AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Winter shakes his head, his entire body tense as he recounts what must have been the toughest years of his life. He seems defeated, as if he can’t believe he could be so stupid. As if he blames himself for showing the script to Graham.
“He stole it from you?”
He nods. Then he pulls up his phone and shows it to me. “Here’s the e-mail I sent to my professor with the script, if you don’t trust me.”
I shake my head. “I do.” God only knows why, but I do believe him.
I feel my heart squeeze as I hear the pain in his voice. Winter might be snobby and arrogant, but he still didn’t deserve that. No one does. My art is in my body; it’s me. But how would I feel if someone could simply take it away from me and claim it as their own?
“That’s awful,” I whisper.
After a minute of charged silence, he clears his throat.
“I… I should go. I just needed you to know this. I needed to tell you.”
“Thank you for telling me,” I say when he’s already halfway through the door.
Chapter 17
Telling Julia about Winter’s interference is a decision I struggle over the entire weekend. I’m not sure how good it’ll do to know the reason when the result remains unchanged. Her heart was still broken.
Ultimately, I realize this is not a decision for me to make. Even if I want to protect her and keep her from ever hurting again, I need to trust her to know what’s best for herself. Give her all the information so she can decide for herself what to do with it.
On Sunday afternoon, after we’ve stuffed ourselves with chicken stroganoff, and I watch Julia bake her third cake of the week, I know I can’t put this off any longer.
The baking is a clear sign of her distress. While I’m the cook among the sisters, she’s the baker. And she tends to stress bake. A lot.
“Ju,” I say softly as she sits on the couch waiting for the oven timer to go off. I haven’t seen her touch her textbooks the entire weekend, and that, even more than the baking, makes me worry.
“Uhm?”
“I wanna talk to you,” I start, waiting for her to catch on my serious tone. When she doesn’t, I continue. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
That catches her attention. She sits upright and looks at me. “Is everything okay in the play?”
“Yes,” I tell her, even though I’m not sure that’s the truth. I haven’t seen Winter since Friday, when he left our apartment after dropping a bomb and leaving me to deal with the aftermath. I don’t know how rehearsals will be tomorrow, but all I can do is hope that we’ve fixed the animosity between us that has Emily so frustrated with us.
“Then what is it?” Julia asks, bringing me back to the problem at hand.
“It’s about Cam.”
To the untrained eye, it’d seem like she has no reaction to the name of the guy that broke her heart. But I know my sister better than I know myself. The subtle tremble of her lip, the way her eyes dim—I see every tiny bit of evidence of how it hurts her hearing his name.
“What about him?” She feigns a nonchalance that neither one of us buys.
Taking a deep breath, I recount everything Winter told me yesterday. I don’t go into details about his ex, but I do explain to her that he had some history that made him worry about her intentions with Cam. That he had realized the error he made. That it wasn’t Cam who had broken her heart in the end.
“Except it was,” she corrects me. “Even if it was because of what Winter did, Luli, it was Cam who decided to believe him. It was him who chose not to ask me and act on some misguided information he had. If he did love me the way he said…” Her voice wavers and catches at the L word. “He wouldn’t have done what he did to me.”
“I understand that, and I don’t think you’re wrong.” I grab her hand and squeeze it gently. I need her to know I’m on her side, no matter what. “But I also know you’re hurting, and that you like him even if you don’t want to.”
Her eyes water at that.
“So I needed to tell you. What you’ll do with this information is up to you, but I’ll support any decision you make.” I search her eyes to make sure she sees the truth in mine. “It’s just… I don’t want you to have any regrets. Or let pride get in the way of something good. When you go back to Brazil at the end of the year, I want you to know you did everything you wanted. That you lived this experience to the fullest.”
“Thank you,” she says simply, as if those two short words summarized all of her feelings.
On Monday, I’m nervous as I make my way to the theater. It feels like the first day all over again. I’m not sure what to expect. I don’t know how I’ll react once I see Winter. And I sure have no idea what he will do when I arrive.
