Page 19 of Choosing Her

saylor

Family day was pretty much as bad as I expected it to be.

I met more people’s siblings than I ever cared to, was introduced to parents who seemed more concerned about meeting teachers than their kids’ friends, and had to extricate myself from a group of girls who recognized Lilah’s brother, Jude, when we were all standing together and demanded photos.

At least it was entertaining, I guess.

At one point, I tried to go back to the dorms, then realized they were just as packed the main building of the school.

I guess most people’s parents cared just as much about their kid’s living situation as they did their grades.

I wondered what that was like. With everyone milling about their dorm doors open, it felt like a rude statement to shut mine and tell them to ignore me.

Not to mention that when I was sitting in my room, all I could hear was everyone laughing in the hallway.

These dorms weren’t built for soundproofing, but normally I didn’t mind, because I had people hanging out with me too.

Today, it was just downright depressing.

Group Name: Regrettable Decisions Inc.

Members: Saylor, Poppy, Lilah, Elodie

Saylor

What’s everyone up to right now?

I regretted sending the message pretty much immediately, as I realized it acted like a beacon to say “hey look! I’m the only one who doesn’t have a family to visit her today!

” I didn’t like to advertise my family situation to my friends, and even if I wanted to, I wasn’t sure how I could explain it to them.

Yeah, my parents really love each other but not their kids. Happens, right?

I’d learned that my family structure wasn’t normal pretty early on in my school years.

Other people’s parents would come in for career day or chaperone field trips.

My parents couldn’t even be bothered to drive us to school in the morning, instead sending us with our driving.

Then as soon as we became old enough, they shipped us off to boarding school without even pausing to ask if we were interested.

Or maybe they asked Naomi for the both of us and just assumed my answer would be the same.

They certainly seemed to think may thoughts would always be identical to hers.

Elodie

Studying :(

I’d completely forgotten Elodie wouldn’t be at family day today, either, since she went to Westwood. I always seemed to assume our school events lined up with our rival school, even though there was no reason for that to be the case.

Poppy

Heyyy I’m hanging out with your brother Elodie!

Poppy sent a selfie of herself, Ivy, and Zach—Ivy’s boyfriend and Elodie’s older brother—in what looked like the athletic building.

I wondered if she was with Bear too or going over there to meet him.

I knew Bear also didn’t have a great relationship with his family, so he would probably rather spend the day with Poppy, Ivy and Zach.

I felt another knot form in my chest as I thought about that.

I was sure if Poppy realized how lonely I would be today, she would have offered to let me spend the day with her and her family, but I didn’t want to infringe on them.

And I didn’t want a pity invite, anyway.

I just wished somebody would have bothered to show up for me.

Another photo came through a second later, this one from Lilah. It took me a second to realize the photo was of her three siblings—Jude, Nina, and Asa—because all three of them were wearing bucket hats pulled low on their heads like they were trying to hide their faces.

Lilah

We’re going incognito

Poppy

I thought only Jude would need the disguise

Lilah

We thought it would be too obvious if only one person was wearing a disguise

Elodie

And you thought this was more subtle??

Lilah

Who said anything about subtle

I don’t care if people look at us

But if ONE MORE PERSON ASKS FOR HIS AUTOGRAPH I SWEAR

I laughed softly. I guess spending the day like this wasn’t the worst thing in the world—at least I didn’t have a famous sibling coming to visit me. But still, at least they were having fun. I needed to do something fun. Something other than walking around and wallowing in my own self-pity.

Saylor

You should start giving out your autograph

Elodie

Or forge Jude’s

I do that with Zach’s

Saylor

Please tell me you charge money for those

Elodie

Honestly I should

I mostly use them as bribes to get what I want

Lilah

I do that with Jude’s clothes

Gave a girl one of his shirts in exchange for free sunglasses that are normally like $200

Saylor

HUH???

Poppy

I really do not take advantage of knowing a famous person enough

Saylor

How do we get a cut of this

Lilah

I’m going home next week, I’ll steal more of his clothes and we can split them

+his cologne

I spray it on the clothes so they smell more like him

Let me tell you, the fangirls go WILDDDD

Poppy

I feel like I’m witnessing a crime

“If you keep staring at your phone all day, your neck is going to freeze like that.”

I blinked and looked up at the boy who had appeared in front of me, iced coffee in hand and goofy smile on his face. I shoved my phone in my back pocket and stood up from the bench I’d sat on while I was texting.

“I think you have your sayings mixed up,” I said. “Isn’t it your face is going to freeze like that?”

His mouth twisted. “But how would looking at your phone make your face freeze?”

I shrugged. “You’re the one who said it, not me. Is that for me?”

I pointed at the iced coffee in his hand and he nodded, handing it over.

It was remarkable how quickly he’d trained me into expecting an iced coffee from him every day.

If anybody else had been walking around with a drink, I never in a million years would have assumed it was for me.

But if it was Crossy, apparently all bets were off.

In my defence, he had never once said that the drink wasn’t for me.

I was beginning to question if he even liked iced coffee or if he only stopped at the coffee shop every day to buy something for me.

I took a sip of the drink, eyes widening in surprise as the pumpkin spice flavor hit me. Despite the popularity of it, Heart’s Coffee ever had the flavor available.

“Thank you,” I said, absentmindedly running my thumb along the CROSSY written on the side of the cup in black sharpie.

“I admit, it’s acting as bribe,” Crossy said, shoving his hands in the front pockets of his pants.

I narrowed my eyes. “Excuse me?”

“My parents want to meet you,” he said, like it was totally normal for his parents to want to meet their son’s ex-girlfriend’s little sister.

“Excuse me?”

He looked around. “Are you with anyone? Or can you just come over now be?—”

“I cannot meet your family!” I hissed, cutting him off.

He blinked at me. “Why not?”

“Because you’re— And I’m— It’s…” I sighed. “It doesn’t really seem appropriate, does it? Given the circumstances.”

Crossy looked bemused. “What circumstances?”

“You know, the fact that I’m…” I gestured between us like that was going to help him understand at all. I sighed. “Because of our history .”

“You mean the fact that we kissed?” He asked. “Or do you mean that I dated your sister? I don’t think either should stand in the way of you meeting them.”

I hated that he was able to reference our kiss so easily, as if it meant nothing to him. Like it was as casual as discussing the weather or our classes. Because the fact of the matter was, it may not have been important to him but it sure as heck was important to me.

“Why do they want to meet me anyway?” I asked. I eyed the bribery iced coffee in my hand, both desperately wanting to take a sip of it because it was delicious and hating that he hadn’t given it to me just to drop that bomb.

“Because you’re my tutor,” he said. “Of course they want to meet you.”

Well, that was a better reason than my initial thought, which had been that he told them we were such good friends that he just had to introduce me.

It still wasn’t great but I guess it wasn’t terrible.

I considered saying no anyway and shoving his iced coffee back at him, but what excuse could I give?

I guess if my family was here, I could say that I was going to spend time with them instead, but that would lie would become obvious if he saw me still wandering around later.

And what else did I really have to do right now?

I could do this one small thing for him, right?

The next thing I knew, Crossy was leading me to the nearest doors, where a couple was standing.

His dad was dressed in a clean-pressed suit, exactly what I would have expected from a lawyer, and the woman was in a nice dress.

She didn’t look anything like Crossy but I didn’t want to make the assumption that she was his step-mom if it actually was his mom that he looked nothing like.

“Dad, Stacey,” Crossy said as we walked up, “this is Saylor. She’s my math tutor.”

As they both turned to look at me, I wondered how much they each knew.

Crossy was introducing me as his math tutor, but did they know his ex-girlfriend also had the last name Saylor?

Were they making the connection in their head, or had they not noticed at all, assuming it was my first name?

Or… did they even know about Naomi? She and Crossy had only dated for a couple of months, he may not have introduced her to his family.

Our parents definitely hadn’t met him, but I think that was more of a lack of interest on their part than anything.

Still, I felt a small snap of vindication at the idea that I was meeting his family when she never had.

It was small and something she would never know about, but it was one of the few ways I’d bested her.