“Of course I am. I wasn’t going to leave without saying goodbye, but . . .”
“But what?”
“I’m going to tell you something and then I need your help, need you to call some people and make some stuff happen they’re not gonna like.”
“It’s what I do best,” she says, with a careless lift of one shoulder that somehow feels more calculated than any shrug he’s ever seen in his life.
“Yeah, I got that.”
“The question is, why should I help you?”
“You’re not helping me. You’re helping her, just like she always helps you and everyone else she loves.”
“I don’t know . . .”
“I need you to trust me, and I know that’s a lot to ask, especially after what you’ve just been through, but I’m only doing this because . . . because of how I feel about her. Can you do that?”
Frankie eyes him up and down, a brow lifted in silent judgment of him.
“We’ll see. First, you tell me everything.”
The sun is barely rising when he makes it back to campus. Finals week is over and the parking lot is practically empty, except one car in its designated spot, that he recognizes. He has a few things still left on his desk, but mostly he’s here because he needs to talk to her.
Miranda’s in her office, looking more casual than he’s ever seen her in yoga pants and a giant USC hoodie.
“I’m missing my SoulCycle class for this, Dr Byrne, so it better be important.”
He wants to feel that thrill in his chest at the title, but instead it just feels like an insult and honestly, he probably deserves that.
“You love her, don’t you?” Miranda asks simply, without preamble or even judgment in her voice. Like it’s a simple fact. She’s not wrong. It is. Pure and true and as necessary as breathing. He loves her. And if anyone is going to know that, it might as well be Miranda, the person Bianca trusted with the truth this whole time.
“What gave me away?”
“Oh, sweetheart, you are fooling absolutely no one except her.”
“Well, she’s the only one that matters.”
“You should tell her. It’s not fair to her that she doesn’t know.”
“C’mon, Miranda, you know I can’t do that.”
“And why not?”
“She doesn’t feel that way about me and I . . . If I’m gonna get my heart broken, at least she won’t feel responsible.”
“Such a martyr. You’re not giving her a choice.”
“What choice?”
“To love you back.”
“What makes you think she would?”
“She already does.”
And part of him, a bigger part than he wants to admit, believes that might be true. There have been moments in the last couple of weeks where he thought that her feelings matched his and he wasn’t alone in this absolute torture.
“It doesn’t matter. We don’t want the same things, don’t want the same life.”
