Page 54 of A Favor Owed
She shrugs and gives me a smile that’s a combination of mischief and delight. “Whatever,” she says, lifting her shoulders and rocking back and forth giddily. I give her an Angie-worthy eye roll.
I look over at where my parents stand on the subway, my dad’s arm wrapped around my mom, protecting her from the jostling of other passengers. I may never have been in a relationship, but I know a good one when I see it. Theirs is rock solid. It’s more than love and attraction. It’s trust and respect and working through some really tough shit together.
Seeing what my parents have, having shared the loss that defines them—it’s a big part of the reason why I’ve never settled down. Granted, before now I’d never met someone who got my insides tied up in knots to the point where I couldn’t think of anything other than her. But the bigger reason is that there was no one I trusted to be there for me when shit got real.
And then I met Angela. The girl who inadvertently got my dad arrested for making false identity documents is the only girl I’ve ever met who feels like part of my family. It’s impossible. It’s a firestorm. And no one knows better than I do that it’s dangerous to play with fire.
I catch my dad’s eye as I put my phone away. He winks and tilts his chin up at me. He blows Siobhan a kiss, and she makes a face that makes him laugh.
No, Angela Pines is never going to be part of this. She didn’t do anything deliberately, and it seems like she’s just as much a victim of circumstances as we are, which is all the more reason to protect her. And that last accidental text notwithstanding, I need to put an end to this now, before she gets hurt.
Game over.
Chapter Twenty
Angela
Wish you were here with me.
I fell asleep with my phone on my pillow, and the text startles me awake. If those words were a fist, they would have knocked me out cold. This is worse than that stupid picture on his phone’s home screen. How could he wish I was with him? How could I have let it get this far? I can never be with him, hanging out in New York like I haven’t betrayed my cold-blooded family. I can never be part of a real family, because my own family is like an ax hanging over my head.
I have to tell him. I can’t tell him everything, but I can tell him enough. Maybe my dependency on shrinks and anti-anxiety meds won’t scare him away, but my family sure as hell will. They’re not just a burning building—they’re a nuclear catastrophe.
That’s the last text I get from him that weekend, thankfully, and I’m sure as hell not going to text him. I’ve already done enough damage somehow, without quite knowing what I’ve done to make him like me so much—almost, I suspect, as much as I like him.
Unfortunately, not seeing or texting with Brady makes the weekend interminable. By Sunday, I’ve conveniently forgotten that I’m supposed to put the brakes on this whole thing. I remember he said that he would see me tonight if his flight was on time, and I spend hours doing my hair and picking out an outfit to change into after work. When I don’t hear from him, I assume he’s getting in too late. Disappointed, I pass a slow night at work, looking forward to seeing him in class tomorrow.
On Monday, I once again fixate on my appearance like a giddy high schooler. I put on embroidered black skinny jeans and a white eyelet halter top, hoping to remind him about the advantages of halter tops. I spend extra time on my makeup and do my hair in a simple braid that I know he’ll want to undo with his own fingers. Okay, so admittedly not the actions of someone who’s planning to put a stop to things. That, I decide while I add some silver eyeliner to brighten my eyes, can probably wait for a week or two.
I’m a little later than usual getting to school. His Cherokee is already parked in the garage when I arrive. Huh. He usually waits for me, even though he tries to make it look like we just happened to get there around the same time. Maybe he had reading to do before class, since he missed two days.
When I get to the lecture hall, my eyes immediately search him out. He isn’t reading. He’s leaning against the desk a few rows up, talking to a couple of his friends, laughing, laid-back as usual. His back is to me, but one of his friends catches my eye. He says something to Brady and glances my way again, but Brady doesn’t turn around. He shrugs.
Okay…
I unpack my stuff for class and power up my laptop. Brady’s assigned seat in this class is two rows in front of me, over to the right. He never fails to angle himself my way to steal a glance or send me a smile and a wink, but today he faces straight ahead the entire time, his eyes on the professor. I wait for a text or an instant message, but he doesn’t send any.
Against my better judgment, I navigate away from my class notes and start pulling up his social media accounts. There are pictures of him in New York with a beautiful red-haired girl—who looks way too young for him, by the way. Gross. A bunch of pictures with him out drinking with his gazillion friends, girls hanging all over them. Gross and gross. And, holy shit, what is this? He had a party last night? I check and double-check and cross-check the posts. Yep. Brady had a bunch of people from our class over last night, including his beautiful all-female study group.
A few days away from me and that’s it, apparently. I’m that forgettable. Fine. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. I’m not hurt by this. Because that would be pathetic and stupid, and I’m neither of those things. I’m a loner. A survivor. A badass. Brady can go fuck himself.
As soon as class is over, I flee. I go across campus to the main library and hide deep in a remote corner of the third floor. I’m so hurt and stunned that tears sting my eyes. I’ve always had my family to blame if guys weren’t into me. But Brady doesn’t know anything about my family. So it has to be something about me. Did I come on too strong? Should I not have had such an intense make-out session with him? Does he think I’m too into him because I stupidly, idiotically, texted him that I missed him and was thinking about him?
Shit. This is exactly what I couldn’t allow to happen. Freaking out and distracted because of a guy. A guy! When I have rent to pay and a scholarship to keep and a family who deals very harshly with traitors.
Besides, this is for the best. I’d been planning to break up with him, and he’s just beaten me to the punch. This is just my pride complaining, not my heart breaking.
Right. That’s why I eventually keep my phone off just so I won’t get sucker-punched every time a text comes in that isn’t from him. To protect my pride.
“You okay?” Kelsey asks me when we’re at work Saturday night. It’s now been over a week since I’ve heard from or talked to Brady. I should be over it by now, but seeing him in class and being ignored by him daily has had the opposite effect. I’m more worked up over him than ever.
“Yeah. Why?” I ask.
“Nothing. You just seem kind of down.”
“Oh, I’m just preoccupied with school,” I say. “This week was really hard.”
School is actually pretty great. I’ve used every ounce of willpower to focus on my classes instead of Brady, and the effort has exhausted me. I’m on the verge of crying pretty much all the time. But, goddammit, I know the elements of manslaughter backward and forward. I can recite the current cases on federal jurisdiction in my sleep. I can tell you the difference between a fee simple defeasible and a fee simple absolute—and sound like I give a shit, too.
