This place can’t be a dream, I decide, because I’ve never even dreamed of any place like it.
I can’t bring myself to speak until we’re out on the balcony, looking out over the glowing city below us. “This is incredible,” I say, shaking my head. “I can’t even make myself believe what I’m seeing, and I’m standing here seeing it.”
His sparkling green eyes are locked on mine and he reaches for me, pulling me close to him. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that I get you all to myself for three whole days...no matter the circumstances. Now I have you, I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
Blair’s body pressed to mine makes all the old feelings, once buried deep under shame and disappointment, all come flooding back. Something in his eyes speaks to the truth, and I can’t resist.
He closes his mouth over mine, and all of the chaos that’s been warring in my mind dissipates in an instant as I kiss him in return. He gave me my first kiss last year, and there’s just something about the hungry way that his lips and tongue move with mine that steals my breath completely away. I am melting into him, and I don’t want it to stop.
We do stop, just before things get a little too hot and heavy. Blair has to physically break away from me. He walks away and puts his hands on the railing of the balcony, looking down at the city again. I’m out of breath and my heart is racing as I watch him. His playful, passionate look has turned to something more pensive, and I know he’s thinking on the events that separated us in the first place. As much as I want to just forget all the months where he ignored me, I can’t.
“Blair … what’s really going on? We haven’t really talked at all since … since everything happened at school last year.” I’m torn. Part of me wants to know, and part of me really doesn’t.
He rakes his fingers through his silvery-white hair and keeps his head turned from me as he answers. “It wasn’t good, what you did, Sadie.” He closes his eyes. “I mean … Teddy. It’s going to take me a while to get used to calling you that.”
I frown slightly. He’s only used my pseudo name once, and it was in a very serious situation. He always calls me Bunny. I hated it at first, but now it’s grown on me and it feels weird when he calls me anything else … even my own, real, name.
“I’m so sorry,” I begin, taking a step toward him, but he doesn’t turn to look at me. He just stares straight ahead and sighs deeply while I continue on, my words melding together like a badly mixed cocktail. “I didn’t mean for it to go so wrong. I just … I needed to try to make a future for myself. Foster care doesn’t do much in that way, especially when, well, you saw what my home was like.”
I take a breath. It’s surprisingly hard to get it all out, no matter how many times I’ve rehearsed this exact conversation. I blame the twinkling lights below, the swish of the pool, the soft music floating out from inside; the general glamor of it all is distracting.
“Sadie’s parents weren’t going to get their money back, and I thought I could use it without hurting anyone...but eventually it all just caught up to me.” I shake my head. “I think I forgot, for a while, where I ended and Sadie began. They came and talked to me, you know; her parents.”
He glances at me. “Yeah, I heard they let you keep it. Do you really look that much like their kid?”
I nod, and he looks away.
“It’s pretty messed up, what you did,” he says.
“But can you blame me?” I step towards him, but have to stop myself. I should give him the room he needs to think, rather than crowding him and forcing him to listen. “Blair … my life, it’s been shit up until now. If you had absolutely no future ahead of you, no chances, no opportunities or prospects, wouldn’t you try to change your life?”
He turns to me then and I see a fierce storm raging in him, behind the glittering green eyes.
“Hey, I know what it’s like to wish that you were someone you’re not. I’ve told my fair share of lies as well. Some pretty big ones, come to think of it. But your lies … you lied about the very foundation of who you are. After that … can you really blame us for not trusting you?”
“No. I guess I can’t.” I sigh and drop my gaze to the floor. “I just wish I’d gotten the chance to explain before everyone decided I didn’t exist anymore.”
“It wouldn’t have changed anything,” he says. Blair taps his fingers on the railing and eyes me critically. “I wish I could say differently, but that whole thing isn’t over, Teddy. Not by a long shot. No one likes being used or lied to, and that thing happens more than you think for people like us.”
I take a second to look back over my shoulder at the place where he’s taken me. I guess he’s right. I saw it at the school, and I imagine it only gets worse. Everyone in this world is trying to get something out of each other. In a world where nothing is as it seems, it makes someone like me, so blatantly a liar, look even worse.
Blair has continued. “Just know when we get back to school, things still aren’t going to be easy for you. You’re coming back into a lion’s den. You have to know that.”
I nod and cross my arms over my chest. “I know it. I just hoped that … that maybe somehow everyone might forgive me for what I did and give me a second chance. You know, get to know me for who I really am.”
Blair exhales and turns his head away for a moment in thought, and then walks up to me and wraps an arm around me. “I think I know who you really are, and that’s why I came for you tonight. It’s why I’ve been calling you so much this summer trying to reach you. The girl that I missed wasn’t part of the lie, and I know that now. It was you. I’m just glad I got this time with you before we have to go back to school.”
There’s something off about the way he says it. I frown and bite my lip a little, wondering what he means exactly. I want to ask him, but he’s done talking. His body has shifted towards mine, and I slip into the little gap in his arms. His chest is so warm against mine, and the way he rests his chin on the top of my head makes me feel … safe.
In just a few hours, the rest of this city will wake. For now, I need sleep—and from the dark circles forming under Blair’s eyes, he does too. I wonder, briefly, the struggle that brought him to me tonight. To defy Astor’s wishes so completely … it simply isn’t done.
Blair walks me to his bedroom and pulls me into his bed with him. We lay on top of the blankets, wrapped in each other’s arms. I try to be in the moment, to stop my whirling, confused mind—but I just can’t believe I’m lying on his shoulder.
I love the feel of his warm skin by mine, the way his arms close around me, the very scent of him, his closeness. I feel safe and content, and though it takes a while because I don’t want to miss a moment of being exactly where I am, I finally fall asleep.
He’s watching me when I wake. He reaches up and touches my face, pushing a strand of my hair back from my cheek. A swath of yellow sunlight across the bed tells me we’ve slept nearly until noon. His hair, usually impeccably styled, sticks out around his head in a tornado of white, spiky strands of his own.