Page 8 of Five

“You left me and you never looked back. You made me a promise on Christmas Eve. The holiest of nights. The one night you don’t fuck around in the promise department. And then you went back on it.”

“Rory…” He sighs.

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Do not Rory me, Five. OK?” I can feel all the pent-up emotions building inside me. The relief, the anger. A whole slew of feelings are ready to explode out of me right now just from seeing him again.

“Things just… came up,” he says. Quietly. Almost whispering. “And it’s not what you think.”

“What do you think I think?” I ask. “Do you think I’ve been sitting back here in the States picturing you with other women? Or partying your ass off? Or—”

“You know that’s not what I was doing, Rory.”

“No shit, Five. I’m not some pissed-off princess who gets jealous over stupid shit like that.” I stop. Because this is it, right? This is the moment when I finally have to admit what the problem really is. When I have to take a good, long look at my life, and my family, and what might be coming in my future and… face it. “Look,” I say, my voice lower now. Calmer now. “I’m not as sheltered as you think. I know what the deal is.”

He shakes his head. But I see resignation coming. I can almost feel it.

“My mom told me, Five.”

“Told you what?”

“She sat me down the night before I left for college and she told me everything. And maybe your dad did that too. I can only assume, since it’s something that happened to all of them. So cut the shit and just tell me what’s going on.”

He stares at me. Several long, silent seconds tick off.

“Why are you really here? And don’t say me.”

He looks down. Pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m… not sure yet.” He looks up, eyes bloodshot. Like he’s exhausted. Like whatever’s going on has been happening for a long time now. Like… he’s losing a battle.

“Tell me everything,” I say back, trying to keep my shit together. Because Five doesn’t lose. Five is a winner, just like his father. If they even start to think they’re gonna lose… well, let’s just say it gets handled.

He shakes his head. “No. Not yet. It could be nothing and I don’t want to start more shit than I have to.” I open my mouth to object, but he puts up a hand, silencing me. “Just let me go to Denver tonight and see, all right? Just let me get a better feel for it. And I promise, if I think it’s gonna go bad, I’ll explain in more detail.”

I wait a beat, thinking. Trying to decide if this is good enough or not.

“And whatever reason you’ve got stuck in your head about why I’m here… that’s not why I’m really here, Princess. I was gonna stop by New York on my way back, yes. To see you. To… to apologize. To make it right.”

“And now that I’m here instead?” I say. “Now what will you do?”

He shrugs. “I’m gonna stick around, obviously. For as long as you do, at least. If you think I cut contact because I wanted to, Rory… I didn’t. That’s not why. So just let me handle things. Don’t do anything yet. And tomorrow I’ll start making it up to you.”

“What’s that mean, exactly? I mean, really, Five. What’s that mean?”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Not one who matters. Not when you’re here.”

He squints his eyes at me.

“Fuck you, Five Aston. Six goddamned years I’ve been wondering when you’d come back for me. Six. Goddamned. Years. I date, OK? What am I supposed to do? Be a fucking recluse? It’s Princeton, you know. Maybe not Oxford, but it’s fucking Princeton. Meeting people is part of the process. It’s all part of the reason people want to go to an Ivy League university in the first place. And I’d be a very stupid girl if I didn’t take advantage of that.”

He sighs. Slumps in his chair a little. “I know. It’s just… this is not how I pictured us, right? It was never going to happen like this, Rory. We talked about it that last time I was home. It was going to be college, then marriage, then family. And now it’s all fucked up.”

I reach across the table and take his hand. He watches me squeeze it, looks up at me and squeezes it back. He says, “I love you, ya know.”

There. That. Those three words are all I ever wanted to hear when he walked out and left me.

And it’s enough, I realize. My whole world is instantly right again. “I know.” I feel a tear slip out of my eye. Five reaches over and gently wipes it away with one fingertip.

“Don’t cry.”