Page 50 of Never Thought I'd End Up Here
I shake my head, wide-eyed. “No. I didn’t.”
“Yeah, when they first started dating, my mom was getting her PhD—her mentor at the time was Dr. Linda Shen, who was basically my mom’s idol—and my dad was getting his master’s degree because he’d taken some time off from his studies to work. So they were both telling me about it, how beautiful the campus was, the places they’d go to get lunch together, and my dad said he thought Stanford would be perfect for me. It was close to home, and familiar, and it’d be, like, this family thing, if we all went there …”
That’s why.Now it all makes perfect, painful sense. The determined glint in his eyes whenever he spoke about Stanford, the strange intensity in his voice, even his obsession with getting a recommendation letter from my aunt. It’s not just about his dreams for the future—it’s his dreams for his family.
“I keep imagining it,” Cyrus says, swallowing. “I imagine calling my parents to tell them I was accepted, that Dr. Linda Shen herself wants me at Stanford, and they’re both so excited about it that they start talking to each other again, and maybe they remember how and why they fell in love in the first place. Maybe then … Maybe I could fix it.”
“Cyrus, that’s—” My voice catches, and for some reason, I feel like I could cry. “It’s not up to you to fix your parents’ marriage.”
“But I was the one who ruined it in the first place.” His expression remains even, almost calm, yet his fingers tighten into a fist. “They were happy, before they had me. Sometimes,” he says, very quiet, “I think I ruin everything I touch.”
Yes, you do, the vindictive voice in my head whispers, but it’s more distant than ever, as if sounding from a thousand miles away. I grab his hand, unfurling his fist, and tug it toward me, letting it rest on my exposed knee, right where the hem of my silk nightgown ends. His fingertips are so warm that the heat spreads upward through me, curling inside my ribs. My skin itches pleasantly with the sensation, and I have to steady myself for a moment before speaking. “See?” I say, soft. “You haven’t ruined me.”
He stares down at the place where his hand burns against my leg like he’s still deep in a dream, then up at me. “Haven’t I?” he whispers.
Part of me wants to say that he has. That my life was ruined once by him when I was expelled from my old school, and again, by myself, when I gave up modeling. It’s the same part of me that was convinced my life was already over, destroyed beyond repair. That while everyone else was moving on, I was moving in circles. But now, alone in this room with him, the night breeze sighing against the windows, the sweet song of crickets filling the air, the press of his palm like a salve, nothing feels entirely ruined. How could it be, if I ended up here?
“Don’t overestimate yourself, Cyrus,” I tell him with a faint smile, as if everything inside me hasn’t reoriented itself to his touch. His thumb shifts, just slightly, probably by accident, and it sends a shock of electricity coursing through my veins. I lick my lips. My mouth is dry, my throat tight with all the things I want, and suddenly I’m scared that I’ve gone too far with this little revenge plan of mine, that everything’s slipping out of my control. I’d wanted his heart, but I hadn’t wanted to give away mine.
I stand up. Turn around. “I should head back to my room—”
“Wait,” he says, a hitch in his voice. “Don’t go.”
I whirl back toward him in surprise.
“You … You might wake people up if you leave now,” he says. “You can keep sleeping on the other bed until early morning and slip out before the group starts heading down for breakfast. Oliver won’t be back until then anyway.”
“Is that the real reason?” I ask him.
He goes still, alarm flashing in and out of his eyes. “What?”
“Are you really scared of waking people up? Or are you just scared of sleeping alone after a nightmare?”
“Maybe,” he says, more easily than I would’ve expected.
I pretend to think it over, pretend I’m not giddy as I hop back onto the bed, drawing the covers up to my chest. But I can no longer pretend that I don’t have any feelings for Cyrus Sui.
***
“What. The. Hell.”
I nearly fall out of bed at the sudden slam of the door, the familiar voice that shouldn’t be here. Or wait, no, I shouldn’t be here. This isn’t my hotel room. This isn’t even mybed. I look up, my disorientation fading, blankets tumbling down around me, and find Oliver standing just a few feet away. His bag hangs off his shoulder, his jacket still on, his brows lifted so high they’re at risk of leaving his forehead. On the other bed, Cyrus is also slowly blinking awake, rubbing his eyes.
“Wow,” Oliver says, apparently unable to utter anything except exclamatory sounds. “Wow, wow, wow. Wow.”
“Okay,” I say, checking to make sure that the straps of my nightgown haven’t slipped down my shoulders before sitting up. “This isn’t how it—”
“Wow.”
“Have you recovered yet?” I demand.
“Nope. I may never recover,” Oliver says. “I was not prepared to come back to this.”
“We were just looking over photos,” I say as righteously as I can while very much aware that this scene looks like it belongs to the front page of a tabloid.
Oliver’s brows climb up even higher. “While you were asleep?”
“Before we fell asleep. Wang Laoshi was outside and I was stuck here, so Cyrus gave me his bed to take a nap …” I clear my throat, unable to look at Cyrus without reliving everything from last night, the quiet intimacy of the darkness and the vulnerability in his voice and the odd beat of my heart. “We didn’t expect you to be back so early.”
