Chapter Twenty-Four

James

“James?” She steps away from me.

Her baby-blue eyes catch mine and for an instant I try to pour into her how sorry I am for how I’ve mislead her, all through one glance.

Then she shrugs. “It doesn’t matter to me why you were on the wall.”

The nonchalant move is like a cut. She used to be so open toward me, and now she’s guarded. And it’s all my fault. “I’d want to know why someone was looking in my window. Why don’t you want to know?”

“You’re not the type of guy who would be there if he didn’t have a good reason.”

“I was checking to make sure you were all right.”

She exhales sharply as she crosses to the other side of the hallway, folding herself against the wall. “And was I?”

“You seemed to be. Didn’t know you and Tuti were the type to hang naked posters of guys in your room.”

Her brow folds in and—help me—she looks adorably confused. “Oh,” she groans. “Charlotte. It was her brilliant idea to help me.”

“Help you?”

“I found it harder than I anticipated to be without you.” She presses her hand against one of the columns and gazes up at the stone archway over our heads. “Turns out you are a cornerstone.”

“Edelweiss.” I take a few steps toward her, but when I do, she shifts farther away.

“It’s okay, James. Really. Thank you for taking the blame for the test.”

“It’s all my fault.”

“Don’t say that. It was my decision to steal the test and—to be honest—I wouldn’t change it. I thought if Creighton got ahold of that image or if Emma posted it publicly, your dad would have transferred you.”

“You saved me.”

“Yeah, well.” She glances back up at the archway. “Brockmore isn’t Brockmore without you. The walls would have come tumbling down.”

“You’re wrong, Edelweiss.”

“Trust me on this one.” She swings her messenger bag over her shoulder. “See you around, I guess.”

Watching her walk away kills me. Everything is wrong. This is when I should be holding her close, feeling her breath on my cheek while I bend down to whisper how much I love her. Desperation launches me forward. “Edelweiss?” My voice echoes down the empty hallway. “Will you go to the dance with me?”

When she turns around, her expression is soft but too kind. The rejection stings before the words fall from her mouth. “James, please don’t.”

“What?”

“You don’t have to ask me to the dance to thank me.”

As we climb the grand stairway, I reach out and touch the silky skin on the inside of her wrist. When she doesn’t pull away, I claim it as a victory. “Do you already have a date?”

“No, but I’d rather not be asked than go as a pity date.”

“You’ll never be anyone’s pity date, Edelweiss.” I brush against her shoulder. “And that’s not why I’m asking you. Maybe we can go as friends?”

“Friends?” She punches in the code to her dorm. “James, don’t waste the winter formal on me, not when there are so many girls you’ve been eyeing the last six weeks.”

“Hey, I…” The words slam into the back of my throat. “That meant nothing.”

“Just old habit?” That’s a hard edge in her eyes, one I don’t dare try to challenge right now.

Obviously, I hurt her, and that knowledge cuts deep. I nod, stepping back and allowing her to pass into the girls’ dorm. There’s a long way to go before I can even come close to winning her back, but I’ll do whatever it takes for her to trust me again.

I take a deep breath, wandering back down the stairs. To win her back? Well, my arsenal is empty, and somehow I doubt Creighton is going to be up to hearing me out. I tug out my phone and call the one guy who knows me best.

“Dad?” I say the moment he answers. “You awake?”

He chuckles. “Of course I’m awake. I think it’d be a bit more appropriate for me to be asking you that question, don’t you? Isn’t it a Saturday morning?”

Normally I’d make some snide remark about how I’m always up early on Saturdays for practice, and on the days we don’t have practice I’m still hitting the gym by six thirty a.m. But instead, defeating words tumble out. “I guess so.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Dad. You don’t want to hear this, but I screwed up everything with Edel.”

There’s a long silence before he answers. “Is she pregnant?”

“No. Nothing like that.”

“Thank God.” He exhales into the phone. There’s another long pause, and the space makes me antsy. “How about you talk, and I’ll listen until you’re done?”

“Okay.” I spill out all the facts. How our relationship was fake, and why it was fake. I pace back and forth down the hallway while I confess that I did it to convince him I was serious about staying at Brockmore, and how I’m sorry for being so ignorant as to think a fake girlfriend would fix me.

“Son,” he says when I’m finally done. “You know you could drop out of high school, get a girl pregnant, and work at a gas station, and I would always love you, right? I’m so sorry that you felt like you needed to be fake to gain my approval.”

My eyes sting, and I cough, studying the cracks in the aging Sheetrock.

“You still like Edelweiss.” It’s not a question.

“Yes, sir.”

“Listen close, James Matthew. After your mother’s death, I always worried that I wouldn’t be enough for you.” He takes a deep breath. “So much so that when you hit your teenage years, I thought you needed a motherly influence in a way I didn’t think I could provide, so I convinced myself you’d be best in Julie’s hands at Brockmore. Today I understand that I’m wrong. I shouldn’t have doubted that and sent you away to Brockmore. My love is enough, son. Let that knowledge be your firm foundation so you can look at Edelweiss and not doubt whether or not you deserve her love, because James, you are loved by me through your core.”

It’s pretty much impossible to see through my wet eyes. Eventually, I cough out a “Thanks, Dad.”

“So,” his voice is lighter, changing the tone. “Lucky for you, I messed up royally with your mother at the beginning of our relationship yet still managed to win her over. Tell me where you’re at with her, and we’ll hash out a plan to get you back in the game.”

“Dad.” I wipe away the dampness below my eyelids. “You’re the best.”

“We’ll figure this out together.”