“It DIDN’T mean anything and she knew it! She knew what kind of person I was! I never lied—-”
“SHUT UP!” Ariadne screamed back. “Just because she loved you, just because she knew you, just because she didn’t ask you to change doesn’t mean you don’t have to!”
She was near tears after she spoke, having remembered the last time she had seen Bree. It was just a day after that disastrous night in the fans’ meet party and Ariadne had never seen someone so broken in her life.
“Andre and I were there when our parents found out about what you went through. We felt so guilty about not knowing what was happening that we just...we just wanted you to do whatever you thought was best to put it behind you.”
Ariadne looked at Dylan pleadingly. “But you never did put it behind you, Dyl. You kept letting their illness and its consequences shape your life and the decisions you make. You keep trying to hedge your bets, but here’s the truth, Dyl. There’s no way to be certain of the future. All you can do is do your best now – and for you, that means loving Bree the best way you can.”
Dylan’s face was white with pain, but she could see that she was getting through to him – that after all these years they were finally getting through to him. Ariadne wanted to be happy about it but she couldn’t, knowing that all of this came at the expense of Bree’s heartbreak.
“Try, please, please, please try to remember how Uncle and Auntie were before their illness. Try to remember how happy they were and how happy you were with them...”
Dylan slowly fell to his knees. He didn’t know when he started weeping. He only knew he was. It was as if a heavy dark shadow had been torn away from his world and the sky was blue again.
He remembered the happy days that Ariadne spoke of and which he had forced himself to forget because they made the horrible last years with his parents even more unbearably hurtful.
His father never complaining about the hours his mother could spend just window shopping, only to go back to the first shop they ever visited and buy a single item for the entire day’s trip...
His mother doing her best to read his father’s occasional articles on business even though the whole world knew she hated reading and that the most she had read were dinner recipes...
Ariadne wrapped her arms around him and he hugged her back, his tears continuing to fall. Finally, finally he could love his parents again – something he never thought he would experience and probably wouldn’t have if not for...Bree.
His Bree.
THE UNOFFICIAL “WELCOME party” for incoming freshmen of Christopoulos University was a huge success, if only for the fact there wasn’t enough room to breathe without accidentally kissing someone.
Bree checked her watch. Five more minutes, she told herself. As part of her Get-Over-It plan, Bree had pushed herself to be Ms. Sociable – and she was going to be that even if she had to draw a friendly smile on her lips with a permanent marker.
A bare-chested guy in a silver pair of board shorts suddenly appeared next to her. “Want another drink?”
She shook her head with a smile – she was going to smile until this night over, dammit, and it would not matter –she would not let it matter if most guys were trying to talk to her boobs instead of her.
“What’s your course?”
“Psychology. You?”
“Marketing.”
After that, there was silence.
She was so bad at making small talk, Bree thought with an inner wince. But what else was there to say? If it had been Dylan, she wouldn’t have—-
No.
Remember the Get-Over-It plan, she told herself and squared her shoulders, turning to look at Mr. Marketing with a flirty smile this time. “Want to dance?”
Small talk she sucked at, but dancing she totally knew how to do.
HE STAYED INSIDE HIS car, trying to spot Bree in the crowd of college students that filled the shores of Christopoulos University’s private beach. He knew that once he got out of the car, it would only be a matter of time before one of the students realized who he was and the crowd would be upon him.
Hopefully, by that time he would’ve already managed to whisk Bree away and have a chance to speak his piece in private.
It took fifteen more minutes before he finally saw where she was, and Dylan expelled his breath harshly. No wonder he had been having a hard time searching for her, with Bree slow-dancing with another guy, her head on his shoulder, her beautiful face turned away from him.
She was dressed in a skimpy polka-dot bikini and all he wanted to do was cover her with a blanket, toss her over his shoulder, and take her away from this testosterone-driven crowd.