Because we know.
We know.
Banks says the words aloud. “He doesn’t want us to.”
He’ll push us away. He’ll keep pushing us. He’s made up his mind, and until he sees this through, there is no stop in Akara.
I squeeze my eyes closed, then open them onto Banks. He’s distraught. Akara used his words carefully. He broke up with Banks too, not just with me.
Their friendship is done.
Weight crushes me. It’s crushing him. He could so easily follow Akara, repair their friendship. Abandon me.
I grab his bicep. His hand strengthens on my cheek, and between shortened breath and glassy eyes, I choke, “Don’t leave me.”
“I’m not. I’d never.” Banks holds up my head that heavies. My tears drip down his fingers, and he tells me powerfully, “I love you. Akara loves you, and it’s why he’s being a selfless dumbass.” His voice breaks.
I try to laugh, but I just cry against his hand. Fuck.
He brushes away my tears, our eyes diving to the raw center of each other. “I’m never leaving your side, as long as you’ll have me, and I’m not giving up on him—he’ll wake up eventually.”
His confidence and love for me and hope for Akara soothes the broken pieces inside me. He brings me closer to his chest. Holding me while I cry. After a few minutes, he picks me up and carries me to bed.
Eyes swollen, head spinning, I slip beneath the covers with Banks. Still in our clothes, he pulls me firmer to his chest, and I burrow my head into his warmth.
“It’s gonna be okay,” he whispers, his hope like a drug.
I take calmer breaths.
Akara was so resolute.
So sure.
That hurts more and more. That he believes this is going to salvage everything, when it feels like he’s burning it all to the ground.
“He broke up with us,” I mutter the words, thinking the truth might lessen the pain. But my heart clenches. Everything hurts like someone shoved me into concrete and I’m just sinking…sinking…sinking.
“Jokes on him,” Banks whispers. “He’s still my boss, so he’s gonna have to hear me tell him he’s wrong every fuckin’ day.”
I sniff hard. “I don’t know how you’ll be able to look at him and not cry.”
My eyes feel raw.
Banks squeezes me harder. “I’m not much of a crier. I shed most of my tears when I was kid.” He looks down at me as I pull back to see his dry, still bloodshot eyes.
I don’t think Banks needs to cry to have the face of someone who feels like sobbing. “I hate knowing he’s going to be miserable so we can try to be happy.” A piece is always going to be empty without Kits. How can we truly be happy without him?
“He’s just doing what he always does. Taking the fall for the people he loves.”
“I should’ve walked away first,” I mutter.
“I wouldn’t have. That was never gonna be me,” Banks admits, and I understand why. They’re two totally different guys, and they were never going to choose the same path in this scenario. In a lot of ways, I think the only reason Akara left is because he knows I have Banks.
But if the roles were reversed and Banks was gone, I’d be just as devastated. If I left them, I’d be just as heartbroken. Like I’ve known—like I told Akara—the only way this works is for the three of us to stay together.
That’s it.
He’s doing this for me.
For us.
He’s trying to protect my life from impending doom. He’s trying to protect me from experiencing events that could scar me and irreparably change me.
It’s a selfless, loving act.
More tears cascade.
Kits.
He didn’t have to do this, but I know why he did. Just like Banks promised to never leave me, Akara promised to always protect me.
With a hoarse voice, I ask Banks, “What if I text him that he’s putting my safety above my happiness and that’s not a good idea?”
He nods. “Yeah, you should try.”
I do try with quaking hands. I send a text.
We wait a full hour.
Akara never responds. He leaves me on read.
“Fuck,” I mutter. “I guess…I guess he thinks I’ll forget about him.” I rub at my eyes. Akara knows the truth. I am happy with Banks, but he doesn’t realize I’m happiest with him and Banks.
“He won’t forget about us,” Banks tells me. “He’ll come around.”
“He’s not my bodyguard anymore,” I realize with a sharp inhale. “What about my friend? Did I lose that tonight too?”
“In his eyes, I think so. He wants a clean cut,” Banks says under his breath, and I hug him more. Before my brain can drive down a tormented rabbit hole of holy fucking shit, Kits is no longer in my life realizations, Banks adds, “He’s gonna come to his fuckin’ senses.”
Tears well up as I struggle to keep hope alive like Banks.
I want that torch to stay lit, and I know it always will. But there’s a part of me that wonders if this is it.
If Kits is just done.
And there will be no returning to what we once had. The sadness in that thought bowls me over again. And again.
And again.
Morning comes, and after another long-winded, anxiety-fueled ride avoiding paparazzi and camera flashes, Banks drops me off at the gated neighborhood in Philly.
My childhood home.
I can’t keep the break-up a secret. I could go back to the penthouse and field concerned questions from Moffy and Jane. Maybe they’d sigh in relief. Maybe they’d think, I told you so, Sulli. This triad was never going to last long.
I’m not afraid to confront them, but I’ve decided I’d rather be with my mom and dad first. They’re the ones I used to always retreat to when the rug was swept out from under me.
Banks assured me he’s fine, and he needs to check in with his mom and grandma anyway.
I text Kits again. Hey, hope you’re doing well. Maybe we could talk again?
No response.
Banks is right. Akara is just looking for a clean cut. A breakaway. But he can’t sever our relationship and our years-long friendship with one single slice. Jagged edges and debris lie in the wake of his painful departure—there’s nothing clean about this.
I stare solemnly at the marshmallows floating in my hot chocolate. Goldilocks rubs up against my ankles while I sit at the window nook. Snow blankets the yard and cul-de-sac outside, and every now and then, I catch brief glimpses of my dad shifting a ladder against the roof. He’s been removing Christmas lights.
My mom left to grab something upstairs. She didn’t say what, but after she added extra marshmallows to my hot chocolate, I can tell she’s pulling out the best for me. I know it’s because she thinks I’m shaken from last night’s theatre chaos.
The sheer dread and terror in her eyes still haunts me.
“I’m okay, Goldi,” I breathe, stroking her soft, golden fur.
She sits politely, tail swishing back and forth.
“She misses you,” my mom says, returning to me with an assortment of chocolates, a little doll, and a wrapped package. A flower crown of dried daisies is nestled on her blonde hair.
“I try not to miss her,” I admit. “It makes me miss Coconut.” The white Husky I grew up around, and I almost wince at Goldi. “Fuck, I’m sorry, girl. You know I love you.” I kiss the top of her head. She nuzzles against my cheek.
Sadness lets up for a single second.
My mom slides into the window nook beside me. “I miss Coconut too.” She scratches Goldi’s ears with a softer smile. “But I think she’d be happy we have Goldi now.”
Yeah.
I sip hot chocolate, trying to unknot the pretzel in my stomach. And then I immediately reach for the little Peruvian doll in surprise. “Rue? Where’d you find her?”
“The back of your closet.” Mom peels the foil off a chocolate.
I touch the doll’s soft red dress, f
aded from the sun and all the picnics we had in the backyard together. I haven’t seen Rue since I was eleven or twelve.
“Do you want her back?” Mom wonders.
My eyes still feel swollen from crying last night. They hurt with each blink. “I shouldn’t…I guess I’m too old for dolls…”
“Who said that?” She crinkles her nose, then puts a hand to her heart as her feet rise and legs cross like mine. “In this glorious world, I decree young and old shall carry dolls if they want to.” She gasps. “And the immortal. We can’t forget about your Uncle Connor.”
I want to smile. Her humor usually cheers me up fast, but I’m sinking under heavier emotions. “I can’t take Rue back.” I place the doll on the windowsill. “I want to be taken seriously and treated like an adult, Mom. Like I’m capable of making my own decisions about my own life, even if I’m headed for heartbreak.” I hear my voice crack.
“Sulli,” she interjects with such empathy that I go quiet. She’s set aside the chocolate and her hands touch her chest. “I understand what that’s like, more than you realize. People thought I couldn’t make good choices for myself because they saw me as naïve and reckless. But I knew what I was doing. And as I grew up, I knew what I wanted for my life. And then people thought I shouldn’t be with your dad. People thought I was too young to try and have a baby. People thought I wasn’t responsible enough to build a summer camp.”
But she married Dad.
She had me at 21: her firstborn, baby girl.
And she built the summer camp. Despite all the cynics.
“You proved everyone wrong,” I say softly.
“I just did what I wanted.” She has a gentle smile that eases me. “So hey, all you need to do is live, Sulli. Live your life as awfully wonderful, beautiful, and dangerous as you want.”
She’s saying this after watching paparazzi descend violently on me. Her eyes are glassed, and I can see, even through her fear, she still wants me to have the life I want. Not the life she wants for me, or the life my dad wants for me.
My heart tries to fill. I don’t know what I’d do without my mom. “I wanted to be fearless with my life like you were with yours.”
She searches my eyes like I can’t see what’s in front of me. “You already have been.”
Have I?
He broke up with me, Mom. The truth is a knife I can’t remove without bleeding out. Not yet. And I’m quiet as she places the wrapped package on my lap.
“I know your birthday is still about a month away, but I think you should have this now.”
My birthday present?
“Open it,” she urges with a smile.
I unfurl the donut-print paper, and I take a breath, my fingers moving over red winterberries, pieces of a fern, and blue flowers, twisted into a winter crown.
“Those are Forget-Me-Nots and Winterberry Holly. I know I’ve made you plenty of flower crowns when you were younger, but this one is different.”
“How?”
“It represents more than just your childhood. You’re a loving, courageous, spirited woman, and you don’t have to let go of Rue and the things of your past to embrace the things of your present and your future.” She settles the winter crown into my hair while I lower my head.
I look back up.
“So this crown, I made with you in mind and with your love of Akara and Banks in mind.”
I try to fight tears. Green fern. Red winterberries. Blue Forget-Me-Nots. “You knew their favorite colors?”
“I may’ve asked around town and some little birdie told me.”
“Who?” I wonder.
“Beckett.”
I blink back more waterworks. Akara broke up with me. Whatever present and future existed with us, it’s been ripped away for the moment, maybe…forever.
“Thanks, Mom. I love it,” I say with a constricted throat. I love it too fucking much. The flower crown of my dreams is not the one of my reality, like she thinks.
I’m the princess of nothing.
“Do you want to talk about yesterday?” she asks, seeing my sorrow and faraway gaze.
I place my hot chocolate down, knowing she means the theatre. “There’s not much to talk about. I don’t remember everything…it all happened so fast; it’s like a fucking blur.”
She nods, understanding.
I think she understands more than anyone can know. My eyes graze the long scar across her cheek. Once upon a time, she was a bystander in a riot. Swept up in chaos and struck by a two-by-four—a nail was jutted out of the wood.
“Blurry moments still have an impact,” she tells me softly. “If not me, you should talk to someone. Banks or Akara, maybe? Or a therapist?”
Hearing Akara’s name again nearly breaks me.
She frowns more, sensing something’s wrong.
“Mom,” I start, about to tell her the truth—and then the backdoor opens. Our heads turn as my dad stands in the kitchen.
“Sul?” He’s already outfitted in a warm winter coat and a beanie. He holds up my old jacket in his hand. “Can we talk?”
I glance to Mom.
“Go. Maybe you’ll spot a Big Foot.” She wags her brows with a playful smile.
I smile back this time and hug her for longer than just a second. Thank you for everything. And then I spring off the window nook.
After taking the jacket from my dad and slipping on boots, we leave through the backdoor. We’re quiet as we walk toward the woods, and I pick the winter crown off my head.
Berries and flowers are striking against the stark white snow around us. Do I even deserve to wear something this pretty? Am I even the woman my mom thinks I am—or am I still wishing and hoping to be that courageous, that spirited and loving?
With a single breath, I hook the crown to a rung of the treehouse ladder.
My dad watches with hardened eyes and furrowed brows.
I leave the crown behind on our trek, and we keep moving. Snow crunches underneath our soles as we pass the tire swing.
We stay silent. My dad and I aren’t on the best terms still. No resolutions made at the lake house, and I don’t expect any today.
When I tell him Akara broke up with me, I know he’ll be happy. And his happiness will be an arrow through my chest. Another kick into the ground.
Venturing further and further into the woods, we stop at a clearing with makeshift rope bridges strung between the trees. Ropes hang down from skeletal limbs. Wooden planks are nailed into the largest trunks, easy to climb. Growing up, Winona and I loved having our very own ropes course. For me, especially, I enjoyed working out on the ropes. Scaling up and down them.
Snow cloaks the wooden bridges, and I wipe some ice off a hanging rope with my ungloved hand.
My dad watches me for another second. “Last night was one of the worst nights of my fucking life.”
His words are like a boomerang, flinging from me and back to him. It was mine too, Dad, I want to say, but my tongue feels thick in my mouth.
Our eyes meet.
His scruff is scruffier, but he’s the same dad, stone-faced with a mushy heart. The one who dressed in a tutu for me, the one who rallied at my swim meets, the one who showered me with chocolate, the one who said yes more than he ever said no—the dad who I’ll always fucking love and never want to hate.
“I couldn’t see you,” he says, muscles constricted. “And in that fucking moment, I just saw what happened to your mom…” He hangs his head. “The riot.” He takes off his beanie and runs a hand through his disheveled hair. “I didn’t ever want you to have to go through this.”
My eyes burn. “I know you tried to protect me.”
He nods strongly several times. “That’s all I’ve ever fucking wanted to do.” We just look at each other for a long moment, his gaze reddening with raw emotion that we’ve felt since the initial blow-up, since the origin of the strain. Quietly, he breathes, “I know I’ve made mistakes, and making you choose between Akara and Banks is a big one.”
> “What?” I rock back.
His face contorts in a series of sentiments, but I see his remorse most clearly. “You love them both, don’t you?”
“Yeah. I told you I did months ago.”
He falters for a moment, his eyes flitting from the ground to the sky and then back to me. “I could see it back then, how much you love them, but I cared more about protecting you—and that was wrong. I was fucking wrong.”
I hug my arms to my chest. Confusion compounding. “Why now? What’s changed that you suddenly regret being the Choose One Ambassador.”
His brows rise. “The Choose One Ambassador?”
“No one else was making me choose,” I shoot back. “So yeah, you were the fucking ambassador.”
He grimaces. “I guess that’s fucking fair.” He fits his beanie back on his head, tugging the fabric down over his ears that are pink from the wind. “Your relationship is leaked to the public. It’s out in the world. I wanted to believe it wasn’t fucking inevitable, but I see now it was.”
Inevitable.
Because Akara and Banks and I wouldn’t break up. Because there would be no universe where it could be two instead of three.
I choke on brittle air. Water sears in my eyes from the cold. “Before you start down this apology tour,” I tell him. “You should know that Akara broke up with me last night.”
My dad physically sways like I pushed him. Confused lines form between his eyebrows. “What?”
I don’t repeat it. I know he heard. Riled, hot tears form. “It’s what you wanted, right?” I snap. “For one of them to leave. Well, congratulations—”
“Sulli, what the fuck happened?” he interrupts, concern outplaying his confusion.
My chin trembles. “He thinks since we haven’t confirmed our relationship, he can…make a clean break and save me from the media attention.”
My dad’s hands fly to the top of his head like he’s winded. “Fuckfuckfuck,” he curses out and starts to pace.
I frown. “I…I thought you’d be happy.”
He stops pacing to pinch the bridge of his nose, holding something back.
Pain latches onto me. “You basically told him to leave to prove his love for me!” I yell.
“I know!” my dad screams back. Birds flap away from the trees and he glares up at the sky. “I’m fucking sorry, Sul.” He takes a deep breath through his nose.
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