CHAPTER ONE
Autumn
“The thing with history is, well… It's all history. It’s sort of pointless, really.”
I try to keep my smile fixed on my face. I practiced it over and over last night, wanting to come across as the exact opposite of how I usually feel in social situations. Mainly, like I want to crawl inside a hole with a book and a snack and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist.
But I can’t keep letting what Declan did ruin my life.
Paula encouraged me to go on this blind date. My best friend has always been the more adventurous of the two of us, and she said it would be good for me to get away from my studying, to let loose.
But the date has been a bust from the start. Roger seemed like a nice enough man at first. At twenty-three, only a couple of years older than me, and after what happened with Declan I should’ve been glad for how similar we were in age.
Declan had been older and he’d…
Well, I promised myself last year that I wouldn’t ponder all the horrible stuff Declan did. But he’d used his age to his advantage, making me think I needed him, making me feel like I’d be lost without him.
Roger doesn’t seem like that at all. He’s at college for mathematics and he’s handsome. I mean, I can see how others might find him handsome, with his lean features and his neat haircut.
But I find myself feeling nothing as I look at him, and from the way, his features tightened when he spotted me, I’m guessing he feels the same.
So now here we are, in an Italian restaurant, both of us counting down the seconds until we can go home.
I wonder if I’m misreading him, and he’s just nervous. But somehow that would be worse. If he’s not into me, I don’t have to feel bad about pulling the ripcord.
“If it gets too bad,” Paula told me, as she helped me to zip up my dress, “just shoot me a text. Make sure to pin your location too. I’ll swing by with some ‘emergency’ and save your ass.”
“Okay,” I said, taking a deep breath as my body tried to cramp up with nerves. “I will. Thank you.”
Now, I realize I’m being insanely rude.
Roger has been talking the whole time I’ve been daydreaming. He trails off, narrowing his eyes when he realizes I’m not listening.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I drifted off.”
“It’s fine.”
Guilt grips me. It isn’t his fault I’m not interested in what he has to say. It’s mine. I can’t stop thinking about someone else, someone who is completely ludicrous and unattainable.
I only ever met him once, but I’ve checked up on him online several times since then.
How is it possible that Asher Alexander still won’t get out of my head, with his bright intelligent eyes and the light dusting of silver across his strong jaw?
I remember the way he ran his hand through his iron hair as he spoke, and how he looked like a cross between a bodybuilder and an intellectual as his muscles popped in his tweed suit jacket.
And here I am again, completely ignoring Roger.
Forcing myself to smile, I lean forward.
“So what were you saying about history?”
“Just that it’s pointless, basically.” He shrugs and laughs, low and sort of callous, unless I’m imagining that last part. “I know what you’re going to say. We can learn from the past. That implies the main focus of history is to extract lessons and apply them to the future. But I disagree with that hypothesis.”
“Oh?” I say, as I think about all the good times I’ve had with my nose buried in a book, my mind skipping hundreds or thousands of years into the past… as I remember that feeling, like nostalgia for a time I never visited.
“Historians don’t study the past with a goal of extracting lessons. They argue over every little detail, most of which have no relation to any supposed lesson.” He taps his fingernails on the table, grinning widely. “I don’t mean to dismantle your life’s main passion, but it’s just a fact.”
“I think history has more to offer than lessons about the past. I think it can make us appreciate the present. I think it can make us…”
I trail off as I realize I’m about to launch into his speech, Asher Alexander’s. I can still recall how he looked as he stood between the pillars of the Lincoln Memorial, waving his hands as he spoke, the same way he does in his television documentaries. His voice filled with a husky tone. A couple of times I even caught his gaze on me, causing my skin to tingle.
I was eighteen at the time. It was a month before my mom and dad passed away. It was before I met Declan.