***
Ty
I feel guilty as hell as I drive to D.C. when I should be heading to Delaware with Phoebe. My meeting with the legal team shouldn’t take long; I doubt they’ll want to hear anything I have to say. I’m being considered as a possible character witness at Brett’s upcoming parole review. I’ve been coached on exactly what to say, but I plan to go off-script. I’m not lying for them. That’s a line I can’t and won’t cross.
I shouldn’t even be on this road. I should be halfway to Delaware now, getting anxious and excited about meeting Phoebe’s family.
Instead, I’m dreading this meeting and all it entails. But I have to do it--I have no choice; my mother has seen to that. As the legal guardian of my trust, she needs to sign off on any withdrawals I make. It’s never been an issue. The provisions of my dad’s will allow me to access funds for living expenses and school. I can access the entirety of the trust only after I graduate. So, I’ve been using my college fund to pay for Phoebe’s scholarship. It’s a delightful loophole, and one I’m proud of. Even better, I was able to score grants and scholarships through the English department that pay for my education, so no one is the wiser.
The problem is that I need to fly under my mother’s radar for another year and a half to keep this up. And I’m running out of time. I can’t keep my true identity from Phoebe that long. But if I tell her the truth, I’m not sure she’ll ever forgive me.
***
Chapter 16
Ty
The drive to the cabin will take us a little more than an hour. There shouldn’t be much traffic this early on a Friday, so we stop at Drip before leaving campus--I need the caffeine after a restless night.
Phoebe texted last night at ten, saying she was back in town and wondering if I wanted her to come over or if we should just meet in the morning. My heart cracked a little at that--that I’d made her doubt me, made her doubt my commitment, and yes, my love. No such declarations have been made by either of us, but I’m irrevocably in love with her. Hell, I have been since that very first day in the quad.
I’m also fooling myself thinking that we could have anything lasting, that she would still love me if she knew. I want to trust that she could see past that, that she could forgive me, but it’s too much to ask.
“What’s up? You’ve been so quiet this morning, and that’s not like you at all,” she asks. “Usually you’re all 19th century literature this, and Feminist Criticism that, and post-war poetry, blah, blah, blah. Not that I don’t love it. Your blah, blah, blah is my very favorite.”
“Gee, thanks,” I say wryly, trying to mentally shake myself out of this funk.
“Seriously, are you ok?”
“Honestly, I feel shitty about not going with you last night,” I tell her, laying out part of my truth.
“It’s fine, I told you. I mean, yea, you could have shielded my eyes so I didn’t have to see that,” she giggles, “but you had things to do, and I understand that. They really would like to meet you, though. And, Ty, they are so happy. I mean, I’m not naive enough to think this changes everything or that my mom is magically healed. Trauma doesn’t work that way. Agoraphobia does not just disappear. But she’s letting herself live, you know? God, there were days I wondered.”
I nod, because I don’t have the right words. Jesus. Even if this had nothing to do with me, if her brother had died at the hands of someone else’s asshole brother, she’d be breaking my heart.
Losing so much so young can’t be easy. “God, baby, it tears me up inside to think of what you went through,” I tell her, my emotions raw and bubbling just under the surface. “You lost your brother, your family dynamic, life as you knew it, and…”
She reaches out to squeeze my hand. “I did. And I can’t lie, not a day goes by that I don’t miss him, that I’m not angry and sad that he’s gone, but I like to think there’s healing, too. I mean, look at you.”
At me? Jesus, no. Please, Phoebe, don’t look too closely. “Me?” I nearly choke on the word.
“Yes, you. I mean, you were, what? Thirteen when your dad died? You had to move states, live with a family you weren’t used to. Come on, Ty. You should know this. Trauma is not pie. There’s plenty to go around.”
God, this woman.
I clear my throat. “Yea. It was… a lot. And hard, but I was only thirteen, so no one expected me to handle it all. I didn’t have to take care of anyone, and all that is how I met my boys.”
She quirks an eyebrow in my direction, and I realize I’ve never told her how it all began.
“So... are you just gonna leave me hanging?” she asks.
“What do you want to know?”
She smiles. “Everything. Every hero has an origin story, right? And I want to know yours.”
I rake a hand through my hair and look out the window into the distance. “I’m no hero, Phoebe. Trust me, I’m just not built that way.”
“Really?” she asks, reaching into the center console for her coffee. “We’re back to broody Ty? Because while he’s sexy, he’s not my favorite. I much prefer socially well-adjusted Ty.”
