I GOT HOME late Sunday afternoon feeling refreshed. The night spent at Zara’s was exactly what I’d needed. It was like being reset and settling into the way things should be. I finally had friends—ones I could talk to about real things. I didn’t have to be a wallflower anymore. I could just be… me.
Yeah, I had PCOS, and I’d need to figure out how to manage that, but for now, I had an action plan—my birth control pills and actually partnering with my mom on a diet plan that worked for me.
After greeting Mom and Dad in the living room, I went upstairs and poked my head into Aiden’s room to say hey. He stood in front of his closet, flipping through shirts.
“Hey, sis,” he said, smiling. He picked out two button-up shirts and held them out. “Which one do you think?”
“The blue one,” I answered immediately. “Matches your eyes.”
With a shrug, he hung the brown one back in his closet and slipped the blue shirt off the hanger.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Casey’s mom left her dad, finally, and they’re looking for apartments,” he said, the excitement clear in his voice. “I want to take them out to dinner afterward, to celebrate.”
I smiled, thrilled for Casey and her mom. “That’s amazing!”
“I know,” he said. “It should have happened years ago, but now is better than never.”
“True,” I agreed. “Tell her I’m happy for her.” He nodded. “I will.”
With a smile, I left his room, then started toward the bathroom. I needed to shower out the salt water from Zara’s hot tub.
“Rory!” Mom called from downstairs.
“Taking a shower!” I yelled back. “Be down in a minute.”
There was a long pause before Mom said, “Take your time!”
As if I needed her encouragement. I went to the bathroom, reached into the medicine cabinet, and took my fifth white birth control pill from the fourth row. I hadn’t started my period yet, but there was still time.
I flipped on the hot water and shimmied out of my clothes before stepping into the steady stream. My mind worked under the water. How could I get Beckett back?
A letter maybe? A painting? A photo?
I could stop by Seaton Bakery when he wasn’t working and leave a message for him. I bet Gayle would help me with that.
Or I could do something really epic and take over Headmaster Bradford’s PA system. But then again, there were only so many times my mom and Mr. Davis could pull a special favor with the headmaster. (It wasn’t an accident my speech was allowed to continue.) And even though I wasn’t going back to my wallflower ways, I was ready to step out of the limelight.
I sighed and rinsed my conditioner. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Beckett saying he loved me. Past tense. And every time I opened my eyes, I wished he could be saying it in the present.
I loved him—the way he protected others. How he had a tender artist’s soul paired with a powerful quarterback’s body. He saw things most people didn’t. Especially things in me.
The photo album he’d given me was the most thoughtful gift I had ever received. He helped me see myself, not just as he did, but as I wished I could. I could be beautiful, majestic, mesmerizing, not in spite of my curves, but because of them.
I hoped and hoped for a plan, but if all else failed, I would approach him on Monday and beg his forgiveness. Tell him I would do anything— everything—to earn back his trust and prove to him that I cared about more than his status, but about his heart.
Resolve washed over me just as surely as my coconut shower gel. After rinsing off the soap, I stepped out of the shower. I wrapped a towel around me and bent to grab my clothes and put them in the hamper.
And I saw…My eyes widened. “MOM!” I screamed.
“What?” she yelled back from somewhere upstairs. What was she doing up here? Her room was downstairs.
Never mind that. “I GOT MY PERIOD!” I lifted my underwear for proof and followed the sound of her voice.
“That’s amazing!” she shouted back. It was coming from the direction of my studio. Maybe she was getting ready to vacuum? They kept the vacuum in one of my studio closets… Either way, who cared! This was awesome!
“I KNOW!” I cried, walking toward my studio. I pushed into the room, holding my towel up with one hand and my underwear with the other. “Either that or I’m hemorrhaging, but—”
I froze, standing absolutely still as I took in the room…and who was in it. Why was Beckett standing with my mom, an amused smile on his face? What was he doing here?
“Honey.” Mom broke the silence with a too-big grin. “I thought you’d be dressed.”
My underwear-clad hand slowly lowered to my side like a deflating balloon. “Um…”
There was that word again.
Humor and horror lit Beckett’s eyes, and I melted a little. And then promptly short-circuited from embarrassment. Beckett was in my house, and I… I looked down at the towel and the revealing slit up my leg. Oh god.
I hid the underwear behind my back and crossed my legs. “What are you doing here?”
Mom smiled between us. “Why don’t you get dressed, honey? And then you can talk.”
I glanced to Beckett. Was this real life? Was he really here? As if hearing my internal questions, Beckett nodded.
My chin jerked in a robotic replica of the gesture. “Be right back.”
I spun and left the room, pure adrenaline moving me now. Mom closed the door and hurried behind me, whispering. “You got your period!”
“Oh my god, Mom!” I whisper-yelled back. “That is so not the biggest news of the moment! What is Beckett doing here?!”
Her eyes widened, and she shrugged. “He wants to talk to you.”
I realized I was hunched over, sneaking around in my own house. That was stupid. He knew I lived here. I straightened up outside my bedroom
door. “What did he say to you?”
She reached up and pretended to zip her lips shut. “Mom!”
“Nope.” She took my shoulders and practically pushed me through my bedroom door. “You talk to him.”
As I went to my dresser and hurriedly put clothes on, I panicked about what he had to say. Mom wouldn’t send me to the emotional wolves, would she? Unless he hadn’t really told her anything and she just wanted an excuse to make her escape?
I let out a quiet groan just as the door cracked open and Mom’s slender fingers holding a tampon crept through the crack. “Need one of these?”
The joy in her voice was enough to make an exasperated smile spread across my face. I snatched it, then finished getting dressed. There wasn’t enough time to obsess about the outfit, so I settled on a pair of buttery soft leggings and an extra-long T-shirt. I threw my hair into a knot at the top of my head and looked in the mirror.
Makeup free, round cheeks, circles under my eyes evidencing the stress of the last week and the all-nighter with my friends. This was me. Beckett wanted me to be real. This was real. So was what I felt for him. I hoped he could see that.
And that it would be enough.
