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‘I want to go on a date with you, Annalise. A real one, not some weird, covert one involving stolen cake or late-night lurking while your flatmates are busy.’
Yes.
Where? When? Anytime, yes, I’d love to.
My mind flashes with a montage of how this summer could be, if I let it. It’s sweet, enticing … And it sours quickly, when I imagine how people at Arrowmile might react, how they’d assume the worst of me.
‘Lloyd …’ My mouth is dry and I swallow, hard. I catch myself fidgeting with the napkin beside my coffee and snatch my hands into my lap instead. ‘I can’t. You know why.’
But Lloyd’s body language shifts in the blink of an eye. He relaxes into his chair, reaching a hand across the table to me, an invitation, his eyes brightening as he smiles at me, optimistic and resolute – not just hopeful, but completely convinced of whatever he’s about to say.
‘I know you’re worried what people will say, but you’re halfway through the internship already! They’ve seen what you’re capable of. They know what kind of person you are and how hard you work – datingmeisn’t going to change that.’
‘You can’t know that,’ I say, and my voice comes out as a whisper, scratchy and thin. I feel shaky, hollowed-out. It’s no longer a creeping sense of dread – more like a solid, leaden doom, in the face of his optimism.
‘Nobody has to know we met before the internship, or anything else. We could just go from here. I just think …’ He trails off, but only to chuckle, his smile stretching even wider. ‘Whatever we have, Annalise, it means something. And that’s worth a shot, isn’t it?’
Of course it means something. It means so much.
But – does it meanenough?
My mind starts careening through whatactuallydating Lloyd might mean, and it heads straight for disaster. Whispers behind my back about the times he’s stopped by my desk and how maybe I was too busy flirting to do my job, vicious murmurs laced with truth. Not getting a permanent job offer because nobody thinks I earned it.Gettinga job offer, and having people wonder if it was only because I’m with the boss’s son. Interviewing at other places only to have them find out about it when asking Arrowmile for a reference …
I spent years at school knowing that when I was grown up, everything would be better. Focusing so hard on making sure my future would be something worthwhile, successful, important. At uni, that felt close enough that I could reach out and take it.
Is whatever I have with Lloyd worth risking the future I’ve been working so hard towards?
Immediately, I know the answer.
Just like I knew it after I failed that midterm because I’d been paying more attention to my relationship than my degree.
‘I don’t want you to feel used,’ I tell Lloyd, wondering if I can talk him out of it. He seems so determined, but he’s right. Wedohave something. Surely he can’t want us to just throw it away? Isn’tthis a negotiation, not an ultimatum? ‘You know that’s not what I’m doing. What’s so bad about … the way things are?’
A muscle ticks in his cheek, his smile stiffening. ‘You mean where you kiss me, and look at me like you do, then panic and push me away again? Put your walls back up, act like someone else? Because that makes me feel pretty shitty and used, Annalise.’
Like you’re so great at letting me in all the time? Like you don’t do your own version of that, hamming it up around everybody else in the office?
Not a negotiation after all, I guess. Hurt bleeds into his voice and I know how awful I felt the first week at Arrowmile, when he acted like we’d never met; he must’ve felt the same way every time I rebuffed him.
He told me he wanted me to let him in, that he kept looking for the girl he met that first night. Someone more honest and vulnerable and real. Someone warm, and likeable.
I’d like to be her. I really would.
But I can’t. I’m this person, who has to be pragmatic and do the sensible thing, who doesn’t get swept away on the tides of a summer romance.
‘I don’t mean to make you feel like that,’ I tell him honestly. ‘And I’m sorry. You make it so easy to be around you, even if … Even if it’s a bad idea. You wantto think the best of people – and I admire that about you, really, because it’s not something I’ve ever been able to do. But you can afford to do that – everybody at Arrowmile practically worships the ground you walk on. You’ve grown up there, know it inside out, and they all know you’ll be running the place someday. Nobody has a bad word to say about you. Why would they? You go around with that smile, chatting to everyone, charming them, making them feel like – like they’re so special, as long as they have your attention. Like they deserve to feel that way. It’s impossiblenotto like you, Lloyd.
‘But it’s not like that for me. It never has been. I can’t coast along on my dad’s name and legacy. I’m cold and unlikeable – remember? You’ve had everything handed to you, so maybe you reallycan’tunderstand where I’m coming from, but I’ve worked too hard to get here to risk throwing it away now, not when there’s only six weeks left to go. If that’s really how you feel about us, then maybe we can be friends, Lloyd, and if you need someone to hang out with every once in a while, then maybe that can be me, but I can’t be more than that. I can’t mess this up. It’s too important to me.’
More important than you are, than you could be if I let you.
Lloyd’s confident attitude finally vanishes. I watchthe hope dim in his eyes, the glitter of it replaced by something dark and wounded as he lowers them, watching the steam curling off his coffee instead. He turns the mug so the handle is at a ninety-degree angle to him then traces a warp in the wooden tabletop with his fingertip.
‘Well,’ he says. ‘I guess that’s it, then.’
‘I – I guess so.’
There’s a beat, and the world seems to stop for a moment, hinging on our next decision. Me: waiting to see if he’ll say it’s okay, we don’t need to make a big song and dance about dating all of a sudden and can carry on as we are, he understands. Him: waiting to see if I’ll realize what I’ve just done – what I’ve cost us both – and if I’ll blurt an apology, change my mind.
