“I just—” He closed his eyes, letting out a breath through his nose. “You had so much going on at home. And, yeah, it was fun to dream about you coming out to visit, but you couldn’t have. Not really. Not with… the kids.”
Another blow to my chest. This time, I could’ve sworn I felt a rib crack. “You broke up with me because of the kids?”
Now Dalton wouldn’t look at me. He stared out at the playground instead, knotting his fingers together in his lap. “I just knew what it’d turn into. I figured I’d save us the hardship of fighting through a year, trying to balance schedules, and that we’d just… pick everything back up when I was home.”
I could hear my heart thumping in my ears, but not in the fluttery way it’d been since he came home. He framed it to make him out to be the good guy, as if dumping me had been lightening my load. “You thought I’d be waiting for you,” I murmured dully, and for some reason, hearing the words aloud seemed to unlock something in me. “You thought, after breaking my heart, that I’d still take you back.”
Hearing the words aloud had something settling within me.He’s just trying to prove he still has power over you, Daze,Jamie had said the night of the graduation party.And that’s pathetic.For the firsttime, I realized just how ridiculous it’d been of me to want him back. Weak. Pathetic.
And that realization broke my heart all over again, the butterflies in my stomach shriveling. “Is that why you always told me I’d never get into NYU?” I asked. “Why you said it was silly and that I should give up my art? So I’d be here, not in New York, when you came crawling back?”
Dalton looked at me seriously. “I never told you to give up your art. I said it’s silly that you talk about NYU like you’ll go.”
“Exactly.”
Dalton shifted, his arm brushing against my shoulder blades again. This time, I leaned forward, away. “I never thought you wouldn’t get into NYU. I just always knew you’d nevergo.”
“I definitely would’ve gone.” For some reason, my voice came out small, softer than I’d meant for it to. Like the truth was being drowned out by something else. “If I’d gotten into NYU, I would’ve gone.”
“So you didn’t get in?” he asked, and I froze, realizing what I’d just said. “It’s okay, DD. When I brought it up, I could tell. Your eyes didn’t sparkle like I’d expected them to.”
I hated that he could read me.
“But even if you had gotten in, you wouldn’t have gone. You want to know how I know?” Dalton leaned close, and our shoulders brushed again as he pointed toward the playground. “You have four little roots holding you in place.”
I followed his finger to see Penn lightly pushingTheo on the swings, where Junie was now swaying from side to side on the set, intentionally bumping into Ivy on the swing beside her. Junie was grinning, Ivy’s face was red with a scowl, and Penn’s lips were moving as she tried to calm a fearful Theo. Even from here, I could see his little white hands gripping the chains.
They were basked in sunlight, but something heavy pressed on my chest, like the darkness that always seemed to circle me.Roots. “Don’t call them that,” I said to Dalton, but the snap in my voice was weak.
“That’s what they are, DD. And I know you.” He lowered his arm, but he didn’t lean back, leaving our shoulders together. “You don’t know how to put yourself first. You never have. I wish you would, though. I’d love you even more for it.”
Love. Present tense. That should’ve been my cue to get up and walk away. We were officially in territory that neither Nellie nor Jamie would approve of, but I couldn’t move.
Roots. The word was stuck in my mind. I pictured the sinewy ropes of a tree stretching underneath the ground, holding the trunk in place. Roots didn’t need the tree, though—the tree needed the roots. Dalton was wrong. “I don’t care what you’d love,” I bit out, flicking off theDaltonlight in my chest. “I’m with Jamie now.”
“Jamie.” Dalton’s tone hardened. “Like I said, I’m not that surprised. I saw the way he looks at you, even back when we were together. It was obvious.”
Even back when we were together. “How does he look at me?”
Dalton looked like he wasn’t going to respond at first, and when he did, his voice was a grumble. “Like he’s committing everything you say to memory.” Dalton squinted, but the sun wasn’t in his eyes. “Or the moment entirely to memory. Like he was trying to remember it to write about later.”
“Jamie’s not a writer,” I said automatically, but could barely hear the words. “Just a reader.”
“Well, he looks at you like he wants to write about you.”
It was sowrong, though. Jamie had never looked at me with hearts in his eyes or anything like that. Jamie hadn’t looked at me any sort of way before the fake relationship—there’d been no reason for him to. Jamie had just been… Jamie.
“You think he looked at me that way back when we were together?”
“I know he did. I almost told you to stop hanging with him because of it, but I knew you’d choose him over me.”
The mere thought made me feel sick, because though Dalton was absolutely certain, I wasn’t.
“Really think about how you feel about him, DD,” Dalton murmured, almost sounding pleading. “Do you really like him? Or do you onlythinkyou like him? It’s easy to confuse friendship and love.”
I stiffened. “Dalton?—”
“Do you like him the way you liked me?” Dalton’s gaze caught on the hair fluttering in my face. “Because I don’t think you do.”
