Page 7 of Lessons in Forgiving
I didn’t mean to sit up straighter, but Jack was all but forgotten about when I asked, “You think?” and I realized too late that I had not even tried to be subtle about it.
“Good God,” Maeve sighed, face disappearing behind her hands. “You shouldn’t have said that, Rie.”
I gasped, as if offended by her accurate observation. “I just asked! I don’t care. It’ll be fine.” My eyes twitched into a glare, narrowing at my best friend. “I’ve gone months ignoring him, and I can do a few more before we graduate. Thank you so much for your vote of confidence, though, Maeve.”
Her hands shot up in playful surrender, lips quirking in sync with the motion. “I love you?” she winced. “I’m sure you’ll manage.”
And I thought,Yes.I could manage.
Pretending to hate the only man I’d ever loved couldn’t be that hard, and it was kind of comforting to know I’d probably never see him again after this.
The heart-wrenching kind of comfort.
CHAPTER 3
THEN, September: three years and six months ago
“I’m sorry.” My head fell into my hands with a frustrated sigh, and I blew a stray curl away from my face when I looked back up at him. “This has quite literally never happened to me.”
Henry blinked, all green eyes and long, dark lashes. I hadn’t noticed the few faint freckles across his nose when I’d—quite literally—run into him, and I hadn’t noticed them when he had sat behind me in our first lecture a few days later, either. The one in which he’d leaned closer, breath fanning against my ear, and whispered, “I take it your parents think we’re best friends, then?”
Which referred to the fact I was still at HBU in the first place.
It shouldn’t have sent goosebumps down my neck, but had. I’d turned around, not meaning to blush when I looked up at him, and even then, he’d been too far away to make them out.
Somehow, now, sitting on opposite sides of a library table in the middle of the night, the lights low and our voices hushed, he was close enough for me to make out the crook of his nose, the faint scar on his jaw, the way it ran down his neck—and those freckles.
His head tilted. “What hasn’t?”
I snickered. “I’m going to sound like a dick.”
“Try me.”
And maybe it was the lack of sleep, the desperation creeping in, that made me confess. “I’ve never really been bad at… anything. School-related!” I added quickly, as soon as his lips quirked at the words. “I mean, I’m great at school. Learning,calculating, understanding. I don’t know what I am, if not good at those things. So why am I struggling?”
Henry nodded thoughtfully. “You do seem like a girl who’s never gotten anything wrong in her life.”
He stated it like he thought a lot about the kind of girl I was. Like it might keep him up at night, and he’d pondered about it so deeply, he was completely sure of his words. “And you just happen to be in the library after hours with a boy who never has, either. We’ll get there, Paula.”
“Humble,” I snorted.
“Hey.” His hands lifted in mocked surrender as he leaned back into his chair. “You said it.”
With a laugh, I agreed, “I did.” But I sobered quickly, head shaking again. “I’m sorry, though. You shouldn’t be stuck here, just because I can’t grasp the concept of Data Science.” When he’d offered to help me out, he’d said he could stay until ten.
It was midnight now, and Henry Parker Pressley still sat opposite me. Smiling and shaking his head like he’d never given himself a time limit at all.
“And Financial Reporting.”
“What?” I asked.
“You can’t grasp the concept of Data ScienceorFinancial Reporting. Or Technology & Operations Management, actually.” He added after a pause, as nonchalantly as one might report the weather. Like he wasn’t listing every single one of my faults.
“Why thank you.” My nose scrunched. “For reminding me of all my shortcomings—”
“Which I am here to help you with. What is it you were good at, back in high school? When you were still at home?”
Everything!I wanted to scream. But despite the fact we were alone, this was still a library, and it would’ve felt wrong.
