I couldn’t say I blamed him for looking so concerned: the whole “we need to talk” vibe was never a good one. Even if this time it maybe kinda was.
I took a few more deep breaths before squaring my shoulders and telling him, “I got into Harvard. And I’ve decided to go.”
I had a whole speech prepared. About how I’d just wanted to see if I could get in, how proud my dad was, how I’d been wait-listed, and how this had nothing to do with Noah or Lee…I didn’t know what had happened to the speech, but now the news was out there, and there was no taking it back.
Noah stared at me.
I squirmed, but he stayed silent.
I sighed, caving. “Well, say something!”
In an instant, Noah was grabbing me by the waist and hoisting me into the air. I shrieked when my feet left the ground and he spun me, cheering, and set me back down to kiss me fiercely.
Noah’s kisses were intoxicating. The taste of his lips was addictive; the feel of his tongue in my mouth and his hands on my skin could make me forget the rest of the world ever existed; the warmth of his body so close to mine and the familiar smell of him could make me melt.
But right now, none of that could ease the gnawing anxiety that I would need to tell Lee about college, too.
And then I heard, “Please tell me you guys aren’t engaged or pregnant. But if you are, I’d better be the maid of honor or the godfather.”
Noah broke our kiss, his face falling slightly as it dawned on him that my decision to go to Harvard might be something for him to celebrate, but it meant letting Lee down. He drew back from me, hands falling from my hips, and looked between us before clearing his throat and rubbing the back of his neck.
“I’ll, uh, give you guys some…space.”
He grabbed his sandwich and vanished from the kitchen.
Lee looked a little pale now, and I could hardly look him in the eye. He stepped over to me, hesitating before putting a hand on my arm. “Elle? What’s…what’s going on? Hey, come on,” he said, his voice soft and gentle, a small smile on his face as he guided me to one of the stools at the breakfast bar. “Don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying,” I insisted, but my voice wavered and my vision had gone a little misty. I blinked a few times and grabbed Lee’s hands in both of mine. “It’s about college.”
“What about it?”
Oh God, I hated how peppy he sounded. How optimistic. How excited.
And I was about to break his heart.
I tried to remember my speech, what I’d thought over and planned to say to him last night, every word and turn of phrase I’d agonized over, but now I could only remember fractured snippets of it.
“I know we always planned to go to Berkeley. Since forever. Like our moms did and, you know, because of Brad, and…God, Lee, I didn’t mean for this to happen. Okay? You’ve got to understand that. But it’s…You didn’t see the look on my dad’s face. He was so goddamn proud. And…and I am, too, obviously. It’s a huge deal. Not…not that Berkeley isn’t or anything but…just think of all the doors it might open, being out in Boston! And I swear, I wasn’t trying to keep secrets. Noah didn’t know either, and my dad didn’t know. I didn’t even tell Levi about it either. I only just got the acceptance from Harvard and—”
“Acceptance?” Lee asked, chest heaving with a sigh. “You’re not going to Berkeley, are you?”
Why did this feel so awful? I’d made my decision.
“Since when were you interested in going to Harvard?” Lee asked, and then he sighed again and took half a step back, running a hand over his face and then up through his hair. “Nope, don’t answer that. Obviously since Noah went there.”
“You were applying to Brown,” I said meekly. “And—”
“Yeah, but my dad went to Brown. It wasn’t just about Rachel.”
No, but it was maybe 90 percent about Rachel.
“I got wait-listed,” I told him, backtracking. “I didn’t expect to get in. I never expected to even get wait-listed! I think I applied because I knew it’d never happen, but…now it has, and…and I had to make a choice.”
“And you chose him,” Lee mumbled. “Again.”
I was still holding one of his hands, and I gripped it tighter, desperation seeping into my voice. I leaned into him. “It wasn’t about that, Lee.”
Except it was.
It was maybe 50 percent about that.
But how could I explain that while I’d actually looked into classes at Harvard, the campus, everything, I’d never really done that with Berkeley? Sure, I’d mostly done that because Noah was there, but…Well, I’d liked what I’d seen enough to want to apply, hadn’t I? I’d only picked Berkeley because Lee and I had picked it together. And how could I tell him that if I chose to go there, it would’ve felt like I was choosing it only because of Lee? I just knew he’d feel even more hurt and rejected if I told him that.
To my utter shock, Lee squeezed my hand back and gave me another one of those small smiles that I really did not deserve. “It’s okay. I get it. It’s Harvard. You have to go. Same way Noah did. You don’t turn something like that down, right?”
I wanted to cry and bury my face in Lee’s shoulder. I wanted to grab his face and scream at him in relief. I wanted to shove him back and tell him to stop being nice to me, stop being so sweet and understanding, because I’d hate me, too, if I were him.
All I could do, though, was sit there with my mouth clamped shut and stare down at our hands.
“And I bet your dad was crazy proud,” Lee said, a little too brightly. I glanced up to find his smile bordering on manic, his jaw clenched tight. “There you were, panicking about getting into any college and spending all that time stressing over getting your application essay written, forcing me to get involved in school council and spend all those lunch breaks planning dances and charity events and…you did it! It all paid off! And now…now you…” He cleared his throat, shuffling in his seat. “And now you get to go to Harvard, Shelly.”
His use of my old childhood nickname, the one only Lee (and, more recently, Noah) was allowed to use, somehow made it infinitely worse.
Please stop being nice to me.
But wasn’t this what I’d wanted? Wasn’t this how I’d prayed he’d react?
“Yeah,” I managed to mumble, “Dad’s crazy proud. And it’s not like I won’t see you or anything. We’ll have weekends and holidays and spring break. Hey, we could even do another road trip! And we can video chat and…and nothing has to change, you know? We can hang out every holiday.”