you hurt?"
Not physically, but I could only choke out a raspy sob and bury my face in Brody's side. Our joint walk was slow and clumsy, but he guided me with infinite patience and strength by my waist.
Dad's recliner spring sounded as he closed the footrest. "What happened? Brody—"
"It wasn't me," Brody said over his shoulder, squeezing his arm around me tighter. "I got you, Paige. Three more steps."
The door closing barely registered, and Brody guided me to the edge of my bed. I sank, leaning over and falling into my pillow. The side of my head above my ear hit first, followed by me pushing my damp cheek into the cool fabric. "I need to get ready for bed," I whispered. Kicking him out was the last thing I wanted, and I trembled.
"Hey." His hand smoothed over the top of my head. His finger snagged a few hairs, but I closed my eyes, squeezed out more tears, and exhaled a shuddered breath. "Can I help?"
"What?"
"Can I help you?" he asked, then froze. "Sorry, it's personal, I shouldn't—"
"It's okay. Be right back." I was too exhausted to care. Sitting up took too much effort, even with Brody's help. Doing the bare minimum in the bathroom, I exited it in pajamas and held my door frame.
Brody had pulled back the sheets on my bed, but it looked a mile away. His standing over my vanity made it look smaller. He crossed his arms and frowned at the options.
"White bottle, purple cap." I pointed and sat in the middle of my bed, reaching for the edge of my sleeves.
His hand caught my wrist, gently squeezed it, and his intense stare sucked the air from my lungs. Time paused, but my pulse throbbed where he gripped. His eyebrows raised. Was he asking permission? To—
"Let me," he said in a low, uncertain voice.
I nodded, pressing my lips and circling my wrists to present the inside of my arms. Brody sat next to me, making the bed dip. His fingers curled the edge of my left sleeve, pushing with his thumbs and rolling with his fingers. All ten fingers worked one curl at a time, increasing my skin exposure.
Time evaporated. There was only Brody, the tips of his thumb pads tickling and scratching my skin and his warm brown eyes pinning me with their thick emotion. He paralyzed me, forcing me to watch each peel back of skin on my left arm, then my right.
I shivered, but I wasn't cold. Heat radiated between our clothed legs. His thigh pressed against mine, and he was sitting at an awkward angle. My heart raced at the silent intimacy building and filling me with warmth.
Indecision flashed across his face, and he held the bottle over my left elbow. "Here?" His voice cracked around the word.
I nodded, unable to speak, blink, or think beyond jumping over the darker striations in each of his irises. There weren't many, leaving large expanses of medium brown carrying so much warmth. Unlike me, he didn't have many freckles—one under his right eye, another on the apple of his left cheek, and a very distracting adjacent to the divot on his upper lip. Dark brown, they looked strategically placed. Like each one had a distinct, special purpose.
The white cream left the bottle in a raspy spurt, dotting my skin in a smattering of cool blobs, and faint coconut oil passed between us. "I like this smell." His voice was barely above a whisper. "Reminds me of you."
It was a beachy smell to me, especially when I applied it post-showering from the beach. I stilled at his touch, rubbing the cream up the back of my arm, halfway down my forearm, and around the bump of my elbow. His slow, deliberate fingers made me tremble. His touch was so different from my hard, fast applications, caressing the tensed muscles with heated pressure. I slacked my spine and rounded my shoulders, swaying where I sat.
Brody repeated the process on my legs, rolling my pajama pants to raise the fabric over my knees. He knew the muscles he rubbed over better than me given how they melted under his attention. His gaze preceded where he rubbed, moving in micro-previews of where his fingers traveled. I held my breath to start and was almost panting when he finished.
"I take back what I said about your fine motor skills." My murmured words earned me a grin. He stood to return the bottle to its place in the lineup and held up the plastic wrap. I nodded before he asked, and he bound my elbows with an unexpected tightness. It wasn't painful, but I blinked at the compression on my knees and tugged my pant edges to my ankles.
"Thank you," I whispered, rolling over and letting tears wet my pillow. "I'm a mess."
"Not to me." The bed dipped next to me. He stretched on his side until his legs extended over the end of my bed, bent one knee over mine, bumped a socked foot between my bare ones, and draped a heavy arm over me. He rolled me over to face him, threaded his other arm under me, and the warmth of his lips met my forehead in a gentle press. His fingers smoothed my hair down the back of my head, and the other hand held me close. My pulse raced at the contact, and I shuddered into him, bumping the tip of my nose on his chin. His arms squeezed tighter.
"You look beautiful."
Barely above a whisper, he was probably just being nice, but my heart swelled at the genuine sincerity in his voice. No teasing, no hints of feeling sorry for me. Pulling back, he was smiling as if I wasn't a mess. As if my burning eyes weren't red with irritation, my cheeks and nose swollen, and plastic wrap wasn't binding my elbows, knees, and stomach. As if he didn't want to be anywhere else but here.
How could he say I looked beautiful? There was no way I looked anywhere near beautiful, more like beautifully tragic, but I wanted to stop thinking about what he did or didn't mean. Thinking hurt too much, and the pulses throbbing in my forehead agreed. I bumped my nose on the underside of his jaw and made a noise of disagreement.
"It's my fault if you don't believe me."
His words were such a quiet admission. Had I imagined him sounding guilty? The movement of his neck and hum beneath his skin tingled my nose, but before I asked, he rolled onto his back, taking me with him. I half-draped over his side, my cheek resting on his chest, my elbow hooked over his ribs, and my knee bumped his.
Heat grew between us, and I leaned into the warmth from his palm cupping my face. Rough-textured but sturdy. His other hand traveled up and down my back, tracing my spine with splayed-open fingers and stopping between my shoulder blades to move down and repeat the process.
The contact, along with his murmured words, was so soothing. I melted under his reassurance, slacking my torso around his and slipping under the drowsy sensations he hand drew over me. Each stroke lulled me closer to sleep until I released my last resistance and gave up.
Before I slipped into sleep, my brain deceived me, tossing out one more bitter, broken-hearted thought:
Not every story had a happy ending, and mine felt very much like it couldn't.
I woke up alone. Brody's spot was empty, but he texted that he had to go home and another when he arrived. My parents were surprisingly understanding, coming into my room after he left, but I burrowed under my blankets and pretended to be asleep. Facing them was the last thing I wanted to do, so I was beyond thankful they let me sleep while they opened the bakery.
The plastic Brody wrapped on my arms remained perfectly secured in place. I almost hated to remove them. He did so good rubbing in the lotion, another layer went on quickly. I dressed, tied my hair up, and found another pleasant note from my parents in the kitchen.
Sorry about the disappointing news. We'll talk tonight.
Love, Mom and Dad
Their kind words turned my oatmeal into cement. I choked down three bites before giving up, brushing my teeth, and getting to school. Brody was leaning against my locker with concern in his eyes. His gaze roamed over me as if searching for damage.
For once, how I felt physically wasn't dominating my mood. "Good morning."
"Hey," he said in the most tentative version of his voice. His continued searching made me blush. "Did you sleep okay?"
"Yeah." I gave him a tiny smile. How attentive and supportive he was made last night unforgettable. "You were such a good pillow. I didn't wake up when you left."
The tips of his ears turned pink, but the flattery in his eyes made me smile wider. It was a sad smile, and I turned to put my lunch in my locker. Biology seemed like a waste to study now, but I grabbed my book to read during Home Room. Mr. Martinez warned our upcoming exam was the most difficult he'd ever created. I didn't believe him but wasn't taking any chances.
Brody didn't say a peep until I turned. When I faced him, he handed me a white paper.
Dear Brody,
Congratulations! It is with great pleasure that I offer you admission to Stanford University. We have full confidence you will bring something original and extraordinary to the intellectual life of our campus, and we look forward to immersing you in the facets of Cardinals student life.
Your distinguished academic and extracurricular achievements captured our attention as we received over 35,000 applications. Clearly, you have worked hard to become the gifted individual revealed in your application.
Stanford is only one of the options you will consider in the upcoming months. We would like you to use the time between now and May 1 to learn more about us. We invite you to participate in an upcoming video interview with our prestigious Athletic Department heads to discuss the detailed terms and conditions of your James. T. Willburn Athletic scholarship. Whatever your decision, we ask you to return the enclosed enrollment form no later than May 1.
Congratulations on your current achievements, and please contact us if you have any questions or concerns.
With very best wishes,
Dean of Administration and Finance
Wow. I—wow.
Brody got in. He got in, and he deserved it.
I knew he'd been accepted by the torn look on his face when he opened my car door, but the proof trembled in my grasp.
My heart exploded in excitement while shattering into infinite pieces.
He got in, and I didn't. I wish we both had. Going together would've been perfect, and now our lives were perfectly fucked up.
Brody leaned his shoulder against a nearby locker and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I'm sorry."
Correction: now our lives were perfectly fucked up, and he was unnecessarily apologizing for it.
"Don't apologize." I hated how mean my voice sounded as I returned his letter. Bitter and jealous was not a good taste in my mouth, and he deserved neither. "Congratulations. I'm happy for you."
"You don't sound happy."
I scanned the hallway, finding every set of eyes on us, but Brody's stared into mine. My pulse quickened, and I took a slow breath to calm it. He looked at me with an uneasy smile, waiting for my answer. The longer I stood, clutching my books to my stomach, his smile faded into a frown.
"Paige?"
The feeling of feeling too many emotions at once made me as still as a statue. Brody got in, and he deserved me feeling happy for him, but I couldn't feel anything beyond the ache in my chest.
"I don't know what you want me to say, Brody," I mumbled and closed my locker. "I need to go to class."
"Okay." His hand extended to me with his fingers stretched open. The same large, white-callous fingers that offered me so much comfort waited for me to close the gap and interlock between them. For the sake of our relationship—the real one—I needed to, but I couldn't.
I clenched my books. Brody's eyes filled with a pain he didn't deserve, and I hated myself for putting it there. Shuffling my books to one arm, I grabbed his retracting hand. "Sorry," I mumbled. He didn't deserve me lashing out irrationally at him. "It's not your fault."
He let the hallway crowd and noise swallow us. His fingers tensed tighter around mine the longer we walked. Whether in reassurance or worrying if I would slip away, I wasn't sure, but an invisible drifting sensation had already taken root. It grew from the ugly jealousy festering inside me, and the worst feeling of all was helplessness from being able to stop it.