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“Fun’s telling my parents I’m at the art museum when I’m in bed with a cute guy I met on vacation. Fun’s watching terrible movies and hanging out reading books—actual books on paper.”
“Congratulations, I diagnose you with college-student-itis. You aren’t addicted to fun; you’re figuring out who you are.”
“It’s not the guy?” Vandy hadn’t been ready to consider that.
“Would you still love the books and movies if the guy disappeared? Are you enjoying all that stuff because of him or because you’re letting yourself do those things?”
Vandy opened her mouth and closed it. “I don’t know.”
“That’s the beauty of being your age. Figure out who you are and what you want, and not for a guy,”said Perkins couldn’t have been even ten years older than Vandy. She gave Vandy a sly look. “Not for your parents, either.”
“How do you know when you’ve made the right choice?”
Perkins shook her head. “No one can answer that except you. And that will be three hundred dollars.”
“It will?” Vandy blinked hard.
“No, I just always wanted to say that.”
“Oh. Well, I hope you and accountant guy get it to work when you figure out who you are.”
“I know who I am. Best of luck on figuring out who you are,” Angela said and walked off.
This was definitely a new thing for Vandy—to interrogate and seek advice from random strangers. But maybe that was who Vandy really was…
She looked at her phone and made a decision. Her parents could have lunch by themselves.
CHAPTER 8
Vandy sent him a text asking to talk at his place.
Royce texted his permission, feeling a little guilty about how hard he’d come down on her last night.
Okay, he’d completely over-reacted, and she deserved some closure.
Still, the outcome had always been a foregone conclusion. Not because of her, but because of him.
When she came by at three pm, they stood on opposite sides of his living room. Poor Eowyn was confused; they’d never spent time apart.
She wasn’t alone, because Vandy said, “What did I do wrong? Is this my fault? Did I ruin us?”
He shook his head. “Us was ending today no matter what. And I was ruined way before you met me.”
“What do you mean?”
Time to absolve her. “I was engaged to my high school girlfriend. We lived together, and I helped put her through college. I trusted her with everything—my bank account, the lease of this apartment. She told me she had a job lined up in Cincinnati after graduation last year. I was going to take the lieutenant exam that summer and transfer there.”
“You never took the exam,” she observed.
“The day she graduated, she left me a note. She’d been cheating on me for a year. She’d found a real man with ambition who ‘applied himself.’”
“Oh, my god.” Vandy covered her mouth, having recognized the phrase that set him off outside the club.
“She cleaned out my bank account rather than paying our rent and threw away all the overdue notices. Since I was mid-transfer, I didn’t have a job in Cleveland or Cinci. I holed up in here with Eowyn for weeks. I was about to be evicted when my brother found out from a friend in the police department. He paid off what he could and told my team at 19. They passed the hat and paid the rest. My captain ‘lost’ my transfer, so I was never unemployed,” Sean answered.
He skipped how he’d destroyed every single thing Alyson’d ever touched, including every plate and dish.
It took her only a few seconds to digest his whole story. “That’s why you stay at your firehouse. Because of the people. ‘True allegiance is only given willingly,’”she recited the words he wore on his skin, a quote from The Chronicles of Prydain, which she likely hadn’t read yet.
