“I was being kind. If you’re not familiar with the sentiment, I’d be glad to show you.”
She growled again.
I smiled.
“You’re different around certain people,” she told me. “I’ve known you long enough from academic conferences to see it. You act one way with them and another with me. How do I know who the real Connor Cobalt is?”
You never will. “I’m as real with you as I can be.”
“That’s complete bullshit,” she cursed.
“I can’t be you,” I told her. “You leave a trail of bodies with your glares. People are afraid to approach you, Rose. That’s a problem.”
“At least I know who I am.”
We had somehow drawn towards each other. I towered over her, taller than most men and built like an athlete. I never hunched. Never shied. I wore my height with pride.
She raised her chin to combat me. I pushed her to be the best that she could be.
“I know exactly who I am,” I said with every ounce of confidence I possessed. “What unsettles you, Rose, is that you have no idea what kind of guy that is.”
Her eyes pierced me. “Sure I do. You’re fake.”
“I’m real when I need to be,” I reminded her. “If people stare at me and see my problems, then I’m useless to them. So I give them exactly what they want. I am whomever or whatever they need.” I held out my blazer. “And you need a fucking jacket.”
She reluctantly took the blazer but hesitated again. “I can’t be you,” she said. “I can’t internalize all of my feelings. I don’t understand how you can do that.”
“Practice,” I said.
She slipped her arms through the blazer, the fabric dwarfing her slender body, but it covered the stain. And that was what mattered. She opened her purse and pulled out a sewing kit. “Help me with the sleeves.” She held out one arm.
I rolled the fabric up to her wrist while she pinned the body to fit her frame. She started her own fashion line at fifteen, so I wasn’t surprised she carried around a needle and thread. She never talked much about Calloway Couture with anyone. But I figured the company meant the world to her since she worked to keep it afloat for years.
“I need your other arm,” I told her.
She gave it to me, but she finally stiffened at my closeness. Our eyes met for an extended moment. There was so much between us that I wasn’t ready to uncover right then. I wasn’t prepared for the deep conversations that she would force me to have.
Rose Calloway couldn’t stand me because of what I was—a guy who wanted to reach the top. The irony was that she wanted the same thing. She just wasn’t willing to do what I was to get there.
She took a deep breath. “Why do I always feel like I’m fighting a brick wall when I talk to you?” And then she stepped back and finished sewing.
I didn’t have anything real to say. I couldn’t form the words. I spent years building barriers and defenses. I could take care of a woman better than any other guy could. But my mother never taught me how to love. She taught me about stocks and history and different languages. She made me intelligent.
She made me logical and factual.
I knew sex. I knew affection. But love? That was an illogical concept, something as fictional as the Bible, Katarina Cobalt would say. When I was a child, I thought love belonged in fantasy with witches and monsters. It couldn’t exist in real life, and if it did, it was just like religion—only there to make people feel good.
Love.
That was fake to me.
And I nearly rolled my eyes. There you go, Connor. That’s something fucking real. That’s something from the heart.
“Rose,” I began. And she turned to look at me. And her gaze was like the depths of hell. Ice cold. Bitter. Tumultuous and pained. I wanted to bear it all. But I couldn’t show her all the cards I held to do so. I couldn’t let her in. I’d lose the game first. And it had only just begun. “You’re going to do great.”
And that was it.
She was gone.
Through a friend of a friend, I learned that Rose Calloway was accepted to the Honor’s Program. I learned that she denied the request to attend Penn. For whatever reason, she chose Princeton, our rival college.
Six months later, I started to date Caroline Haverford. Not long after that, she became my girlfriend.
It was a life that I saw coming.
It was one that I was prepared for.
There was nothing spontaneous or alluring about it.
At nineteen, everything was just practical.