The Girl Who Fell(90)

“It did.”

“I want today to be so much better.” He holds up a brown paper bag. “Would breakfast in bed be a good start?” The scent of hot cinnamon bread fills my head. “Next year I’ll make you eggs in our kitchen. Next year I won’t be a complete idiot.”

I want to believe that. But, “Smells delicious” is all I can say.

He opens the bag, flattens a napkin across my comforter and sets out two thick pieces of cinnamon nut bread.

“Did you make this?”

“Special for you.”

A skip, a flutter. My heart can’t help it. Alec leans over and plants an apologetic kiss on my cheek. When he pulls back I see the circles under his eyes, his drawn expression. “You look tired.”

“I didn’t sleep. I screwed up so badly. After we talked I kept imagining Lizzie telling you what an ass I was, trying to turn you against me.”

“She’s not like that.”

“I’m glad. Because this is between us.”

I raise my hand to his jaw, the angry raw line of purple I’ve just noticed. “What happened here?”

“Gregg.” Just the one word, no details, no explanation. He bends toward me and our foreheads press together. “Say you forgive me.”

I want to forgive him. I remember Lizzie telling me how love makes people do stupid things. And I see my mom, forgiving my dad. If his huge mistake wasn’t enough to destroy their marriage, don’t I owe it to Alec—and me—to try to find forgiveness? But I can’t quite make the words I forgive you form. Instead, I say, “I do.”

They are enough. Alec lets out a relieved sigh, nuzzles his head onto my chest. We stay like this for a long time, him listening to my heart, me combing my fingers through his soft hair.

But then I tell him, “You can’t stay.” He shifts off me, his heat a stain on my skin.

He questions me with sad eyes.

“I need to write my essays for Michigan.”

He smiles, kisses me hard on the mouth before standing. “Call me when you’re done?”

I nod. He kisses me again before slipping out of my room with a high step, almost a skip.

I go to my computer and log on to the University of Michigan’s website. I research student life and academics and their field hockey team. And I can imagine myself there. With Alec. The version of Alec that has promised never to hurt me again. The version of him that made me choose to be with him next year.

The university accepts the common app, which I give them permission to view, and I enter in my references, same as I’d done for Boston College months ago. I spend the rest of the morning trying to focus on my essay. Trying to crowd out doubt. It’s a relief to hear a knock at my door.

“Feel like decorating the tree?” Mom asks.

And it is the exact thing I want to do. Something simple and mindless and wrapped in the comfort of years.

I follow her to the living room, where Frank Sinatra croons the words to “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” from Mom’s favorite 1950s holiday CD. Hearing the lyrics makes me feel like a kid again. I’m suddenly grateful for the small things that will never change. Like the blue spruce tucked into the same corner as every year. This one is smaller than usual and Mom didn’t drag out all the boxes of decorations, but these tiny changes don’t make me sad now that I’m facing huge changes. Like starting an unexpected life with Alec.

Mom’s untangling a string of tiny white lights but doesn’t miss how preoccupied I am. “I didn’t know teenage boys brought their girlfriends breakfast. Alec seems very considerate.”

“He is.”

“You’re lucky.”

“I am.” I just wish last night didn’t taint how lucky I feel.

“And that shiner on his jaw?”

Leave it to Mom to notice all the evidence. I pull at the corner of my lashes and the lie races off my tongue. “Hockey.” I pray Gregg doesn’t tell his mom the truth about any part of last night. So Mrs. Slicer won’t tell Mom. The need to get farther away from all things Sudbury burns deeper than ever.

“Lizzie called the house earlier, said you left your phone in her car. She offered to drive it over if you wanted.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That I wanted you all to myself to decorate the tree. And that I think you can live without your phone for a day.”

“I can try.” I don’t tell her a quiet day at home feels exactly right.

Mom grabs a new mound of lights, tackles the untangling anew. “I thought we’d get a small ham since it’s just the two of us this year. And Rachel asked me over for drinks Christmas Eve. You want to come? See Gregg?”