in those pageants you hated. Did the debutante thing. Went to Wesleyan because it’s where she wanted you to go, even though you would have much rather gone to culinary school. If you hadn’t gotten together with Nick, I doubt you would have felt like you were enough. Doubt you would have spread your wings, grown the backbone you have now, and pretty much told Mom to suck it. So when I saw you finally stand up for what you wanted… I don’t know. It gave me hope, too, Jules. Hope that I could be happy. That I could have something real, like you have with Nick.”
She squeezes her eyes shut, a pensive expression on her face as a gentle breeze blows around us, picking up the familiar aroma of wildflowers and raw earth.
“What is it?” I press.
She lifts her gaze to mine, lips parted, a response on the tip of her tongue. Then she clamps her mouth shut, looking forward. “It’s nothing.”
A silence passes over us. I can’t shake the feeling she’s hiding something from me, which is unlike her. She usually tells me everything. We may not have always gotten along when we were teenagers, but in the past several years, especially once I moved back to Atlanta, we’ve become close.
“Jules, you know—”
“So if you say you want something real,” she interrupts before I can push the issue, “why don’t you go after it? I know what I saw, Wes. Know what I felt. There’s something real between Londyn and you.”
“I know how it will end, Jules. I’ve already been there.”
“With Brooklyn?” she asks hesitantly.
I nod. “You know how hurt I was after she broke things off.”
“You moved your entire world to be near her.”
My chest squeezes at the memory of everything I did for it all to come crashing down at the eleventh hour. I’m not bitter, though. Not anymore. Like I told myself in the months to follow, like I still remind myself on occasion, it was better I learned she didn’t love me like she needed before we made that lifelong commitment to each other. I thought if I loved her with everything I had, it would be enough. But I’ve learned you can’t force someone to love you if their heart isn’t in it. And Brooklyn’s heart wasn’t in it. Not all of it anyway.
“She broke my damn heart, Jules. And think about it. Brooklyn… Londyn…” I give her a knowing look. “A bit of a coincidence that they’re both named after cities, don’t you think? If that’s not an omen this is history repeating itself, I don’t know what is.” My jaw twitches as I shake my head. “No. I’d rather not go through that again. Especially when it will never work.”
“Why? Because your mother won’t approve?” she sneers.
It doesn’t escape my notice she doesn’t refer to her as our mother. She hasn’t in years. Instead, she calls her Lydia, her subtle reminder that the woman never acted as a mother to her, that she only adopted her to appear charitable to her friends. But the second we were no longer in public, she treated her like a nuisance.
“That woman will only approve of someone for her darling Weston if she comes with the right pedigree.”
“I don’t care about her approval. Not anymore. If I did, I wouldn’t have dated Brooklyn. And because of Brooklyn, I’m painfully aware that there’s only so much a person is willing to put up with when it comes to that woman. And if you thought she was horrible to Brooklyn, imagine how she’d treat Londyn. At least Brooklyn was white.”
Julia is more than aware how our parents would react to the idea of me dating anyone who isn’t rich, white, and possesses the proper last name. If we didn’t have Gampy’s and Meemaw’s influence, we probably would have thought it normal to judge someone because of their skin color, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status, as everyone else in our lives did back then. Hell, as nearly everyone in my life still does.
“I guarantee there’s only so much Londyn would be willing to put up with once she got a taste of the life we’ve always known.”
“That you’ve always known.” She pauses before asking her next question, one I’m sure she’s wanted to ask for years. “But is this really the life you want? Schmoozing clients? Playing their game? Not following your heart because you’re worried about what people will say?”