CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

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2022

          I spent the walk to campus and the lecture hall mostly in a daze, my brain failing to properly register and process whatever Savannah was saying.

          Under different circumstances, guilt would be crawling all over me like tiny little spiders, but I couldn't feel bad for ignoring her mindless blabbering when I had much more pressing matters to worry about. Did that make me a terrible friend? Indeed it did, and yet my obsessive brain always found a way of somehow excusing my distance—she'd been worse to me before, with Paul, the frat party, Ingrid, not telling me about the investigation, gaslighting me; the list went on for several more miles—so I was certain she'd have to understand my distance.

          I didn't care about whatever she was saying. That was the short, quick, easy way to explain. I didn't expect her to understand such frivolities didn't mean a damn thing to me, not when I was going through a crisis, and I wasn't sure what to make of all of it. If she hadn't noticed a thing, was it because I'd gotten that good at pretending to be fine and impassive, or was it because she, too, didn't care about what I was going through enough to see I wasn't, in fact, okay?

          In the end, did it even matter? Would this friendship matter to me in just a couple of months, when I was so, so close to getting everything I wanted?

          The ring on my finger seemed to weigh at least ten times its actual weight and, even though I kept that hand hidden inside my coat's pocket, I still feared it was too exposed, like everyone around me could see through fabric. Realistically, I knew I was being ridiculous and paranoid, the regular state of my emotional health at that point, and years had passed since I'd last walked through campus with a target on my back, but that was the thing about anxiety. It wasn't ever meant to be a pleasant experience, regardless of how hard it attempted to fool me into believing it was just looking out for me and my well-being. It wanted to prepare me for and protect me from any lurking dangers, but it ceased being helpful the moment it had rendered me unable to function properly. There was nothing adaptive about trying to get through a mundane task, such as attending a lecture or shopping for groceries, while my chest threatened to explode and my whole body shook from cold sweats.

          That, for whatever reason, was something Savannah noticed in particular—at least that was why I assumed we'd stopped walking, with her grabbing my arm to halt me in place. She pulled me back, too, and the whiplash nearly made me fall flat on my back, pathetically stumbling over my own feet. To make matters worse, it was only then that I realized how badly I was shaking, like I couldn't even control such a small aspect of my body.

          "I know you and I know when you don't want to talk to me—or to anyone, for that matter—but I can't pretend like I can't see what's going on with you," she told me.

          My heartbeat exploded like thunder in my ears, aware that the present conversation could take a turn for the worst faster than I could break free from her grip, regardless of how much smaller than me she was. After that conversation at the apartment, my suspicions had grown even stronger, which meant I had to tread carefully through this interaction and not give anything away just in case; I was always cautious regardless, possibly even pathologically so, but all those coincidences shouldn't be ignored with how frequent and close together they'd turned out to be. Maybe I really had been worrying about the wrong best friend.

          Whatever she wanted to tell me, if it was about Chase, was far from being her business, and I couldn't even begin to tell her how much of a hypocrite she'd be after actively pursuing an older man, no matter what she'd told Ingrid, and for pushing me towards Paul in the first place. She was the reason I'd gone to that speakeasy in the first place, and I knew she resented me for having gotten an advisee position with Chase over her, something I'd since stopped feeling bad about. I'd worked twice as hard as her, busted my ass to prove I was more than my last name, and it wasn't my fault she saw me as competition over something as trivial as that. She wasn't more deserving of the position than I was, even with all her attempts at sabotaging me and gloating about her grades. I could no longer bring myself to care or feel guilty about throwing her under the bus when I was so damn certain she would've done the same thing.

          However, she couldn't do the same to me in the universe we existed in.

          I'd won. Chase was mine.

          "I know I'm not a therapist, but I think you might be depressed," Savannah admitted.

          That certainly wasn't what I expected to hear come out of her mouth, and my shock easily seeped into my physical reaction, which just served as fuel and fodder for her wild theory. She was no therapist and had no training in psychology, so I wasn't sure where she was getting that idea from; maybe my behavior didn't exactly match that of a completely mentally healthy person, but saying I was depressed was too big of a stretch.

          On my best days, I felt like a piece of soggy bread. It wasn't ideal or praise-worthy, but I didn't know how else to describe it—my unwillingness to change, my feelings of having been chewed and spat out, moldable into whatever shape the world wanted me to be.

          I'd always been so great at pretending, at being who people wanted me to be, and it was so easy to get addicted to the high brought on by pleasing everyone; even when I knew it wasn't realistic to make everyone love me, even when I convinced myself I was fake and manipulative, I couldn't stop myself. It was my relationship with Chase that taught me I couldn't force people to love me if they didn't want to, if they weren't ready for it, but it had also taught me to fight for what I wanted even if it felt dangerous at first. I carried the guilt of it everywhere I went, draining me dry like ivy growing along my bones, and that was the toughest aspect of it all. My intense terror brought on by the thought he'd quickly get tired of me and my needy tendencies only worsened whenever I remembered I'd forced him into all of this. The quicker he opened his eyes and saw things for how they were, he'd be gone in no time, and I couldn't force him to stay.

          "I'm not depressed."

          Savannah looked up at me with those big, pleading eyes of hers just to tug at my heartstrings. "I'm not saying this without empirical evidence. You barely eat, you barely sleep—"

          "I do sleep."

          "I hear you tossing and turning from across the hall and I've seen your light on at ungodly hours of the night. This is on the nights you spend at home with us, which brings me to my next point: you keep isolating yourself, refusing to spend time with your friends or your family. You never look happy anymore, Penn. I can't remember the last time I actually heard you laugh. You're always so quick to snap at us, even when it's justified, and you always deflect or flat out reject our compliments."

          I huffed. "Congratulations. You read textbooks."

          "I don't know what's going on, but you can talk to us. You can always talk to us. You know that, right?" She squeezed my arm ever so gently. "I love you. We both do. Please don't shut us out."

          I refused to entertain her and give her the satisfaction of knowing she'd gotten under my skin, a very Ingrid thing to do, despite knowing it would come back to bite me. I felt like a goddamn fool for having let the two of them play me like that, playing good cop and bad cop when, in reality, their natures had been switched just so Savannah could butter me up and stab me in the back and for Ingrid to soothe my wounds when I'd inevitably crawl back to her.

          My skin sizzled as my blood boiled in my veins and I wished I had listened to Chase all those years ago when he warned me about them, particularly Savannah. Gaslighting was the word he'd used, and I'd argued, pointing out it was too serious of a term to describe her actions, and I still agreed with my previous stance—in part. It was a word that had since been trivialized thanks to the Internet, losing a great portion of its importance, and was thrown around lightly and attached to people who were just lying. Now that I was older and had experienced more negative interactions with the girls, I finally understood where he'd been coming from, and knew he had been right all along. It wasn't wise or safe to stick with them, but I needed to keep up the facade for the sake of appearances, despite it making me more miserable by the nanosecond.

          Chase had been right from the start. I'd always known this, not just about this particular subject, and I'd heard him spend three—almost four—years warning me to be careful around Savannah and Ingrid, to never let them get too close, to stay away from them the second I felt like it was getting too dangerous. Part of me had shrugged it off, believing I had everything under control, and had always put my relationship with him in the first place, but that made me neglect my relationship with myself and with them.

          I loved them, I did, even though it wasn't safe by any means, but I also knew they loved me right back, whatever their intentions were. The big issue was that I wasn't sure whether I could trust them or not and, through all my college years, that trust in them had wavered, never remaining constant. Up until recently, my faith in Chase had only failed me once, and that had to count for something. Even with the abyss between us, I felt closer to him than I felt to Ingrid and Savannah, and I knew I'd made the right decision by choosing him.

          In the lecture hall, we found him sitting behind his desk, laptop open so he could use it as an excuse to ignore the conversation with the girl standing on the other side. My blood froze the instant I figured out who she was, like a brick headed straight towards my stomach, like the world hadn't ruined my birthday enough already.

          "Happy birthday!" Sarah told me, standing on her toes to wrap her small arms around my neck, like we were close enough for gestures that level of affectionate or like I'd ever given her an opening to treat me like this. The last time we'd spoken, she was warning me about Chase, like she knew a goddamn thing, and I was unable to look at her without thinking of the implications behind her words and Marco. She thought it was that easy to drop him, to not care about what he thought of me; like Carrie Bradshaw had once said, men were a drug. "I heard about the party. I'll be there, for sure."

          "Did Ingrid invite you?"

          "She invited Marco. He invited me." At the mention of Marco's name, Chase's eyes darted away from his laptop so he could take in the panicked, anguished look plastered on my face. Even if Ingrid and Marco really were friends, brought together by their major, and it had nothing to do with me, it was my fault for assuming she'd have the decency to not invite him considering how uncomfortable I felt around him. With Chase listening in on that conversation, I only felt more exposed than necessary, fearful of what he might think. "I was just asking for an extension on this week's paper, but . . ."

           "No extensions," Chase retorted, through gritted teeth. When I finally stared back at him, it was as though I was no longer standing there. The lecture hall filled with students, marking our cue to occupy our seats. "You had a whole month to finish it."

          "You must be so fun at parties, Doc."

          He didn't give her the satisfaction of bothering to answer, so she left, dejected. As for me, I earned a quick, almost imperceptible raise of one of the corners of his mouth when I brushed away a wisp of my hair with the hand that wore the ring, a clear improvement from his radio silence.

          "Is he going to LA?" Savannah asked, as we slid to our usual seats on the front row.

          I blinked, turning my head to face her. "What?"

          "He was looking at flights to LA on his computer," she clarified, shrugging off her faux fur coat, "for later in the year. September-ish, I think. I mean, it makes sense; he likes screenwriting, LA is all about movies . . . maybe he just wants to have a little taste of Hollywood life. He can't ride Stephen Delaroux's coattails forever. Or your dad's, for that matter. Good for him, I guess. Did you know?"

          "No." I slouched in my seat, swallowing the lump in my throat. "No, I had no idea."

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          I should've known something was going on when my parents decided to take me out for lunch that day.

          With them, it was always dinner at the manor, where they felt most comfortable and weren't restricted by other people's schedules; they did things their way, extending parties well into the night, and they had the home advantage. The manor was their pride and joy, even more so than me, and I understood. Houses could never disappoint you.

         A knot of fear twisted my stomach. Being invited to go anywhere with them outside of anyone's comfort zone meant they had something to tell me and, no matter how hard, how often I agonized over what it was, my mind came up blank. I couldn't ignore the persistent thought that I'd done something wrong and they wanted me to face the consequences, but I also had no clue what exactly I'd done wrong. They were better judges of character than I was, being able to be objective in areas where I failed to not be biased, like the quality of my own character. These people knew me better than I'd ever know myself, regardless of how uneasy it made me sometimes.

          I'd left the ring in my glove compartment, safely hidden inside its box, just so I wouldn't have to answer any questions about it. It was something they definitely didn't need to know about and I couldn't allow myself to consider how much it pained me to keep this a secret from them. Just a few more months, and it would all work out. Hold on.

          "Feliz cumpleaños, cariño," my mother said, pulling me into a hug so tight my bones nearly shattered in her arms. The second I broke free, my father mimicked her actions, while I refused to admit aloud I'd been so desperate for some physical contact with someone who loved me I was almost willing to ignore how fearful of this lunch date I was. "You look so beautiful. We're sorry to have invited you so last minute, but we feel like we've barely seen you lately."

          "You saw me on New Year's Eve," I reminded her, setting my coat around the back of a chair.

          "Well, yes, but it's either that or the occasional dinner at the manor. It feels like we never see you spontaneously, you know? You never stop by for a casual visit."

          "I haven't had the time. College keeps me busy. Senior year, and all."

          My father pressed his lips together into a thin line, exchanging a knowing glance with my mother, and I instantly stiffened. My suspicions had been correct all along; there was some hidden agenda behind this invitation, one that had nothing to do with my birthday or with how much they missed me.

          As I looked around me, cold sweat prickled at the back of my neck.

          They had brought me here to mellow me out, to try and fool me into believing everything was okay. It was a small bistro, like those we'd visited when I was younger and bright-eyed, with its warm and cozy atmosphere and large windows to welcome the rare sunlight now that most of the gray clouds had vanished. Even then, my parents had chosen an indoors table, shielded from view and away from the front door, so I couldn't simply bolt out and leave without having to circle several other tables around the restaurant. All of that, along with the look they'd shared, led me to believe this had been a premeditated decision instead of a spur of the moment one.

          I tucked my hands between my knees, though there was no ring to hide, and even mustered a smile up at the waiter who had arrived with our appetizer drinks. They appeared to be oblivious to my inner turmoil, even though I felt dangerously close to exploding at the table, and my father even took his sweet time complimenting the Remy Martin XO in front of him, the fiery tone of the bottle reflecting the light on my skin.

          "This place is nice," I began, circling the rim of my wine glass with my index finger. My mother smiled at me, lips hidden behind her own glass, and it was such a simple gesture that it almost left me more at ease. I shouldn't need to feel on edge around my own parents, but I'd made dangerous choices during the past three years, decisions I knew they would never approve of. "Thank you for bringing me here. I never go to places this beautiful nowadays."

          That was true. With Chase, the speakeasy was one of the fanciest places we'd ever been to together, and that hadn't been planned. There was Madrid, but that city was an entire ocean away. There was the cabin, but every time I thought about the last time we'd been there I brought myself to tears, so I would rather push it away from my mind. All the pretty, beautiful places we'd gone to were secluded, far away from anyone we knew, and we simply couldn't find an opportunity to sneak out and go somewhere besides his apartment—on good days. Most of the time, I only ever got to see him on campus, and even that was coated in panic.

          "We wanted to spend some time with you for once," she replied, setting down her glass. The clouds shifted outside and more light came in through the window, illuminating her like a golden angel, and my stomach churned harder than before. I'd been a fool to ever compare myself to her, to ever think I'd be anything like her. There were beautiful women in the world, and then there was my mother, a goddess among mortals. "We figured you'd come up with some excuse to cancel if we'd planned this in advance."

          I feigned being offended, though I also knew she wasn't completely wrong. Most of the time, were it not for Chase's sake, I would grasp at every sliver of an excuse to not spend time with people who would easily see through my bravado. "Oh."

          My father cleared his throat, leaning forward. "Look, Penny"—I grimaced—"we know it's your birthday, but we also feel like we all need to be honest with each other."

          I dug my nails into my thighs so hard I didn't wince. "Did something happen?"

          "We wanted to talk to you about Chase Steele."

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*mike's mic voice* ohhhh naurrrr