Limerence: Chapter 33

“You know who I received a call from this morning?” Adrian’s good mood is downright infectious as he sidles up to me in the hallway after second period and intertwines his hand through mine.

I raise an eyebrow in question.

He offers me a sly smile. “Harvard’s President.”

My stomach dips. “Oh?”

“He was very impressed with your phone interview last week,” he explains. “Thinks you’d be a valuable asset to Harvard’s student body this upcoming fall.”

I snort. “You mean he thinks you’d be a valuable asset to Harvard’s student body. I’m just the accessory.”

Adrian shrugs. “You’ll have plenty of time to prove otherwise.”

All things considered, the phone interview with Harvard’s President last week did go well. Sure, it lasted no more than ten minutes, and he spent at least half that time recounting his long-standing friendship with the Ellis family and the other half trying to decipher my friendship with the Ellis family, but…

He’d been enthusiastic.

Not necessarily about me, but at least over the notion of stacking up a few points with the Ellis heir.

“You should be receiving your acceptance any day now,” Adrian says, and my eyes widen.

“Just like that?”

His smile turns smug. “Just like that.”

I blink. “It can’t be that easy.”

“I promised I’d make it happen, didn’t I?” He pulls our intertwined fingers, presses a soft kiss to the back of my hand, and I melt – just a little. “You’re going to Harvard, sweetheart.”

I stand on my tip-toes and kiss him. “I can’t wait.”

Promises don’t mean a thing, honey, a voice that sounds strangely close to my mother’s whispers in the back of my head.

Ever since we left Mobile, I’ve been hearing her more and more – a muttering devil on my shoulder that’s haunting every happy moment with Adrian.

Shut up, I snark back. Harvard’s a good thing. You’re not going to ruin this.

As he walks me to class, I wait for the exhilaration, for the rush of knowing I’ve been accepted into America’s oldest, most respected institution, to hit me.

But it never comes.

***

Over the next week, college acceptances and rejections flood Lionswood’s senior class. On Monday, Penelope buys enough chocolate cupcakes to feed the entire school, each one emblazoned with: Future Brown University Alumni.

On Tuesday, Dean Robins calls the fire department after Roddy Locke climbs on top of the West Wing’s clock tower. Roddy’s quick to assure everyone he’s not going to jump – he just wanted to tear his Oxford rejection letter apart and watch the pieces float away from three stories up.

On Wednesday, Sophie Adams quietly posts her “go-to makeup routine” in a new Dartmouth sweater, and promptly goes as viral for her college acceptance as she does for her three-step brow routine.

On Thursday, Maddie Mason has a seizure in the middle of history class after realizing she didn’t get into her first choice, her second choice, or her third choice Ivies.

I’m one of the lucky ones.

I’m not scrambling for purchase with a second, third, or fourth choice. I’m not glued to my phone between classes, frantically refreshing my Gmail.

The part of senior year I thought would be the hardest has turned out to be the easiest.

Harvard’s acceptance email unassumingly slips into my inbox on Tuesday, and comes a full-ride merit-based scholarship.

Adrian’s ecstatic, of course. He makes plans for us to visit campus in a few weeks and takes calls from a family realtor. He asks if I’d prefer two stories or one, Victorian or modern.

I do my best to answer every single one of his questions, all while pretending I’m not hitched to a train that’s speeding into the station at warp speed.

I want a future for Adrian so badly my fingers itch to carve it out myself, but I also want to catch my breath.

On Friday, I head for the girls’ side of the West Wing for the first time in weeks, picturing the dust that’s most definitely taken up residence in my dorm following my absence.

I didn’t leave that cup of tea on the desk, did I?

God, I hope not. It’ll be growing its own ecosystem by now.

As I climb the steps, I try to recall – only to pause at the sound of familiar laughter floating from the girls’ common room.

Oh, you’ve got to be kidding.

Of course, now of all times…

Dread ties a knot in my stomach, but I’ve come this far, and I’ve dealt with far scarier things this year than…

“Oh, Poppy, is that you?” Curled up in the armchair closest to the fireplace is Sophie Adams, who looks thrilled to see me.

With a deep breath, I hike the final step and enter the common room, which appears anything but the cozy, welcoming space it’s meant to be right now. “Hey, Sophie.”

As expected, Ava and Penelope lounge on the loveseat closest to her while a few eager no-name juniors huddle around them.

Sophie shoots me a downright predatory smile. “I’m so glad I caught you, Poppy. I never see you around anymore.”

She’s right about that. I’m not sure I’ve said a word to Sophie since the night of the dance, when she cornered me in the bathroom, strangely desperate to know what sort of spell I’d used to enthrall Adrian.

I can’t say for certain what’s kept her away from me – or Adrian – since then. Maybe it was the embarrassment of debasing herself in front of a penniless scholarship student. Maybe it was watching Adrian commit violence in my name. Maybe it was the realization that, despite being a penniless scholarship student, Adrian’s more serious about me than he’s ever been with anyone else.

Which is why I’m not going to let her get under my skin now.

Still, I square my shoulders like I’m bracing for a bullet. “Yeah, it’s been awhile, Sophie.”

“You’re Poppy,” breathes one of the no-name juniors situated on the other side of the room. She looks like she’s taken Sophie’s three-step brow routine a step too far, and her platinum blonde hair’s nearly the color of mine. “You’re the girl who’s dating Adrian Ellis.”

I straighten up, unable to help the flash of pride that soars through me because, yes, I am dating Adrian Ellis.

“That’s a bit of a strong word, don’t you think?” Sophie sneers. “They’ve only known each other a couple of months. I’ve had these extensions in my hair longer than that.” She toys with a strand of her auburn hair, effortlessly styled as usual.

Her comment elicits a few giggles from around the room, but I can’t bring myself to be truly bothered. I’m almost positive that Sophie would fry and split into a million pieces if she knew half the things I knew about Adrian.

I plaster on my friendliest smile. “Congratulations on getting into Dartmouth, Sophie.” My gaze flickers to the loveseat. “And Stanford, Ava.” A touch of sincerity enters my face. “And the cupcakes were delicious, Penelope.”

Granted, I only had about three bites of one, but I got to watch Adrian’s eyes shutter close with momentary, sweetened pleasure as he downed at least two of them.

Both girls offer me genuine smiles in return.

If I had to guess, senior year’s approaching end is softening everyone’s hard edges.

“And where are you going, Poppy?”

Well, except one.

I ignore Sophie’s hawk-like stare. “I’m going to Harvard.”

Surprised murmurs ripple throughout the room because, even here, even amongst two, three and fourth-generation Ivy Leaguers, Harvard still reigns supreme.

“Harvard…” Sophie purses her lips like she’s swallowed something sour.

“Isn’t that where Adrian’s going too?” No-name junior asks.

I nod.

“That’s so cool!” She gushes. “You guys are, like, real high-school sweethearts.”

I shrug. “I mean, I guess –”

“Well, Adrian’s wanted to go to Harvard for years,” Sophie interjects. “His grandfather and his father are both alumni.” She raises one perfectly sculpted eyebrow at me. “I suppose he can’t help who follows him.”

I can’t help it.

I bristle like a house cat in the face of an annoyingly yappy poodle.

“I’m not following him,” I retort, and immediately regret my knee-jerk defensiveness when I see Sophie’s smile widen. “I want to go to Harvard too.”

More like, I want a future with Adrian.

It’s just happening at Harvard.

“Of course.” Sophie leans forward like I’m a fish she’s gearing up to reel in. “I didn’t mean anything by it. In fact…”

Oh, here we go.

“I think it’s really admirable what you two are doing,” she continues. “I mean, I could never go to college with my…” Her mouth twists into a momentary grimace. “High-school sweetheart. Not when I know it’s going to end in inevitable heartbreak.”

My eyes narrow. “Nobody’s going to get their heartbroken.”

“Well…” Her chuckle’s directed at Ava and Penelope. “Not Adrian, that’s for sure.”

You know what?

That’s it.

I’m ready to go to war when I open my mouth but, surprisingly, Penelope hits the front lines first. “They don’t all end in heartbreak,” she adds. “My older sister married her high-school sweetheart.”

At Sophie’s withering glare, Penelope tries to retreat into the couch cushions. “Didn’t your sister also have an affair with her landscaper?”

Penelope nods mutely.

“Right.” Sophie turns back to me, eyes gleaming with victory. “Case in point.”

I take a deep breath, remind myself again that Sophie knows absolutely nothing of substance about Adrian, and then say, “Thanks for the input. I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

Walk away, Poppy.

“Oh, I’m sure,” she purrs. “Relationships are made to be tested, right?”

Just walk away.

“And college is all about meeting new, interesting people…” she trails off. “Especially Harvard. They only take the best. I’m sure you’ll find your people just as Adrian will find people closer to his own pedigree.”

Men like that do not end up with girls like us, Mom’s vicious whisper fills my head again. They like to have sex with us. They like to date us. They like to buy us pretty things. They may even think themselves in love with us, but at the end of the day, they’ll marry a woman with a nicer pedigree.

Great.

The absolute worst time to be haunted by the ghost of Mothers past.

The last thing I want is for Sophie to see that she’s managed to crack even a fraction of my confident exterior, so I resist the urge to fidget with the hem of my skirt, and I smile.

It’s as fake as the length of her hair, and full of teeth, but it’s a smile.

“I’ve got to go, but I appreciate the advice, Sophie.” I stiffly march toward the stairwell leading up to the dormitories.

“Oh, anytime, Poppy.” I feel her smug superiority nipping at my heels the whole way.

I grab the railing, step one foot up, and then pivot back toward the group. “Oh, Sophie?”

Her eyebrow forms a question mark.

“I’m not sure Adrian’s interested in pedigree,” I tell her. “At least, he wasn’t while he fucked me last night.”

The room falls dead silent, and Sophie gapes at me, but I don’t stick around to watch the ripple effect.

I do, however, ride the temporary high all the way back to my dorm room. Sophie might have a knack for getting under my skin, but I’ve got one thing she’s never even come close to obtaining.

Adrian’s desire.

I unlock my dorm room, pausing when I see the mail slot’s full.

Of course it is.

I haven’t checked it in weeks.

Flopping on my bed, I shuffle through the letters – junk mail, fundraiser I don’t have money for, more junk, and –

What’s this?

Stuck between some pre-approved credit card offer and a prize offer promising I’ve won thousands of dollars is one yellow, hefty envelope.

I go still.

No fucking way.

In the millisecond it takes me to tear through the sealed envelope, I’m sure I must give myself a hundred paper cuts, but it doesn’t matter.

My heart pounds through my ears.

I read the enclosed letter at least five times before I’m confident that I’m not hallucinating its contents.

But it’s all here.

Stamped letterhead. Black ink. Signed by the Dean.

My acceptance letter from the Pratt Institute.

***

After we returned from holiday break in Mobile, I hadn’t planned on applying to Pratt. Adrian was insistent that Harvard was a done deal. I didn’t need backups or safety nets or second choices, but the application for Pratt was almost already done, and I think some masochistic part of me just wanted to know.

So, I quietly submitted my application and waited for the rejection letter to end up in my inbox.

But this…

This is a full-ride merit-based scholarship, the very same deal that’s Harvard’s offering.

And cocooned in the darkness of my own dorm room, I tell myself this doesn’t change anything. It can’t.

Pratt’s not my future, Adrian’s my future, and it doesn’t matter if I study art in Harvard’s historic halls or Pratt’s.

My chest swells with an uncomfortably full ache.

Because I love Adrian.

The realization’s been sitting in the bottom drawer of my brain since Mobile, and I’ve done just about everything in my power to avoid touching it.

Adrian and I might know each other’s darkest secrets, we might’ve connected on the basest, most physical level but…

Love’s the highest form of power you can hand another human being.

In certain hands, it’s a weapon too.

Oh, Poppy. He hasn’t even told you he loves you? Mom’s mocking voice fills my head.

Especially Harvard. They only take the best. I’m sure you’ll find your people just as Adrian will find people closer to his own pedigree, Sophie chimes in.

A shaky breath escapes me.

They don’t know Adrian the way I do.

His attention’s not fickle. Eighteen years he’s been surrounded by willing, beautiful people, and I’m the one that aroused his curiosity. I’m the one that’s elicited a string of human emotions he didn’t think himself capable of.

We’re made for each other.

His darkness dances with mine.

But men like that do not end up with girls like us, Mom whispers.

I run my fingers through my hair.

Adrian’s different. Sure, he’s beholden to his family in some ways, but it’s not as if he’s going to wake up one morning and decide he’d rather share his bed with a European socialite instead of a waitress’ daughter.

But he could.

He could do anything he wanted, and I’d be the one left hanging out to dry.

I stare down at the acceptance letter creased between my fingers.

And then I grab my phone.

***

“You brought me a muffin,” are the first words out of Adrian’s mouth as I walk through the door of his dorm room. “Are you trying to bribe me?”

“Absolutely not.” I hand over the chocolate muffin, hoping the offering will distract from all the nervous energy I’ve just brought into the room.

I shed my Moncler down jacket – another gift from Adrian – and take a seat in one of the recliners. “I stopped by the cafeteria. There was a bake sale going on.” I fidget with one of the pleated roll arms.

“I thought you were determined to spend the entire night dusting your dorm room before end-of-year inspections next week,” he says. “Have you come to finally request my help for whatever mold’s growing in your coffee mugs?”

“I’d never subject another human being to that.” I turn my gaze to the crackling fireplace. It’s already May, but Adrian tends to keep the fireplace going whenever he’s here, regardless of Connecticut’s spring humidity.

Not that I can blame him – the flames do more to soften the space than any of the overhead lights do.

“Something’s wrong.”

“There’s nothing –”

“You’re fidgeting,” he tells me. “You always fidget when you’re nervous.” Adrian folds himself into the other recliner and gestures me over.

Now invited, I waste no time curling into his lap like a content house cat, relishing in his cedar-scented cologne.

I shouldn’t even bring it up.

I should just stay like this, exactly like this, forever.

Let things take their course as they will.

It’s a fleeting, tempting thought – but self-preservation’s too strong of a habit to kick, and it’s now or never, so I peel my head from his sweater and say, “I’ve been thinking. About Harvard.”

He cocks an expectant eyebrow at me.

I steel my nerves. “Say we broke up –”

“We wouldn’t break up.” The flat, knee-jerk answer is exactly what I’m expecting to come out of his mouth.

“But if we did –”

“We wouldn’t.”

“But if, for some reason, we did –”

“We, for some reason, wouldn’t.”

A exasperated sigh escapes. “Okay, in a hypothetical situation, if we –”

“There is no situation, hypothetical or otherwise, where we’d break up.” A muscle ticks in his jaw.

I take a deep breath. “Fine. In an alternative universe, with an alternate Adrian and Poppy who also go to Harvard, what do you think would happen if they broke up?”

The narrowing of his eyes is the only answer I receive, so I add, “Would we awkwardly wave at each other in the hallways? Send the occasional drunk text?” I suck in a breath. “Would you take Harvard from me?”

Understanding lightens his expression. “That’s what you’re worried about? That I might take Harvard from you?”

“You could,” I admit quietly. “You’re the only reason I have it in the first place.”

He doesn’t deny it.

Neither one of us has ever been under any pretense that I earned Harvard fair-and-square.

“I’d never take something that allows me to keep you close,” he replies.

I’m not sure how good of a job I do at hiding the frustration building in my bloodstream. “But if you no longer wanted to keep me close –”

“There is no future in which we aren’t together,” he snaps. “I thought you understood that as well as I do.”

“I do,” I argue. “Of course I do. I am giving you my future. You are holding it in your hands as we speak, and I need to know if something were to happen…”

“And what do you think might happen?” He cocks his head to the side, the warning in his voice as loud as sirens blaring down the road.

“Well…” I swallow, visibly uncomfortable. I don’t like considering the what-ifs any more than he does, but I do consider them. “You could meet someone. You know, someone closer to your own…” I’m not going to say pedigree. I refuse to use that word. “…social standing.”

“Right,” he drawls. “Because I’ve been so interested in social standing up to this point.” He grips my jaw, forcing me to maintain eye-contact. “Look at me. Have you forgotten the part where I tolerate just about everyone else in the world but you? I didn’t even realize I was capable of desire – true desire – till you came around.”

It should make me feel better. It should reassure me but…

“Desire’s fickle.” I shake my head. “Desire waxes and wanes by the superficial. Stress, a tight dress, a couple of pounds, boredom…”

He scoffs. “You should know me well enough to know that my desire’s not fickle or superficial.”

“Maybe not now.”

“Not ever.”

“You don’t know that. Not for sure,” I shoot back. “Give it a year. Or two. Maybe you get bored. Maybe you realize you’d like to bring someone home to your family without worrying about all the logistics. Maybe you start thinking I’m not that special. Maybe your desire shifts, and I’m just…”

Shattered into a million pieces.

Left without Harvard, without Pratt, without anything but the shadow of a future I could’ve had.

A future without Adrian would shatter me regardless, but if it happened then, after I willingly handed over my future, I’m not sure I’d ever recover be able to pick myself up again.

The thought of it curdles my stomach.

“Sweetheart,” Adrian rubs my cheek soothingly. “Whatever you need from me, I will gladly give it to you if it alleviates your fears that I’m going to wake up one morning and no longer want you by my side.”

I meet his gaze head-on. “I love you.”

My confession hangs in the space between us, as fragile as the heart that’s now beating in my throat.

“I just need to know that you love me too,” I whisper. “And I know it’s stupid. I know you’ve already proved your devotion to me, but I just need to hear it. I need to know that I’m not just uprooting my life for desire or want or…” I swallow. “I just need to hear it. I need to know.”

Dead air’s my only answer.

Adrian stares at me like I’m a pair of semi-truck headlights gunning straight for him, and I’ve never seen him scared, but right now, he looks terrified.

Of me.

I swear I can feel time splintering – every second, every millisecond stretching the silence until it’s unbearably tight over my skin.

He swallows. “I…”

The first time I render him speechless, and it’s when I need his words more than ever.

His gaze flickers away from me. “Sweetheart, I…”

“Just three words,” I say, as if I’m trying to coax them out of his throat myself. “That’s all I need. If we’re truly meant for each other, then –”

“We are meant for each other.”

“Then tell me you love me like I love you.” I clasp a hand over his cheek, and he flinches – actually flinches – at my touch.

Oh God.

The pain that washes over me is not a dull ache or an irritating sting. It’s a sucker-punch to the gut.

He doesn’t love me.

He desires me. He wants me.

But he doesn’t love me.

I’m disentangling my limbs from his before I’ve even made the conscious decision to, but he catches my waist as I try to rise from his lap.

“Sweetheart, wait.” There’s a desperate edge to his voice now. “Those words…I don’t…” His brows crease, which isn’t a great sign, but I think I prefer confusion to fear. “Love’s not an emotion I can identify with.”

I blink down at him.

Out of anyone else’s mouth, it’d be a laughable excuse, but this is Adrian, and Adrian skims the surface of some emotions, and dives into the deep end of others.

Perhaps it was stupid to think this one might be the latter.

“Desire, I understand. But love…” He shakes his head.

My voice’s pleading as I ask, “You said you’d never truly desired anything before me. Can’t love work the same way? Can’t I help you understand it?”

“I’m not sure I’m capable of it.”

I flinch.

“But what I feel for you, sweetheart –” His pitch eyes zero in on me, the light of the flames reflected in them. “It’s more. It’s not some vague, fleeting emotion. You’ve consumed me. You’ve crawled into my brain and infected every inch of it. You’ve turned me into a man obsessed. What I have for you…” He pauses. Searching for the right word. “It’s not love, it’s limerence.” His grip on my waist tightens. “It’s not patient. It’s not always kind. It’s not selfless. It’s as dark and twisted as I am.”

And it’s not love.

“Do you understand?” From the chair, he gazes up at me. Pleading. Imploring. “Tell me you understand, sweetheart.”

A quiet, almost comforting numbness circulates through me, soothing the wounds of rejection.

My eyes meet his. “I understand.”

And I do – I understand.

For the first time, I understand where Adrian and I stand more than he does.

Limerence.

But not love.