I stepped inside and her small, pale, bandaged head turned to face me. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I replied.
I stood there. Neither of us speaking.
Belle was first to give in. “What happened?”
“You hit your head on the side of the pool and nearly drowned. The bastard who did it is on his way out.”
“Good.” Belle pointed at the chair beside her. “Where were you while I was drowning?”
I drew the chair closer and sat. “Jumping in to save you, of course.”
Pale and sporting a giant bandage covering half her forehead, didn’t make her less of a golden-haired sea goddess. Especially when she smiled at me like that.
“Of course.”
“I should’ve made him put you down,” I said. “I should have—”
“Don’t do that,” she whispered. “Find ways to make yourself feel worse when I’m going to be fine. I’ll take it easy for a few days. Be waited on hand and foot. There could have been a worse ending to this story.”
Nodding, I dropped my forehead on the mattress. My tension leaked out as Belle stroked my hair.
“You’re still a jackass though.”
I chuckled. I knew this was coming. “Saving your life makes me a jackass?”
“Saving my life proves you’re determined to keep flipping from sweet, caring human being to Sir Jackass of the Thumpington Jackasses.”
I burst out laughing. “Your insults are as creative as your threats.”
“You knew I was trying to help you, Nathan.” Her voice was soft. “I didn’t deserve a sleepless night crying for offering to give you what you wanted.”
I winced. Hearing she cried was a straight shot through my chest.
Didn’t you want her to cry? a harsh voice asked. You wanted her to hurt as much as her suggestion ripped you apart.
“But I also didn’t... not... deserve it,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking of you and what it’d feel like to have your ex propose a loveless, business-arrangement marriage. If it’s anything like your former best friend wanting to use you for a bigger inheritance, it’s gotta suck toilet seats.”
“Dirty, gas station men’s room toilet seats,” I clarified.
“I am sorry, Nathan.”
I raised my head, knocking her hand down to my face where it stayed. Belle traced the lines over my brow one by one.
“In the waiting room,” I began, “I told Hendrix about Finn and his friends dyeing the uniforms purple and the scholarship kids having to pay money they didn’t have to get new ones. I was one of them. One of the kids who needed new uniforms, but in my case, the colonel refused to pay. Spending my allowance would’ve wiped me out for food for an entire month. I had to choose between pushing the dress code to expulsion or not eating.”
“What did you do?” Belle moved her exploration to my eyes, closing them as she skated on my lids.
“Nothing. Woke up the next day and found a stack of new uniforms outside my room. Preston bought and paid for them without asking.” I released a breath. “And that’s why I got mad at you.”
“Because Preston bought your uniform?”
“Because Preston covers me whenever I’m short. Carter lets me crash in his pool house when the colonel changes the locks. Mrs. Desai has the cook make an extra plate at dinner. My driver has to give over his phone so I can talk to my mother.” I closed over her hand, holding it under my chin as I said what I needed to say. “Everyone in my life has to take care of me. All that stuff I shouted about puppies in puddles and pathetic little orphans was projecting. It’s already what I am.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is true,” I said. “But it wasn’t true to you. You didn’t see me as that guy during those summers in Bracknell. I wasn’t someone to be pitied. When you asked me to marry you, weird as it is to say, that’s when I knew we were really over.”
“Are we?” she whispered.
Stiffening, I sat up straighter. “Aren’t we?”
She turned her head, looking away from me. “You’re not like before, Nathan. You talk to me now. Tell me what you’re feeling. What’s going on in that head of yours. Seventeen-year-old Nathan couldn’t tell me the truth of his family and all he’d been through. It seems wrong that now that you can be the boyfriend I need, we can’t be together.”
“I—” My head spun. Boyfriend? Was this for real or was the concussion talking?
“So, if we’re really going to do this now,” she continued, “and you’re willing to be honest.