Page 102 of These Secret Years

“As long as I have a girlfriend, and we’re in a class together?”

“I mean—that would help.”

I run my hand over his hair a few times and map out Andromeda in the sky. “I’ll think about it.”

“We can practice just like this,” he says.

And so we do.

He leaves around two in the morning without a kiss goodbye, only a hug that lasts a very, very long time.

Chapter Twenty-Two

SULLIVAN

Adrian is unhappy about my two failed courses. For one, it makes me less available to him over the summer, but also, he expects me to be putting his money to good use. Over a candlelit dinner, which I dress for, he wants a full explanation for why I couldn’t pass a class as simple as U.S. History.

I grip the silverware harder to stop my hands from shaking, my mind scrambling to find a reason that will satisfy him but stuck so hard on the truth. It’s not self-sabotage, or at least I don’t think it is. It’s more along the lines of a deep, unshakeable depression and crippling anxiety surrounding failure, even when I think the failure is inevitable. “School can be⁠—”

“Hard for you. Yes, I know. You’ve said this before. Are there not tutors? Do your professors not have office hours? You know what I think, Sullivan. I think your extracurricular activities are likely interfering with your study time. This girlfriend of yours⁠—”

“We broke up,” I tell him.

This shuts him up momentarily.

“I mean we’re still roommates, but it isn’t that.”

“Do you even attend your classes?”

I do attend the music courses, but once I realized there was nothing I could do about history and rhetoric, I stopped going. “I do. I try to.”

“And?”

“And sometimes it feels pointless,” I admit.

“Hm. Rebellion doesn’t suit you, Sullivan. Compliance, however…”

The word makes my stomach roll. I force myself to cut a piece of broccoli in half and eat it.

“You understand how deeply I care about you, yes?”

“Yes,” I say automatically, like he pulled the string he installed in my back to make me comply.

“And you realize you deserve this opportunity.”

“Thank you.”

“Your talent—it’s raw. You’re at school to hone and shape it. To find the best use of it. Is there a piece you’ve been working on?”

“I’ve been focused on performance,” I lie. I haven’t been focused on anything, but I don’t have a piece of music to show him either. “Violin.”

He sneers. “You’ve put down the oboe, I’m assuming? Good. It was a waste of your abilities.”

Swallowing his final bit of food, he drops his linen napkin on the table and leans back in his chair. He has me all to himself this week since Quinn is in New York, and obviously I prefer only having to deal with Adrian. There’s an itch under my skin, though—a feeling like he has something planned for me I won’t like, although with only him here, I can’t imagine what it would be.

To be fair, I don’t like anything he does to me, but what he does to me when Quinn is here is so much worse.

“I’m going to shower,” he says. “I’ll find you shortly.”