His heart was breaking at the tenor of her words, because he could tell her heart was breaking too. But wasn’t this the kindest thing? What was the point of limping along like they’d been doing this past week, not pointing out the glaring red flags that hung between them, ignoring the warning signs? Pinky deserved someone like her—someone bright and bigger than life. Someone who’d take risks, whose life wasn’t governed by the rules and neat lines his was. Samir waited until he could speak without his voice giving way.
“Pinky,” he said finally. “My life… My life is very different from all this.” He gestured around her colorful room. “I have a strict regimen I stick to, with everything. My studies, my activities, my—”
She sat up straighter. “What are you saying? That I don’t fit into your schedule?”
He shook his head. “Don’t put it like that. That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Then what are you saying, Samir?” Her voice rose. “Don’t you see you’re making a choice here? You’re choosing that closely regimented, granulated life over me! Over us! If you’re going to do that, at least have the decency to face it!”
“I don’t have a choice!” he said, his voice rising to match hers, his anger overcoming his sadness. Why couldn’t she see what was so glaringly obvious to him? Why couldn’t she accept that he was nothing like her, that he’d never be anything like her? “You keep making it sound like I do, but not all of us have wishy-washy, happy, sparkly, rainbow-hued lives, Pinky! We had this summer, and it was great, okay? But maybe it’s time to wake up!”
“Don’t tell me to wake up when you’re the one who’s sleepwalking through life!” Pinky snapped, setting her tea down with a crash. “At least be honest with yourself!” She thrust her hand in the air and slammed into the mug of tea by accident. It spilled all over Samir’s nightstand, dripping down in a sticky puddle into the slightly open nightstand drawer.
“Damn it!” Pinky grabbed a few tissues out of the tissue box and yanked open the nightstand drawer to dab at the mess.
And then she stopped short, staring.
CHAPTER 19 Pinky
As she was wiping the wet planner pages in his drawer, her eye caught on a word.
Pinky.
It was her name. In Samir’s planner. Frowning, Pinky set the wad of wet Kleenex aside and pulled the paper out.
10 Things I Hate about Pinky, it said at the top. She looked at Samir. “What is this?”
He leaned over to see, and his face went white. “That…” He reached over to take it from her, but she held it away from him and turned her attention back to it.
“Number one, she’s impulsive,” Pinky read, her voice wooden. “Completely lets her heart dictate what her brain should do. Number two, impetuous.” Her heart squeezed and squeezed in her chest; the pain was indescribable. She didn’t know what else to do, so she kept reading. Her eyes ran down the list, taking in each thing Samir had meticulously numbered and written, each thing that he hated about her. “Hardheaded. Bullish. Nonconforming.”
“Pinky.” Samir knelt beside her, his voice breaking. “Pinky, no. I wrote that a long time ago. Please, it’s not… I’m not even sure why I kept it—”
“Everything’s a fight,” she read, her voice now barely more than a whisper. When she looked up at Samir, he shimmered through the veil of her tears. They stared at each other.
“Please,” he said again, sounding stricken. “You have to believe me. I didn’t mean to… This isn’t even true anymore.”
She shook her head, smiling just a little bit. “No, that’s the thing,” Pinky said as fat, hot tears rolled down her cheeks. She didn’t think she’d cried in her entire life as much as she’d cried tonight. “None of this is wrong. Every single thing is precisely true.” She swallowed. “It’s all the things that make me me. And you hate them all.”
“I don’t!” Samir said, taking her cold hands in his. “I really—”
“It’s right there at the top of the page in your handwriting,” she said, almost wanting to laugh at his ludicrous denial. “Of course you do. It’s okay, it’s fine. You’re not the only one. I’m sure my mom has a very similar list.” Pinky stood, ripping her hands from his, and went around him. Still facing the door, she added, “I just want to know one thing, though. If you really hate all these things about me, why the hell did you even go out with me? Why the hell did you tell me you liked me?”
“Because I do like you!” Samir said, his voice rising. “Don’t you get it? Pinky, I don’t feel like that anymore!”
She looked at him over her shoulder, smirking. “Right. Is that why it was so easy for you to make the decision to give me up?”
And finally, to that, Samir had no response. Pinky turned around and walked out of his room, leaving him behind.
* * *
The pain exploded in her chest, in her bones, in her every cell, once she’d closed and locked her door behind her. She flung herself on her bed, buried her face in her pillow, and wept, her chest heaving, feeling as if her entire world were raining down on her, piece by piece.
The crazy thing was, she’d expected this of her mom. Pinky’d figured her mom wouldn’t understand why she felt the need to save the habitat, and although she’d hoped that her mom might come around once she remembered the good times they’d had there, it hadn’t been a total surprise that she hadn’t. That was her mom. They’d never seen eye to eye. It was the whole reason Pinky had hidden the big protest from her in the first place.
But Samir… he’d stuck by her side; he’d been her unlikely ally from the beginning. He was like no one else she’d ever dated. He was sweeter than she’d expected and more confident. She’d understood him and he’d understood her.
She had thought.
But now she saw that whatever this was between them had never been to him what it had been to her. Pinky had opened her heart to him fully, completely aware that he had the power to hurt her, never believing for one moment that he would. And the entire time, the entire time, he’d been thinking, Well, this is fun, but there’s no way it’s going to last. I’ll get what I can here and go home. My real life will resume and Pinky will be just a distant memory. Or maybe he’d envisioned a friends-with-benefits type of situation. She clenched her pillow with angry fists, wanting to scream into it.
How dare he. How dare he treat her like some kind of throwaway doll. The entire time she’d thought Cash was the douche, and she’d had no idea she had one of those under her own roof. That she’d invited one to the lake house for the summer and then fallen in love with him.
She turned her red, hot, wet face to the side, breathing hard, staring out the window at the darkness. Fallen in love with him? Yes, she realized. She was in love with Samir. And the tears began again, in earnest.
Samir
Samir sat in the armchair in his room, his hand covering his mouth. This was what he’d wanted, right? This was where their relationship had been headed all along. That was what he’d been trying to get her to see. Not that he didn’t have feelings for her—of course he did—but that, no matter what, no matter how they tried, they were doomed to fail. Because of how different they were.