We Are Us

Chapter 27 Worthington University

Fall Semester, Senior Year

“Happy Birthday.”

A smile tugs at my lips as I look at Tucker, silhouetted in my doorway. A smile I struggle to keep on my face when I notice the shopping bag dangling from his hand.

For my last birthday, Tucker bought me a necklace. A gold P that dangles from a thin chain. It’s elegant and beautiful. Every time I feel it against my neck I’m reminded of the moonstone pendant I lost.

And the man I turned my back on.

I haven’t seen Gavin since the afternoon we spent together under the elm tree. Although we were supposed to meet the following morning, I canceled on him in the middle of the night, explaining the situation with my mother and that I couldn’t see him. He said he understood, and that he would come back again as soon as he could.

But as dawn eased gently through the windowpane, illuminating Tucker’s sleep-softened face, I knew I could never meet up with Gavin. Not when my feelings for Gavin were so strong, and my debt to Tucker so big.

That morning, Tucker drove me to my mother’s arraignment. Afterward, we’d brought her to a rehab facility where she spent the next six months. She’s back at home now, with Sadie.

But Gavin hasn’t given up on me. Yet.

Like the video he’d sent at precisely 12:01 this morning, singing happy birthday. I’ve already played it a dozen times.

Sometimes he’ll call with updates about his classes and projects and even his ru

But I don’t answer his calls. I never respond to his messages. I can’t.

It would be so easy to hurl myself off the cliff, straight into Gavin’s arms. So easy to let myself fall. Except… I don’t know that he could catch me. Not with all my damn baggage anyway. We’d all get hurt.

I can’t let myself get too close to the edge. I have to keep my distance.

And so now I step aside, motioning for Tucker to come in my room. “You’ve already done so much for me, Tucker. You shouldn’t have bought me a gift, too.”

“If it makes you feel any better, it’s an entirely practical present. You have interviews coming up and I wanted to get you something suitable.”

A nervous flutter rises up in my stomach. Interviews, right. Unlike a lot of other seniors, I haven’t sought out internship opportunities that might lead to a post-graduation job offer because it would have meant cutting back on my TeenCharter responsibilities. But if I want to live in Manhattan, I need to land a well-paying job to afford rent. I’ll be a fixture at the campus career counseling center in another month or so.

Tucker closes the door behind him and follows me to the bed I’ve pushed beneath the room’s only window, arranging the pillows so it looks like a couch. I still live on campus, but I have a single room in a dorm reserved for upperclassmen.

I sit down, curling my legs beneath me. He pulls a box out of the bag and sets it on my lap. “Thank you, Tucker. This is so thoughtful.”

“Don’t thank me until you see what’s inside.” Tucker aims his chocolate eyes my way and I feel a familiar rush of gratitude toward him. He is always looking out for me, thinking ahead.

We’ve come a long way since that night. There is our work with the TeenCharter kids, of course. And since that first New Year’s Eve we spent together, there have been di

In a strange way, Tucker is the only one who understands me. While it’s no secret I was taken from his room on a stretcher and rushed to the hospital in an ambulance our freshman year, Tucker is the only person who knows the extent of what happened that night. I am a different girl than I once was, certainly different than the other girls at Worthington. Even the way they walk around campus—with a carefree kind of recklessness to their step—is foreign to me.

Tucker knows what it’s like to stand in front of the WUJA board, feeling embarrassed and ashamed. His penalties weren’t as harsh as mine, but he had to do community service and attend an alcohol education class aimed at scaring you into a life of sobriety. We both had to deal with strange looks and judgmental whispers behind our backs.

That we became a couple felt almost like rebellion.

It’s an illusion though. A lie I tell myself to feel strong and in control.

If I was really brave, I would have walked away from Tucker. I would have figured out another way to help my mom, another way to stay at school.

I wouldn’t have turned my back on Gavin.

But I did. I chose Tucker over Gavin. And I have to live with my decision.

What would bravery have gotten me, anyway? Embroiled in a scandal at school. My name dragged through mud just like the girl who was raped behind the bleachers of her high school and then verbally assaulted, over and over again, in the court of public opinion. Moving back home to Sackett, attending community college with Sadie.

There is strength in forgiveness, too. Strength in standing my ground. Staying at Worthington hasn’t been easy. Giving Tucker another chance hasn’t been easy. Ru

It’s for the best. Gavin’s best, as much as mine. The starry-eyed girl he knew was idealistic and naïve. She believed in fairy tales and soul mates. When he left, Gavin took a piece of me with him.

And that night with Tucker, our mistake—shattered what was left.

Sometimes my coursework even twisted the knife. I had to white-knuckle my way through an English professor’s infatuation with British romantic poetry. According to Albert Lord Te

But, is it really? Who had Te

Either way, I think it’s probably bullshit. Poetic mansplaining.

Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe losing someone to death is different than losing them to a twist of fate.

Because knowing Gavin is a thousand miles away, eating and sleeping and maybe even loving someone else, someone who is not me, is like living with razor blades stuck between my ribs. Every breath delivers oxygen to my brain, but never relief to my heart.

And yet, as hard as losing Gavin—again—is, I know loving him would be worse. We’re not like the couple in the magazine, unscathed by pain and misfortune.

I am strong, but I’m not a fighter. And if I’m not willing to fight for Gavin, to rebel against the way the world works, I don’t deserve him. And he wouldn’t like the person I’ve become. She’s brittle and suspicious. She understands that the Stocktons and Knowles of the world play by a different set of rules than the rest of us, and the odds are stacked in their favor.

That’s why I accepted a Stockton Family Foundation scholarship. That’s why, when Tucker insisted on taking care of me, I didn’t refuse. I said “thank you.”

I understand why Gavin left me back in high school. Why he couldn’t contact me. Of course, he had to protect his mother. And he had no way of knowing I wouldn’t receive his letter and phone because the cave flooded.