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Now she saw those days for what they were. A lie. The realization cast Colin’s stark frame in a harsh light, so he looked cold, calculating, the planes of his face edged like blades as he crossed the final squares of black-and-white linoleum between them.
Even the small smile he offered her as he slid into the opposite side of the booth seemed empty. A chill chased up Allison’s back.
He noted her shiver and immediately began shrugging out of his charcoal cardigan. “Are you cold?”
She waved him off. She didn’t want anything of his touching her until she got some answers. She barely let him finish ordering (buffalo chicken nachos, their usual, as if this was a normal afternoon) before she spat out, “What happened to not applying for the Rising Star?” The harshness in her voice clashed with the jolly chorus demanding that they all dance and prance in Jingle Bell Square.
Colin flinched. “I didn’t plan on it.” Leaning forward, he rested his bony elbows on the edge of the table and wrapped both hands around his glass of water. “My adviser insisted. She said it would be a good way to seal the deal on my Ph.D. application.” His movements were methodical, almost robotic, as he brought the cup to his lips and took a long sip. “You know how competitive the good programs are.”
All those words and not one apology. Allison folded her arms over her chest. Could he really think he was blameless here? “And you didn’t think you should tell me?”
His lips pursed. “It was a last-minute thing. And I never thought I’d win.”
Lies.Colin didn’t do anything unless he was sure he’d win. “Or were you more afraid that I might?”
It was the only explanation she’d could fathom. If she’d won, it would have upset their equilibrium. She’d have something Colin didn’t. That would never have sat well with him.
“What does that mean?”
“We all know Colin Benjamin doesn’t like to be outshined.” There was venom on Allison’s tongue. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected from this conversation, but given all those times he’d tried to contact her, she’d expected him to grovel or at least offer an explanation that would fix things between them. Instead, he seemed resigned. Detached. Like he had nothing invested in this discussion.
Or inthem.
Her fear of that stung enough to make her defensive.
He held still except to raise the water glass to his lips once more. Allison longed for the erratic flurry of his hands. Some sign that he was nervous or hurting. Anything. “I don’t know what you want from me, Allison,” he said.
“An apology? A promise it won’t happen again? Some reason that would make this all okay?” She was practically begging him for something he should have offered willingly. To ease her own anxiety, she reached forward and twirled the straw in her cup.
Colin shifted stiffly, then cleared his throat. “Listen.”
The straw bent between Allison’s suddenly cramped fingers.
“These past few days gave me a lot of time to think.”
The plastic snapped in half, and a sharp corner sliced through her knuckle. Allison’s nerves were too raw from his tone, his words, to notice. She could be run over by a truck in this booth and she probably wouldn’t feel it.
“This whole Rising Star thing made me face something I hadn’t wanted to. I almost didn’t apply for it because of you”—he cleared his throat again when Allison balked—“because ofus,” he clarified. “What if I hadn’t? And then I didn’t win?”
Allison shook her head. She had no idea what he was getting at, but it didn’t sound like anything she’d asked for.
“The Rising Star, that’s not even the biggest decision I need to make this year. Huge things are coming up for me. Important things. Life-changing things.” His hazel eyes were steady. He’d practiced this. Which meant he’d thought about it long enough to draft a script. “Mylife’s about to start for real, you know? I can’t be held back by anything. I have to make the right choices for me. Only me.”
Allison’s heart cracked. Here she was believing they were growing closer, when, actually, Colin had been planning to tear them apart.
He didn’t wait for her to respond before he said the handful of words that cleaved her world in two.
“I need to make those choices on my own,” he said. “I need to be on my own. Alone.”
Allison had thought this was a fight, something for them to work through, to grow from.
To Colin, it was an end.
On his own. Alone.
Those were the last words they spoke to each other until Claymore’s orientation two years later. Because that day, after he’d broken her heart, Allison gave him exactly what he wanted.
Rising without a word, she turned from him and headed for the door.
