“I said, no thanks. My mother does enough drinking for the both of us.”
“Oh, right.” I set down my cup and pulled her to me. “What’s wrong? You have a line. Right here. A cute little worry line…” I traced the little furrow between her eyes with a finger. “Let me guess. Bills piling up.”
Harper’s eyes flared, and she shoved away from me. “Will you keep your voice down? Jesus, Orion.”
“I’m sorry, love,” I said. “But I hate how hard everything is for you. I know, I know, you don’t want me to help, but let me cover whatever you owe. You have your pride, but what’s the alternative? You become homeless?”
She stared at me as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.Icouldn’t believe what I was hearing, the words spewing out of me on a tide of vodka and defensive nonsense. She crossed her arms, tears standing out in her eyes, but her gaze was unwavering.
“Oh, we’re doing this right now? Okay, let’s say I let you help me, Orion,” she said. “Then what? How long will you continue to pity me, long after you and I are nothing? Will you deposit money into my account every month? For years? Until you get married? I can’t imagine your wife will approve.”
“My wife… What are you talking about?”
“You’re going back to the UK at the end of the year, aren’t you?”
I took a step back, pushed by her words.
You bloody wanker, you’re fucking it all up.
“So what happens to us?” she continued. “Who am I to you when we graduate? The girl you once dated? Your charity case? You and I will be finished, but I’ll have this debt hanging over my head. Just what the hell am I supposed to do with that?”
“No, I…” I stammered like a fool. “That is not how…”
“All this time,” she said, her voice hard but quavering. “All this time with theI love yousand the romance and the taking me to meet your family, and I was such an idiot. I told myself not to let anyone in. That I didn’t have the bandwidth to deal with my mother’s bullshit, and the pressure, and everything else to give my heart away. But I thought, ‘No, he’s different. This is going somewhere, and he’s too talented to give up his music. He won’t…’” Her voice cracked. “‘He won’t give me up.’” She tilted her head up. Defiant. Strong. “But I guess I was wrong.”
“Harper…” I said helplessly.
“Have a nice life.”
Then she turned and walked away.
I stared in drunken incapacity, watching her go. I didn’t know anything. Not my future, not what was going to happen next week, or what I was going to say to my parents or Cambridge or Juilliard or any of it. The only thing I knew was that the best thing in my life just walked away.
I started after her when a scream ripped through the noise of the party. A bloodcurdling scream that made hearts stop and the DJ cut the music.
Sierra Hart was on the ground with Dean, his head in her lap. For a strange, panicked second, my brain told me that he was sleeping or had passed out. But I already knew in the deepest part of me that was a lie.
No…
A crowd had started to form, and Xander Ford collapsed on hisknees beside our friend. My incapacity vanished, and terror like I’d never known lit me up from the inside, burning away the alcohol. I shoved through the people, screaming for an ambulance. I lay Dean flat and started chest compressions. There was no thought in my mind, nothing but adrenaline and denial. Because this couldn’t happen. I wouldnot allowthis to happen. I could not let Dean be dead.
But he is. Oh God, help me, he is…
Xander grabbed Dean’s jaw and gave him a shake, demanding he wake up. He blew air in his mouth while I pressed both palms over his heart, but Dean wasn’t unconscious, and we both knew it. Xander met my eye and for a second—he and I were locked in the same helpless communion. An understanding of the truth and a fierce rejection of it at the same time. I shook my head, and Xander made a sound I never wanted to hear again in my entire life. An agonized cry erupting from deep in his chest.
“No!” he bellowed, and slapped Dean across the face and blew more air while I pressed on his chest until my shoulders ached. Finally, help arrived, and we were pushed outside the circle. Helpless. Sierra was screaming. Harper was in Xander’s arms, clinging to him, crying in his shirt, while I watched the EMTs work on Dean. Cold. Numb.
Because it was too late.
He’d fallen through the ice.
Chapter 34Orion
The funeral was a blur.
My brain held on to snapshots. It was sunny out; I remember that. Xander gave a eulogy, the words a beautiful stream of noise floating through me. Dean’s parents were in the front row, shell-shocked and pale. Sierra was behind them, sobbing into her hands. Harper had tears streaking her cheeks like silver.
The day before, Coach Daniels had asked me to say something. “A little bit of humor can’t hurt, Orion.”
