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Harry looked down at me, but his mind was elsewhere. “I—I’m going to get some air,” he all but choked out, quickly untangling his fingers from my own. I hadn’t realized how tightly I’d been holding his hand; my grip had been the only reason our hands stuck together. “I’ll be back.”
“I’ll come with you—”
“No,” he said sharply, sucking in a breath. “I just—I need a minute.”
I opened my mouth to say something more, but Harry strode away, near sprinting back toward the entrance of the country club. Dad watched him leave while Mom and Mr. Holland were talking, then Dad glanced at me. Even though the contact was a split second, I could fully read his thoughts:Is he okay?
I had no idea.
And then, ever so slightly, Dad tipped his head toward the door.Go check on him.
Margot caught my eye as I passed her through the doorway. “Where’s the fire?” she asked, but I just shook my head.
My heels clacked in quick succession, and I moved with such purpose that no one bothered stopping me this time. No one even thought about trying to call my attention away.
I found Harry striding down the long corridor that led to the front entrance, moving past the kids lingering in the hall. Nellie acted as if she wanted to speak with him, but he hurried past her, all of his focus on getting outside.
I skipped grabbing my coat as I followed Harry. He stopped outside the entrance, hands in fists at his sides. My heart hammered fast in my chest, almost making me feel jittery, like I’d drank one too many cups of coffee.
“Are you okay?” I asked him. “What just happened?”
Harry pressed a hand against the collar of his shirt—where he’d usually be able to touch his tattoo. “I thought you said your last name was Fontaine.”
“What?” I definitely hadn’t been expecting him to saythat. “No, my mom’s last name is Fontaine. She kept her maiden name. Brighton is my dad’s last name.”
Wait, this entire time, he thought my name was Fontaine? That was…a very weird thought. We’d been hanging out for almost two months and he had my last name wrong in his head. I guess the topic hadn’t really ever come up, mostly because it never occurred to me. Harry didn’t have a personal social media account, and my account only went by Destelle Marie. I just assumed he knew it.
But was mistaking a last name really worth his panicked expression?
I wrapped my arms around myself, pinching my fingers into my skin. One second, he was fine, and the next… “Did you hear what my parents said?” I guessed, shoulders slumping. “Harry, they’re just stupid and judgmental. Who cares what they think?”
“You,” he whispered, voice slowly gaining strength. “You care. That’s why you didn’t tell them about me before now. Why you filled out applications saying you wanted to be a lawyer.” His body shivered, almost as if he were cold. “That’s why you made Stella, right? You care about what they think.”
“I do those things because they don’t understand me,” I said, my chest tingling. It felt like we were going down a road that wouldn’t lead to a good place. “They don’t want to understand me. It’s easier to go along with what they want.”
He swallowed hard, looking more devastated than anything else. “This isn’t me,” he said, clenching his jaw so tightly that I could see the muscles tense. “Suits and champagne flutes and fake smiles—that’s not me.”
“It doesn’t have to be you—”
“But it’syou.” His voice came out emphatic, almost desperate. “It’s Destelle. There’s no—no separating that. There’s no pretending that side doesn’t exist. I almost didn’t recognize you in there.”
The wind burned my eyes. For the first time, when he said my full name, it didn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Is this you?” He splayed his hand toward the country club and then glanced up and down at me. “Because the girl I’d gotten to know wasn’t anywhere in that room.”
“Harry, it’s how these things are—” I cut myself off when he jerked back from my touch, freezing with my hand outstretched as hurt covered me.
“You don’t know,” he whispered, more to himself. He looked at me almost as if he were staring at a stranger, and the panic in his gaze numbed down a bit. Gosh, if I could see inside his mind right then, I would’ve given anything for it. “We’re from two totally different worlds, Destelle. Too different.”
Again,Destelle. Not Stella. It seemed significant. “Who cares?” I demanded, recalling my conversation once upon a time with Jonathan. “No one is saying we can’t be together.”
“Your parents will.” A smile glanced over his lips, but it wasn’t a kind one. “Trust me. Your dad definitely won’t let you see me anymore.”
“Why not? Besides, this entire time, we’ve made it work,” I argued. “The volunteering—”
“If they haven’t figured out that you were skipping volunteering already, they will.” Harry’s fingers picked at the button on his collar furiously until it popped undone, and he slid open another, exposing his throat, his tattoo. The action seemed to give him a semblance of peace. “When else would we have had time to meet each other?”
I wasn’t an idiot. Harry looked handsome in a suit, and I may have looked pretty with the wig on, but that didn’t change the fact that we were different. But we overcame that. I couldn’t figure out why he was suddenly so upset about it, why meeting my parents threw him into a freak-out.
