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Shuffling closer, I sat at the headboard of the bed, giving a good distance between us. The bed creaked slightly under my weight, and I pulled one of my legs up. “You don’t have to tell me,” I said softly, nearly coming close to touching him before I forced my hand on the bed between us. “But you can if you want to. It’ll stay in the vault.”
Some of the tension ebbed from his posture. “Promise?”
Without verbally answering, I stuck my hand out to him, pinky raised. He gave a soft exhale, one that sounded like a chuckle, as he accepted the pinky-swear. For a moment, we both held still. His pinky wrapping around my own was enough to make my heart race.
And then he finally told me the story of why he bombed his Algebra II exam last year.
“Last May, my parents’ years of debt caught up with them,” he began quietly, settling back against the footboard and studying his hands. It was a vulnerable posture for him, one that almost had me feeling like I was sitting in the bedroom with a stranger. “They stopped making payments on the house, and the bank stepped in. Instead of letting them foreclose the house—and then fall from the graces of their friends—my parents sold it for dirt cheap. They told everyone they sold it to move someplace nicer, but really, they moved to a one-bedroom apartment in Jefferson.”
I glanced around his makeshift bedroom, at all the moving boxes. “That’s why you live here? With your grandma?”
“It was either here or a couch four steps from the kitchen.
“They couldn’t afford a smaller house? Or a bigger apartment?” I could understand downsizing from the behemoth of a place they lived in before, but it seemed extreme to go from a home with five bedrooms to an apartment.
Connor’s fingers fluttered against his denim jeans. “They were…deep in it. Debt collectors calling every day, people showing up at our house. Dad made bad investments, Mom had a shopping habit, and things caught up to them.”
He spoke so clearly, so easily, as if moving out of his childhood home, being separated from his parents, wasn’t a big deal. His body language, though, hinted his true feelings. His cheeks were still pink, warm, and his limbs had stiffened as if replaced with lead.
“I’ve been pretending everything is normal. With everyone. Keeping up appearances is the only thing they care about. The guys from the team know I moved, but I always make excuses why they can’t come over. The only person who knows is Jade.”
“You don’t have to tell me this,” I told him, curling my fingers into themselves. It was clearly making him uncomfortable diving into this. And this was something so secret, so personal. If only one other person knew, I couldn’t imagine why he’d want to add me to that list. “I promise I won’t say anything. I don’t need to know the details.”
“My parents sold the house the week before exams, and I was so busy with packing up my stuff that I didn’t have time to study.” He turned his face toward me, but his eyes didn’t follow. “That’s why I’m telling you now. I’m not a guy who blows off class. I think I had a C+ in the class to begin with, but bombing the exam tanked my grade.”
Connor having a B- made a bit more sense when it came to why he never had a tutor earlier in the year. His grades were average, but average grades meant that failing a test worth a hefty percentage would do damage. Big damage. This entire time I’d been judging him for not paying attention when, in reality, I wasn’t sure I’d have been able to pay attention either.
He cleared his throat, and as he shifted, the whole mattress creaked with the movement. “That got heavy fast. I—I just wanted to explain myself.” And then he finally turned to me. It was a tentative stare, ready to flick away any second. “So you could understand me a bit better, maybe.”
His words did something to me, like they reached into my heart and thawed something frozen. Thawed the rigid pre-established perspective I’d carved of Connor Bray. He didn’t fail Algebra II because he slacked off last year. It was because he’d been in the middle of one of the hardest things he’d ever had to go through. And he told no one about it.Keeping up appearances, he said. His parents hadn’t wanted anyone to know about their situation, either. Had him lie, had him go through this alone.
It felt like all of my convictions about him crumbled down, because the golden boy that everyone at Brentwood High worshipped wasn’t as perfect as he seemed—he was going through hell and smiling through it.
I looked at Connor closely, at his stiff frame, at how he was rubbing his palm over his knuckles. A strange unfurling sensation swept through me, starting in the center of my chest. His discomfort—strangely enough, I wanted to ease it.
“I lied before,” I confessed, thinking back to Monday. “I…I did tryout for the cheer squad. Back in the ninth grade. I tried out with Madison. She taught me a few cheers and taught me the routine. We were going to do it together.”
I remember my heart had been pounding in my chest, because dancing in front of so many people was a bit outside my comfort zone, but having Madison at my side had bolstered my confidence. I could do it if she was there. The head cheerleader stood among all the new recruits, about to play the song everyone was supposed to have learned for tryouts. Madison stood on one side of me, Jade on the other.
Before we started, I’d turned to her and gave her a thumbs up.“You’re going to do great, Mads.”
“They played a different song than the one Madison and I had been rehearsing all week,” I told Connor. “I didn’t realize until, like, ten seconds in that everyone danced to a completely different routine. Even Madison.”
Connor leaned forward, narrowing his eyes on me. “Wait, she taught you the wrong routine?”
I nodded, remembering.
Madison hadn’t looked at me while she danced, not even when I tried to keep up, tried to keep smiling even though I didn’t understand what she was doing. She hadn’t looked at me when I stopped smiling, not even when I stopped dancing, the wave of ugly realization crashing into me. I didn’t check to see whether or not she looked when I ran out of the gym, but I knew deep down that she hadn’t.
It was the first time Jade’s expression was filled with so much disdain, though, and the first time I felt like an outcast. That I felt like ageek.
I suddenly felt very awkward. Very exposed, especially with the way Connor watched me. I wanted to snatch the words back, go back to pretending I wasn’t that pathetic. “Anyway, now we both know a secret about each other.” My secret wasn’t as important as his, of course, nor as life-changing, but I hoped it gave him a bit more peace of mind about letting me into his house. Letting me see a side of him that very few got to see.
Except my words hadn’t seemed to soothe him. “That makes me… Jeez, that makes me furious, Maisie.”
Furious. It was such a charged word, and the way he said it caused a strange feeling to stir within me. Almost like he’d dragged his thumb across my cheekbone again.
It was weird that he was angry on my behalf. I tried to think of what Alex’s reaction would be if I told him that story—I didn’t think he’d be angry. I’d expected a solemn nod, a nonchalant “that sucks,” but notfurious.
