Girls in Pants - Ann Brashares [88]
Bridget sucked in a little breath.
He looked sad. “I thought I loved her. Two months ago, I told her I loved her. I couldn’t let that stand. It seemed wrong.”
Bridget wanted terribly to ask him questions, but she also wanted to do her fair share of being quiet. She pressed her lips shut.
He opened his hands and put them together like he was going to pray. “And the reason it was wrong is because I knew I couldn’t really love her if I felt something so much bigger for somebody else.”
Bridget was frozen. She was scared to think through what he meant in case he didn’t mean what she thought he meant.
“And the reason I’ve been mostly staying out of sight is because when I’m near you my thoughts don’t go straight. I need to get them straightened out before I do anything else stupid.”
Bridget grabbed a look at him. Hope was filling her chest even as she tried to push it back out.
“When I was in New York, all I wanted was to rush back to you. But what would that mean? That I dumped Kaya so I could be with you? That I was a guy who’d forget a girl he thought he loved in five hours or less?” He was shaking his head. “And anyway, I didn’t want you to feel responsible for breaking us up. I know you weren’t pulling for that. All summer you were selfless enough to respect the thing with Kaya, and I wasn’t. That sucks. I didn’t feel like I deserved to come running back to you. I felt ashamed.”
Bridget couldn’t follow all these thoughts at once. She couldn’t figure out which way they led.
“There is one thing I feel sure of, and I know it is right. All these days I keep coming back to this one thing. We spent that night together, me holding you, and I felt something stronger than I ever felt for anybody else, and stronger than I even thought it was possible to feel. It blew me away. On theory alone, that made me know I couldn’t be with Kaya anymore.”
He shook his head again. He looked sort of disgusted with himself, but tempted to laugh too. “I’ve been wanting to be rational, to believe my decision about Kaya is theoretical and not just driven by my insane, out-of-my-head attraction for you.”
“Is it…,” she asked breathlessly, “…theoretical?”
He looked at her face very closely. “Not at all.”
You guys!
6-½ days! Ahhhhhhh! Yahhhhhhhh! Wahhhhhhhh!
Carma
The letter came to Lena postmarked from Providence, Rhode Island, at almost the last moment it could have before the end-of-the-summer beach trip. Lena’s heart throbbed as she opened it, but she knew it wouldn’t determine her fate, even if the answer was no.
Because Annik was right. She was an artist. She would find her way no matter who said what. Her fate didn’t belong to anyone else anymore.
The letter didn’t say no; it said yes. Lena closed her eyes and allowed the pleasure to seep through her. She was strict with herself about feeling joy, but this moment she had earned.
She went into the kitchen and literally sat on the letter, thinking about it for a long time. She would go and she could go. She didn’t need her parents’ money and she didn’t need their permission. She thought about that, too. She didn’t need it, but she wanted it. That’s what she realized.
She put on a neat navy skirt and a pretty linen blouse. She brushed her hair smooth and put pearl earrings in her ears. She borrowed her mother’s car to drive to her father’s office.
Mrs. Jeffords, her father’s secretary, sent Lena in without announcing her.
Her father looked surprised to see her in the doorway. Indeed, he was so surprised, he appeared genuinely happy at the sight of her, like he’d forgotten everything that had happened in the preceding two months and returned instinctively to his old tenderness.
“Come in,” he urged, standing up.
She was still holding the letter when she sat down across from him. “I heard from art school about the scholarship,” she said.
“You got it,” he said evenly.
“How did you know?” she asked.
He looked placid, almost philosophical. “Because I saw your drawings. When I saw them I knew