“Brown is an Ivy League school!”
“Barely. How you could pass over Harvard and Oxford in favor of that haven for pot-smoking artists, I’ll never understand.”
“Stop. Just stop.” I press my eyes closed. “You know I want to study design. It shouldn’t come as such a surprise to you that I’m not willing to change my plans in the blink of an eye.”
She laughs. It holds no joy. The sound is cold, biting. It makes me flinch, even thousands of miles away. “Isn’t it time to let go of that infantile pipe dream? I thought you’d surely seen the light, working here at VALENT these past few months. I was certain, once you got firsthand experience at an organization like ours — one that actually makes a difference in this world, one that actually matters — you’d let go of this silly notion of art and fashion.” She says the words like curses. “How can you chase such an insubstantial pursuit when we are offering you the reins to our empire? How can you turn your back on your birthright?”
“I never asked for that future. I never wanted to be heir to the VALENT throne.”
“This isn’t about what you want, you foolish, selfish girl. This is about obligation. We are your parents. You will come to heel or we will bring you to heel.”
“What are you going to do, Blair? Kick me out of the house? Cut me off?”
“Where is this attitude coming from? This newfound streak of obstinance is unlike you.”
“Maybe I’m just finally growing a little backbone,” I mutter. “Maybe I’m tired of bending over backwards, trying to please you and Vincent.”
“Please us?” Her tone freezes over, each word blasting across the line in arctic gusts. “You don’t please us, Josephine. You have always been a disappointment. I thought we might correct that, allowing you to stand by our side, permitting you to be a part of our life’s joy—”
Ah yes, their life’s joy.
Their company.
Not their child.
Never their child.
“—but it seems I was gravely mistaken. It seems, despite my best efforts, you are determined to throw away all our hard work. Everything we’ve invested in your future. For what? A failed foray into fashion, followed by a miserably ordinary existence?”
Her words sluice through me like a blade.
You have always been a disappointment.
I wish I was strong enough to ignore the pain that sentiment causes. Wish I didn’t still crave what all children crave from their parents — love, affection, a semblance of pride. I should know better, after two decades’ evidence to the contrary. I am no more than a puppet on their strings, my actions meticulously choreographed from the day I was born.
What other facets of my life have they attempted to orchestrate?
I’m breathing hard, trying and failing to control my emotions. The blood between my ears rushes like a river, flooding the banks, unearthing things left buried for far too long.
“What happened last summer, Blair?” I ask quietly. “That day Archer came here and left me that note. What really happened?”
She sucks in a sharp stream of air. I’m not sure which one of us is more thrown by the question — me in pitching it or her in fielding it. Blair certainly never offered up any details, and I’d never asked. Last June, I was so buried in heartache, so consumed by the haze of pain and confusion, I never wanted to hear the specifics.
I want to hear them now.
“Blair,” I prompt.
“What does the Reyes boy have to do with anything? It’s ancient history.”
“Not for me.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve been in contact with him. Really Josephine… after what he did to you last summer….” She makes a tsk sound. “Are you so foolish to open doors better left closed?”
Apparently.
“Just tell me!” I insist. “If you’ve nothing to hide, if you’ve told me the truth, then tell me what happened. Spell it out.”
“He came. He dropped off the note. I assure you, we did not exchange any words — or, if we did, they were not worthy of remembering. That shouldn’t be a shock. He was never exactly… verbose.”
I let her veiled insults slide by, too focused on more important clarifications. “So he came here. In person. You spoke to him. Face to face.”
“Didn’t I just say so?” she snaps, her unshakable calm momentarily slipping. “If you’re just going to pepper me with nonsensical questions, I’m hanging up the phone.”
I swallow hard, working up my courage. “The funny thing is, I’ve got it on good authority Archer couldn’t have come here that day. Because he was in the hospital, recovering from a nasty car accident.”
Silence blasts over the line.
“So I’m wondering,” I continue, with a violent sort of softness. “Why you said you saw him if you didn’t?”
“What does it matter if I saw him or not?”
“Then you didn’t see him.”
Her silence is answer enough.
“How exactly did a note in his handwriting end up here?”
A note that broke my goddamn heart.
A note that shattered my whole world.
A note that, now, makes absolutely no sense to me.
“What does it matter if he put it in my hand or left it in the mailbox?” she asks. “And why do you care either way, Josephine? I thought you’d finally moved on from this. Have a little self-respect and stop clutching at straws. He didn’t want you. It’s rather pathetic to keep pretending otherwise. Not to mention a waste of your time. And mine.”
Tears gloss my eyes in the time between two heartbeats. Her words, true or not, cut me to the quick. Some of my anger has been tempered by shame when I murmur, “I just don’t understand why you’d lie and say you saw him if you didn’t. It doesn’t make any sense—”
“What doesn’t make sense is you asking me continually about a boy who was never fit to wipe the mud from your boots, let alone stand by your side,” Blair hisses. “What doesn’t make sense is that any daughter of mine would get wrapped up with the son of the help in the first place!”
I flinch. Archer’s words the other day slam into my stomach like a lead fist.
I never belonged to your world, Jo. Not really. And we both know it. I was just your little pet — a stray you collected from the pound, shoved into a fancy collar and allowed to mingle for a while with the purebreds.
I’ve never seen him that way… but it’s clear my mother does. I wonder what’s more offensive to her — the fact that I deigned to give my heart to someone she considers beneath our social standing, or the fact that, despite the illustrious legacy she and my father have worked so hard to build, Archer has never shown any desire to align himself with the Valentine family. I’m certain she cannot fathom why a poor boy raised with nothing would not covet all the trappings of her privilege.
But then, she never did see him clearly. Never took the time to get to know him in more than the most insubstantial of ways. If she had, she’d have realized long ago that Archer isn’t infatuated by wealth or stirred by celebrity status. His dreams are clearer cut, his longings more purely distilled.