my side to face her. “Let me be the judge of that.”
She rolls to her back, watching the comets above, her chest rising and falling with slow, deep breaths as if it’s been forever since she last lived in the beauty of a single, simple moment.
“It’s been a long day. You mind if we sideline that conversation and just enjoy this?” Sophie points above.
She isn’t wrong.
We’ve been chatting nonstop all afternoon, most of the conversation pointless on the surface but all of it serving the greater good.
I told her about my obsession with astronomy as a child. The awful German tutor I had in sixth grade. The memorable summer my family spent in Lebanon.
She told me about her years at Princeton. The charities she started. The organizations she chaired. All things I’d already gleaned from her HR file. But not once did she share a treasured family remembrance or defining childhood. There was no talk of relationships. Friendships or otherwise. No mention of hopes or ambitions for the future. Sophie—the real Sophie—is still buried deep inside.
This woman is a fortress.
And I intend to dismantle her brick by brick.
Eighteen
Sophie
Past
“I’m so sorry,” I tell Nolan over the phone Friday afternoon. I’m hiding in the bathroom, and I left the faucet running so my mother can’t hear. “My mom planned this last minute. She just told me about it today.”
He exhales into the receiver. “And she won’t let you stay home? You’re eighteen for Christ’s sake.”
I’ve never heard him like this—frustrated.
“It’s a two-hour drive to my grandma’s … it’s a lot for Mom to do in one weekend,” I say. She’s doing better, but she’s still not quite one hundred percent. Until then, she needs me.
“You can’t tell her you have to work?” He knows I’ve yet to mention that I quit waiting tables months ago.
For a while, I debated telling her the truth. Living this lie makes our relationship feel wrong, and it’s anything but.
Nolan talked me out of it.
He said he loves things exactly how they are, and he didn’t want to chance her getting upset.
“If I do, she might call my work and try to talk my old manager into giving me the time off.” I keep my voice low.
“You really think she’d do that?”
I shrug even though he can’t see me. “Maybe? I don’t want to risk it.”
He’s quiet. My stomach sinks. Gone is the excitement that normally colors his tone when he tells me what time to be ready each weekend.
Usually I Uber to a restaurant of his choosing and we kick off our date night with a fancy dinner before holing up in our favorite hotel suite.
Tonight we were supposed to see a movie, and I spent all of eight period today daydreaming about cuddling into his arms in a cool, dark theatre, munching on popcorn and Red Vines—normal boyfriend and girlfriend stuff.
“Please don’t be mad,” I say.
Nolan says nothing.
“I can text you,” I add. “All weekend. As much as you want. I’ll keep my phone on me the whole time.”
“It’s not the same.” His voice is monotone.
“Soph, you ready?” Mom calls from the next room. She’s finished packing for Emmeline.
“I have to go,” I tell him. “I’ll text you, okay?”
He’s silent, not giving me a single goodbye. When I glance down at my phone, I realize he hung up.
Tears sting my eyes, hot and sharp.
“Sophie …” Mom calls for me again.
“Coming,” I yell back, praying she doesn’t hear the break in my voice. I shove my phone in my back pocket, splash cold water on my face, and dab it dry with a hand towel. When I emerge, I hurry to my bedroom, grab my Nike duffel bag, and slide a pair of sunglasses on before Mom has a chance to notice the red splotches on my skin.
Ten minutes later, the three of us are loaded up in the van, headed west to my grandmother’s house for the weekend.
“Why are you so quiet today?” Mom asks when we merge onto the interstate a few minutes later. “Everything okay? I feel like you never talk to me anymore.”
I force a smile, hands gripping the steering wheel at ten and two. “What are you talking about? I’m totally fine.”
But I’m lying.
I’m not totally fine.
I’m confused.
The next two hours are tortuous as they are endless since I can’t text him. And when we arrive at my grandmother’s, she has dinner on the table. Three times I sneak off to check my phone, but Nolan hasn’t sent a thing.
Is this