But it’s too late.
“But, right now, I’d rather have Don. Sure, he’ll do what any idiot tells him, but at least he’s never lied to me.”
“I swear I didn’t know what he wrote. I never check that site.”
“How convenient. Luckily I did, or I’d have left thinking everyone in this country is a jerk. Now I know it’s just you.”
With that I turn away and walk down the hall, ignoring everyone’s eyes that follow me.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Rex
Don’s smirking face is the first one I see once Zara disappears behind the door to the girl’s side.
I lunge at him but am stopped by Reggie suddenly appearing at my side. He holds an arm out, effectively trapping me in my room.
“Don, you asshole,” I yell, fighting against Reggie. “That’s not what I told you to do.”
He holds up his hands, grinning from ear to ear. “Hey, you said I could say whatever I wanted to get them to stay away. No one likes a clinger.”
I push against Reggie’s arm, trying to get past him and pummel Don within an inch of his life. I never thought he’d make up such a terrible lie, one that I know cuts Zara to her core. She’s so unsure of herself that to have anyone say something about her makes my blood boil.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Reggie whispers in my ear. “Remember what Mr. Marcade said after the French Club thing. Fighting again will disqualify you from the competition.”
I take a deep breath and a step back. Reggie’s body is blocking my view of the hallway—and Don—and that helps me calm down.
But I can still hear his voice. “I’ll just come by tomorrow then for my five hundred?”
I launch myself out the door, and it takes everything Reggie has to push me back into my room. He shoves me onto my bed, then slams the door, standing in front of it.
My breath is coming out in ragged bursts. I try repeating the words “It’s not worth it” over and over, which helps a little. Reggie’s patient silence helps too. With everything Don’s done and said to him over the years, I’m sure he’d like nothing more than to smash his teeth in. But Reggie was worried about the competition. After all these weeks, it’s nice to know I’m not the only one who cares about it.
“Thanks,” I say. He just gives me a sad smile.
“What did Don mean about five hundred?”
I bite my lip, trying to figure out what to say. Luckily, I’m saved by a knock at the door. Even though I know there’s no way it’s Zara, I’m still disappointed when Bronx walks in.
“So I guess the secret’s out?” he says, grinning ear to ear. “No need for sneaking around anymore?”
The lingering rage in my veins redirects itself to Bronx. I shake my head. “No. You can’t see the girls.”
“Why not?” they both say at the same time.
“Because I can’t see Zara.” I know it’s illogical. It’s not their fault I was dumb enough to trust Don to do something for me without it coming back to bite me. But misery loves company. I try to come up with something more convincing than my own heartbreak, which I know they don’t care about. “The girls will be on her side. They won’t want to see you either.”
They glance at each other, a silent conversation passing between them. It’s Reggie who finally says it.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think so, Rex.” He does look sorry, at least. “We’ve done a lot for you this semester, I don’t think you can ask us to stay away from the girls any longer.”
“You’ve done a lot for me?” I laugh, cold and hard. “I’ve been doing everything. Cleaning up after every mess you two get me in. Trying to make the sonnets work, now this stupid play. Ever since freshman year, I’ve been making sure you both stay on track. And you can’t do this one thing for me?”
“Glad to know you think we’re such incapable idiots,” says Bronx, his eyes dark and narrow. “And maybe we are. Spending weeks on this project for a jerk friend who only cares about himself.”
He walks out the door, and Reggie follows.
I slam the door and let out a primal yell.
How did everything go downhill so quickly?
This is what I get for trusting people. I was forced to team up with others, and look where it got me. I don’t care about the money, but losing to Don is the worst. Plus, I’ve lost my friends, any shot at winning the Navarre Prize, and the most amazing girl I’ve ever met.
All because I trusted other people.
I hear her before I see her.
I’m on my way to English class but I’m early, and the halls are empty. Without anyone to eat with at meals, I don’t linger. I’m in and out in under ten minutes after shoving something down my throat while trying to avoid looking at the table where Reggie and Bronx are sitting with the girls. Including my girl.
I feel just as protective of her as I did the first time I saw her. Honestly, I’d have paid Don ten times as much to make sure he didn’t write something like that. Now all I can do is give him more now, to get him to take it down. But it didn’t make a difference. Zara hasn’t so much as looked in my general direction all week.
As I approach Mr. Marcade’s open door, I hear the soft rumble of her voice and pull up short. I wonder how she got here before me, but it doesn’t matter. I’m aching for her voice in a way I didn’t think possible.
I’m surprised at how much I miss her. I almost wrote her another poem to tell her, but with only two weeks to go until the presentations, I’ll need something a lot better than that to get the project back on track. I know I need her forgiveness first, before the others will meet, but that will take more than fumbling rhyming apologies.
An apology is exactly what I’m overhearing in Mr. Marcade’s room right now.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Marcade, I hope you understand why I need to withdraw from the competition.”
My heart almost stops. I’m right outside the door, my back against the wall.
“Of course, Ms. Bourbon,” he says, and my pulse is alive again, faster than I think is medically possible—or safe. “This is a difficult time for you. I hope you have safe travels back to France.”
Back to France?
This can’t be happening. Not now, not when I’m so close to winning. I want to run in and start demanding explanations, but I’m frozen to my spot just outside the door.
Which means I’m the first thing she sees when she comes barreling out of the classroom, her face streaked with tears, and her hair is in a messy bun. Even through my confusion and fury, her beauty is breathtaking.
“Rex,” she says, rolling the R the way she does when she’s not paying close attention to her pronunciation. “I was just coming to find you.”
“Don’t bother, I heard it all,” I say, my chest tight.
“So you know that I have to leave,” she says, her voice cracking. It almost does me in, but I ball my hands into fists to keep from reaching out to her.
“All I know is that you’re abandoning me with less than two weeks to go before the most important day of my life.”
“This isn’t exactly something I planned.”
I shake my head. I’m not interested in whatever excuse she’s found to leave. She has to know that this would hurt me worse than anything. The pain rips through me like a hot sword. “I know you’re mad at me, but you know this competition is everything to me.”
Her red-rimmed eyes narrow. “Some things are more important than winning.”
“Like revenge?”
“Like love.”
I knew I’d been an idiot to put that in the poem. She’s throwing my own emotions back in my face.
“Love? You have a pretty funny way of showing it, abandoning me right now.”
Tears start to fall onto her flushed cheeks. Half of me wants her to hurt as much as she’s hurting me, the other half wants to brush the tears away and take her into my arms.
The angry half wins.
“This is payback for what Don did, isn’t it?
”
She blinks. “This has nothing to do you with you, Rex, or whatever stupid things you’ve done.”
“The only stupid thing I ever did was talk to you. I should have stuck to my plan and avoided all distractions.”
“Maybe you should have. Clearly this dumb competition is more important to you than anything—or anyone else.”
“You already knew that. I told you that so many times. Did you think I was lying?”
“Everything you do is a lie, Rex. You say one thing, you do another. Why should this be any different?”
“Well, I’m not lying when I say I don’t need you. I had a good idea before Reggie somehow convinced me to join a bunch of girls, and I’ll make it a good idea without you.”
“Best of luck to you,” she says, slinging her bag over her shoulder. I hear her mumble one of the very rude words she taught me under her breath.
“Bon voyage,” I say with all the acidity I can manage.
With a final glare of her tear-filled eyes that cuts me to my core, she turns and leaves.
Good riddance.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Zara
I’ve never been on a plane alone before.
I realize this the second someone sits down next to me and I turn to talk to them as if they’re Rosalie or my sister. But it’s a stranger.
“Hi there, I’m Sam.”
A stranger who likes to talk. Perfect.
I give him a small, tight smile that hopefully conveys just how much I do not want to participate in any interaction other than to say “excuse me” as I pass him to use the bathroom.
“And you are?” He looks at me with wide eyes and I sigh.
“Zara.”
He nods once and thankfully doesn’t say another word. I take a deep breath and lean my head on the window, counting down the minutes until the in-flight entertainment starts, and I can zone out to some terrible movie.
Of course, when the screen finally blinks to life, the first thing it shows me is Shakespeare in Love.
Like this flight could get any more painful.
My father is in a hospital bed on one side of an ocean, but my friends remain on the other. Their parents refused to pull them out to accompany me. It was already such a huge ask for them to come with me this year, so I’m not totally surprised. But I’m also not totally ready to handle what’s to come on my own.
What am I going to do without them?
It all happened so fast once I got the call, I barely even had time to tell them about Rex. The hurt is so fresh, and so deep, I almost stop breathing.
“Are you all right, darlin’?”
I turn to my seat mate, and blink in surprise. He is clearly violating the understood agreement that I am not up for talking. By the sound of his voice, I’d expect a 90-year-old cowboy. But he’s actually pretty cute, probably my brother’s age.
I dab at my eyes with a tissue. “I’m fine, thank you.”
“Sad to leave, or leaving for a sad reason?”
“Um, both, I guess.” I look down, hoping he’ll get the hint I don’t want to talk, but he keeps going, his accent growing thicker by the minute.
“Family or love?”
This guy is nosy. Maybe it’ll go quicker if I just respond.
“Both. My dad’s in the hospital, but my reason for staying is…over.”
“Gosh, I’m sorry to hear about your dad.”
I know he’s just saying it to be polite, but it’s a balm, to say the words out loud and have someone react with sympathy. It’s true I never got to say the actual words to Rex, but I doubt he’d react with such concern. He’d just worry about his stupid competition.
“Thanks,” I say, and pray that’s the end of it.
“As for the heartbreak, well, you know what they say. ‘The course of true love never did run smooth.’”
The sound of Shakespeare is definitely not what I need right now.
“More like ‘men’s vows are women’s traitors.’” I cross my arms and turn my head to the window. If ever there was a time to use my standoffish French stereotype, this is it.
But the man laughs. “Let me guess. He wanted you to stay, thought he was more important than your dad.”
I bite my lip and nod. “He thinks he’s more important than anyone.”
“Vous êtes française, oui?” He speaks it without hesitation. With his drawl, the words are like a song. It’s different than Rex’s accent, which even in my fury I can’t help but remember as absurdly charming.
I frown. “What else would I be, with this accent?”
“You barely have one,” he says in English. Is he still being polite or is this true? “And the tiny one you do have is much more attractive, I’m sure, than mine is in French.”
“I don’t mind the American accent,” I say.
He chuckles a little.
“Teenage boys are kind of the worst.” He shakes his head. “American boys may be the worst of them all.”
A smile tugs at my downturned lips. “I’m inclined to agree with you right now.”
“What he did…would you expect the same thing from a French boy?”
I pause, considering. The boys at my school in Paris are different than Rex. He’s unlike anyone I’ve ever met, and that’s part of why this is so hard. “It’s not that they’d do the same thing, exactly, but I’d be less surprised by whatever they’d do.”
He nods, taking this in. “I travel all over for work, and you know what I see?”
I shake my head.
“We’re more alike than we are different,” he says, nodding sagely. I want to roll my eyes, but it is kind of nice to have someone unbiased to talk to about this stuff. I know Rosalie and Maria would be on my side, and my family would—well, I don’t want to think too much about them right now, or I’ll burst into tears again.
“Well, in this case, I think we’re just too different,” I say. “Our priorities are different.”
“Are they really?”
I open my mouth, but then close it with a snap.
I care more about my family and friends than anyone. I’d do anything for them. Rex surrounds himself with people who’d do anything for him. We both need that support, but I see it and embrace it. He runs from it. He’s convinced himself he can do everything on his own, yet relies constantly on others to help him.
“No, I guess they’re not,” I say. “But we have different ways of showing it.”
“See, not that different at all,” the man says with a smile.
The flight attendant comes by with the drink cart, and our conversation ends. I slip on my headphones. Sam has given me quite a bit to think about, which is a nice distraction from worrying about my dad.
But in the end, I’m not sure that it’ll change anything. I can see what Rex needs to do, but he’ll never actually change. And now I’m on the other side of an ocean, so whatever chance we might have had of working it out is gone.
It’s over, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
All I can do is go home and be with my father like I should have been this whole time.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Rex
Everything is falling apart. And it’s all Zara’s fault.
Somehow, I manage to convince everyone to meet, two days after Zara left. Mostly, I think it was the message I sent promising snacks. They all look furious with me, biting into the candy with unusual vehemence, but at least they’re here.
Three minutes into things, however, and it’s turning into a bigger disaster than I expected.
“We can combine Zara’s role with mine,” Rosalie says, her voice tight with irritation.
Bronx shakes his head. “She was going to be the nurse, and you’re the mother. Those are two totally different things.”
“Well at least think about it for a minute before you shoot me down,” she says, her eyes flashing. Bronx narrows his own in response.
“What if we make it just with Romeo and Juliet, an
d the rest is like a greek choir?” suggests Reggie.
“Such a great idea,” Maria says with a very exaggerated eye-roll. “Then no one has any lines, and it’ll look like a great collaboration.”
“I’ll figure this out!” I say, louder than I intended. I can feel heads turn in our direction all across the common room. That makes me angrier than all their bickering, for some reason. I close my eyes and massage my temples. “Meeting together was a mistake. All of you just leave me in peace and I’ll come up with something.”
“No.”
My head whips up to see Rosalie’s glare is now focused on me.
“No?” I laugh. “You’re actually telling me no, when you girls have messed things up beyond repair?”
“I’m telling you ‘no’ because apparently no one else ever has,” she says. I glance at Bronx and Reggie, who are shifting in their seats and avoiding my eyes. Their own recent “no” is still fresh in my memory. But from the way they’re all acting, it looks like more time with the girls hasn’t gotten them the results they wanted. Just like I told them would happen.
“If anyone has messed things up, it’s you,” says Rosalie.
“Me? I’ve been trying to save this thing from the beginning.”
“You don’t always know best.”
“I’m not the one who left.”
“Her father was in an accident. He’s laying in a hospital in Paris, dying.”
My heart stops.
“Wh-what?” I look at Maria, who’s also looking at me with so much contempt it’s amazing I’m still standing. “She didn’t tell me that.”
“You didn’t give her much of a chance to say anything, did you?” Rosalie shakes her head. “You just assumed you knew best and didn’t bother to hear what someone else has to say.”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
I turn to Reggie and Bronx. “Did you guys know?”
They hesitate, then nod. I frown.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Love Lessons Page 14
