Page 124 of Cinderella Is Faking It

Even our very first dance had been more intimate than this. She’d let herself melt into the movements then. Tonight, I could have been dancing with a mannequin and it would have been just as deep.

“I would like to tell you something, but I don’t think you’ll like it,” I said.

“Beck.” Del shuddered in my arms. “Can’t you just let this go?”

“Can you?”

Her eyes found mine, swimming with the promise of tears. Instead of replying, she shook her head and pulled her shoulders up. She couldn’t have pretended to be over me, considering our phone call the other night, but having her confirm as much stitched up a small part of my hollow gut.

“What I’m about to tell you is not an excuse. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I think you deserve the full story of how we got here. If only to stop beating yourself up, because I know that I’ve made you doubt yourself.”

Lips quivering, she nodded.

“Ah, perfect. Man. Woman.” Principal Baker, who I’d met with to discuss Brody’s situation, clapped his hands over both our shoulders. “Boys’ room. Girls’ room. Toilet check. Now.” Not a word wasted before he blazed on, completely oblivious to the moment he’d just wrecked. Nobody at Axent talked to me that way. Hell, nobody outside this room talked to me that way, but I was learning that schools operated on a whole different social level.

“We’re on it!” Delilah called over her shoulder with enough enthusiasm to send a troupe of soldiers to battle and pulled herself out of my arms.

It took us all of four minutes to check the only set of unlocked bathrooms, but when Del was about to breeze back to the dance, I wrapped my hand around her wrist and gently pulled her back. She shot a quick look up and down the hallway, only to realize we were alone. All the previous pep dissipated from her features. “Okay,” she sighed and dropped back against the row of lockers, “tell me.”

“Do you remember what I told you about my mother?” She nodded, and I told her about Georgia. Once I started, the words kept tumbling over my lips. I told her about growing up in a house, where my father ignored his children, but kept their mother on a leash like she was a dog and he expected her to heel. I told her about Georgia in turn training us just as ruthlessly, withholding sleep and food if we didn’t perform. I told her that my secret reading materials gave me an escapism and different perspectives that Julian never got. He’d always been our mother’s son, playing her game to win instead of outplaying her by changing the rules - until he decided that I was no longer a player on his team. I told her about Sternberg’s theory of love.

That last one finally cracked her careful composure. “You rationalized love?” She smiled.

“Yes.”

“For someone as smart as you are, that’s really dumb.”

“Why? You can hardly deny that our feelings got mixed into this.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “Commitment, passion and intimacy aren’t enough. Parker was committed to me. He was passionate about me. We shared intimacy, being open about our pasts and family histories. We didn’t match because he doubted my commitment to him. I couldn’t bring myself to be passionately swept up by him because of my self-doubts. He projected his hang-ups about his family’s financials onto me.” She furrowed her brows, then raised her hand into the space between us, flashing me the smooth skin on the back of it. “The first night we met, you understood what I was doing. You got me out of the conversation. It took Parker eight weeks to notice I was pinching myself, and even then, he didn’t understand.”

“All I’m hearing is that your ex didn’t deserve a shred of your time, Blondie.”

“Maybe,” she chuckled, “but I don’t think you can manufacture love. We matched. You didn’tpretendto have a library full of books to woo me with your literary prowess. You didn’t go out and buy 200 nonfiction books about sex just so I could intellectually work through my very specific issues. And you may be a good liar, but I never felt judged by you. I think we share the idea of ‘curiosity not judgement’ and that allowed us to be curious about each other and fall for each other. We matched. Just not enough to make it work. Not when it mattered.” She pushed herself off the lockers with a soft smile. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry you had abusive parents, but you’re right. It’s not an excuse. You’re a grown man who makes his own decisions.”

I followed her back to the ballroom, where the kids were back to their previous upbeat dance moves. To my surprise, Del waited for me, glancing over her shoulder to make sure I was still following her when she took over drinks’ duty from one of the other chaperones.

“Would you ever consider giving up Axent to do something else?” She asked and handed me a plastic cup filled with neon red punch.

“No.”

“You didn’t even take a second to think about that.”

“Just because I hate what it took to get there, doesn’t mean I hate where I am. I like it. I like negotiations and contracts and 5am meetings with our team in Hong Kong. I could do without board meetings, but I doubt everyone likes every aspect of their job.”

“Hmm.” She hummed and filled the cup of a girl with ringlet curls and braces.

“Why do you teach?”

“Because I like it,” she grinned, throwing my words back at me.

“I read your introduction in the school newsletter. You got your master’s at Harvard on a full academic scholarship, and yet you decided to become an English teacher.”

“Not prestigious enough for you?”

“You could have gone into journalism, or publishing. I simply don’t know a lot of teachers with an ivy league background.”

“Do you know many teachers?”

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