Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 145746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Hurt stabs my heart for a second, but it’s a wound that closes almost instantly. I know she’s sensitive about that period of her life, and I shouldn’t press yet.
“Sorry.” I pass a weary hand over my face. “I guess Petra’s words kind of got to me.”
Fatigue has loosened my tongue, and I didn’t even realize I’d said that aloud until consternation wrinkles Verity’s smooth expression.
“You and Petra were talking about me behind my back?” she demands, her tone sharper than I’ve ever heard it.
“No, baby, I—”
“Then what words? What did Petra say that made you feel like you can’t trust me?”
“I didn’t say I don’t trust you.”
“You’re digging around in my past, asking questions—”
“Why I gotta dig? If you don’t have anything to hide, then—”
“I’m not hiding anything. Fuck this.” She wiggles, trying to get off my lap, but my arm tightens around her. “Let me go.”
“The hell I will,” I say, my tone sharp, too, as I capture her arm and hold her in place. “We’re not going to fight about this.”
“Newsflash. We’re already fighting.”
“You’re taking it wrong. It wasn’t like that.”
She stops squirming long enough to eye me. “Then how was it? What’d Petra say?”
“Just to take care of you. That when you guys first met, you were kind of fragile and she worries about you sometimes.”
“Fragile?” Verity’s eyes snap to mine. “She doesn’t need to worry about me. You don’t need to worry about me. My aunts don’t need to worry. All this damn concern is suffocating.”
“Your aunts?” This is the first time she’s alluded to her aunts worrying. Every conversation I’ve ever overheard has been light and affectionate.
“God, it’s nothing.” Her voice rises and her fingers, merely restless moments ago, now grip her shirt so hard the skin draws tight over her knuckles. “I wish everyone would just fuck off. I’m fine.”
I let her shout bounce off the walls into silence, hoping she hears how not fine she sounds. She closes her eyes, suddenly looking as tired as she should with as little sleep as she’s gotten this week.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m just trying to get this project done in time. It’s half my grade, and I had writer’s block for weeks. It clicked tonight and I wanted to work. I was happy about it, but then you came in here and started talking about not going to Juilliard.”
“Deferring,” I correct. “Just for a year.”
“And at the end of that year, what? I move with you to New York?”
I hadn’t gotten that far in my plan, but in the back of my mind, yeah. That’s probably what I thought would happen. Hoped.
“I mean, New York is the best place in the world for filmmakers,” I say.
“And your plans should supersede any I might make for myself, right? Because you’re the genius in this relationship and I should just follow you around.”
“What the fuck, Vee?” I struggle to push down my own anger so this doesn’t escalate even more. “What have I ever done or said to make you think I put my art over yours? My career or future over yours?”
Something shifts in her eyes. She blinks and sighs, her shoulders sagging like exhaustion hits—from the week or from our argument, I’m not sure—and all the fight drains out of her.
“You haven’t,” she says, blinking at tears. “You don’t do that. I’m sorry. I just…”
Her words peter out and her eyes drop to the papers splayed around us.
“I’m sorry I mentioned delaying Juilliard.” I swallow my hurt and disappointment. “I want to be with you. I don’t want to leave, and it’s not about Petra or… whatever. It’s that you’re the most important thing to me now.”
“Not more than your music, Monk,” she says, shaking her head. “We’ve known each other such a short time.”
How do I explain that it isn’t about how long we’ve known each other, but that with her I feel truly known. I hadn’t considered the possibility that I’ve waded into the deep end by myself, that maybe she doesn’t feel the same. I don’t address the issue of her being more important than my music already. I don’t want to lie to her, and I’m not sure what the full truth is. I only know that if I’m in New York and she’s still at Finley, I’ll be miserable.
“You’re right.” I wrap one hand around her nape. “If you want to slow things down, we can.”
“I don’t want to slow down. I just want to be… careful.” She slides her eyes away from mine. “I told you how intense things were between my parents.”
“And that it didn’t end well.”
She looks back to me. “No, not at all, but I don’t want to—”
“I’m not him and you’re not her.”
“I don’t want us to act like them, to be so caught up in each other that we make bad decisions or ignore important things.”