Not You It's Me (Boston Love #1) - Julie Johnson Page 0,55
but it was small stuff, mostly, nothing out of the ordinary — going out for my spot on the rowing team, running against me for class president, spreading rumors about me to sabotage my friendships. Nothing extreme, just standard familial rivalry.”
“Uh huh,” I say, thinking nothing about that sounds standard to me. At all.
“But after that summer, it was like something had been unleashed inside him — he stopped trying to hide his manipulation, his efforts to hurt me, and became almost… blatant about it.” He sighs. “We both attended the same all-boys boarding school in Rhode Island. I’d snuck a girl into my room, one night, against the rules. Everyone at the Academy did it — we all looked the other way, had each other’s backs when it came to covering with the hall monitors.” His voice thrums with anger. “Except Brett. He reported it — along with all my other indiscretions — to the headmaster. And, when that wasn’t enough to blacken my academic record, he got inventive. Stirred up cheating claims with my teachers, accused me of stealing his essays, of forcing him to do my homework with threats and coercion. Total bullshit, of course — I made better grades than he ever did, so if I was going to cheat, it wouldn’t have been off him — but it sewed the seeds of doubt in the school board’s minds enough that they believed him when, one day, he showed up in the medical wing with a black eye and bruised ribs, spouting lies that I’d beaten the shit out of him. I hadn’t, no matter how often I’d considered it, but that didn’t matter. I was expelled for bullying, halfway through our senior year. Grandfather nearly disowned me.” Chase shakes his head. “There’s more, but it’s not worth getting into — I think you get the idea.”
I nod in confirmation and, this time, I can’t stop myself — I reach out a hand and lay it against his knee. He tenses at the contact, but, after a few seconds, I feel his muscles relax under my fingers.
He’s unused to being comforted, I think to myself. Unused to the idea that someone might reach out to give rather than take, requiring nothing in return.
It’s a terribly sad realization.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, my heart a little bit broken for him.
“For what?” Chase asks, his eyes steady on mine. “It’s not your fault, Gemma.”
“I know, it’s just…” My eyes drop to my hand, looking fragile and fine-boned where it lays against his knee. “I know how it feels to be disappointed by family — by the people who are supposed to love you unconditionally. It’s a betrayal of everything that makes us human. Frankly… it freaking sucks. I’m sorry you had to go through it, that’s all.”
My eyes find his and I see they’re curious, active with thoughts — whether about my past or his own, I don’t know. His mouth is set in a stern line and the muscles beneath my fingers are rock hard once more. After a long while, the silence between us lengthens into a heavy thing, and I begin to worry he’s angry with me for intruding on his memories. My eyes drop as I wait for him to tell me to butt out, to go home, to get lost.
He never does.
A small eternity later, I feel the stirring of fingers in the hair by my temple. It’s not much — just one, simple stroke of the strands — but I know it’s his way of saying thank you even if he’s not ready to say it out loud.
He clears his throat. “Even the expulsion Brett orchestrated wasn’t enough to hurt my chances at Harvard — which made him even angrier. He hadn’t counted on the cachet of the Croft name. Truth is, I could’ve been a felon, had a terrible GPA, called my college interviewer a jerkoff — it wouldn’t have mattered. My family legacy alone was enough to convince even the toughest admissions officers.”
“Must’ve been nice,” I murmur thoughtlessly.
His eyes harden, icing over as I watch. “It wasn’t.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just…” I trail off, searching for the right words. “I didn’t go to college right away. My mom couldn’t pay for it, and I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to study. So, I moved to the city, worked my ass off at crappy coffee shops that barely paid the rent, and set aside every penny