He put his hands on mine, pulling them away from my face. “What, dinner? Did you not like the food?”
“The food? Thefood? You let me walk in here totally unprepared for—forthat!”
“By ‘that,’ I’m guessing you mean my family.” He sighed, dropping his arms. “Look, I know they can be tough to impress. It doesn’t mean they didn’t love you,” he said, with a notable lack of conviction in his voice. “It just takes them a while to warm up.”
“Warm up? The way they spoke to me, it was like they’re shocked you’d even spend time with me. Like I’m some pathetic rescue you’ve just adopted.” I was trying to stay composed and not betray how much I had loathed every single one of his relations, but I could feel myself growing more and more anxious. The last thing I wanted was to burst into tears and humiliate myself even further. “And what the hell was with the third degree from Amelia? She knows we were at dinner and not in court, right?”
“Babe, come on.” He tried to wrap an arm around me, but I pulled away.
“Why is she so obsessed with where I went to school anyway?”
Confusion painted Jamie’s face. “She’s not—she was just trying to make a connection. I know she’s intense, but that’s just Amelia. It wasn’t anything personal. Trust me.”
“And what was that with your dad?” I barreled on. “He just completely railroaded your whole vision for the vineyard,didn’t he? Do you really not care about expanding on this place that you love, or did you just not feel like facing up to him? I swear, the only delightful part of your family tree is Granny G.”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and when he opened them, he pulled me to him in a hug. This time, I let him. “I’m sorry, Sybil. You’re right. I didn’t speak up because I was embarrassed.”
“Youwere embarrassed? How do you think I felt?” I leaned my face into Jamie’s chest, letting his shirt muffle my words. “You, and Amelia, and your parents… you’ve all got letters after your name, and I don’t even have a measly diploma.”
“Wait, what?” Jamie pulled me away from his chest, stretching his arms out but keeping his hands gripped firmly on my shoulders.
I sighed, looking down at my feet and not into Jamie’s eyes, sure I would find disappointment there. “I never graduated, okay?”
When people asked where I went to school—like Jamie had when we first met—it was easy to rattle off USC. Because Ihadgone there… I just never got my diploma. The fact that I never graduated wasn’t something I offered up freely. Don’t get me wrong, I know there are plenty of good reasons why a person might drop out of school, or not go to college at all. The problem was, I didn’t have any of those good reasons. A week before graduation, my ex-boyfriend Liam had shown up at my dorm, drunk, spewing the same hateful things that had driven me to break up with him three years earlier. With the help of Nikki and campus security, I’d gotten him to leave. But the experience had shaken me so much that I ended up spiralinginto a depressive state. When my parents arrived for graduation weekend, they found me in bed crying, having missed all my final exams. The disappointment on their faces still haunts me. I had let myself fall apart because of a boy, which was the really mortifying part.
Especially given the impressive, high-powered career women in Jamie’s family (in addition to his sister being a judge, Jamie’s mother was a partner in a white-shoe law firm).
I stood there, in Jamie’s childhood bedroom, feeling his eyes boring a hole in the crown of my head. Finally, he spoke.
“Sybil…” His voice was strained. “Why didn’t you ever tell me you didn’t graduate?”
“Because I knew you’d think less of me—”
“I wouldn’t. I don’t.”
“—and clearly I wouldn’t measure up to your perfect family.”
“How many credits were you short?” Jamie asked, ignoring my barb and transitioning swiftly into problem-solving mode. “Maybe you could go back and—”
“I don’t need you to fix me, Jamie.”
I pulled away from his grasp and crossed toward the closet, looking for something warm to put on.
“What are you doing?” Jamie asked.
“Grabbing a jacket. I need to go outside and get some air.”
“We’re in the middle of a conversation, Sybil.”
“A conversation? Sounds more like a fight to me.” My eyes landed on Jamie’s Barbour coat—the one he’d been wearing on the drive up. I reached for it, and in an instant, Jamie was at my side.
“Forget the jacket; we need to talk about this.”
“Fine. I just need a second to clear my head.” I began to slip my arm into the jacket’s right sleeve, but then Jamie was pulling at the left one. “What the hell, Jamie?” He had never been territorial over his clothes before. He was the king of boyfriend sweatshirts, always happy to lend me something to wear. He even admitted once how hot he thought it was, the sight of me in his clothes. So why was he acting so weird now?
“Don’t take the jacket!” Jamie’s face was white.
“What is the big deal?”
