Page 60 of Learning Curve

“We can be friends,” I say. Though, even to my own ears, it sounds against my will.

“Convincing,” she says teasingly, bumping her shoulder into my own so many times, the tension in it finally leaves.

I crack a small smile. “You’re right. We can be friends.”

“Well, thank fuck for that. I was starting to think I was going to have to do this project with two people who hate me.”

“I could never hate you.” It’s simple. It’s fact. Scottie, for me, is the kind of person who lights up your soul. She’s happiness and wholesomeness and the sort of girl you cherish. I just don’t live the life of a guy who can give any of those things.

Nadine sits down before Scottie can reply, annoyed immediately. “I don’t understand why we have to sit together just because we’re working together.”

“Probably so we can work together,” I remark, saving Scottie the trouble of dealing with her.

“Then he at least should have let us pick our groups,” Nadine whines, looking back at Dane. He’s been paired with two other girls, and from the looks of things, he’s absolutely eating up the attention.

“All right, guys!” Professor Winslow calls from the front, making the rest of the chatter stop and effectively saving Scottie and me from having to say anything back to our apparent hostage. “I can see that you’ve all taken seats with your groups like I told you to last class, which I appreciate. I’ve done this for a reason, but before I get started, I want to bring out a couple volunteers I’ve wrangled into helping me out today.”

The classroom door opens, and my whole chest locks in on itself. Remington and Flynn Winslow—two of my other brothers—are dressed in jeans and blazers and sporting smiles despite the incredibly ridiculous fact that they’re spending their morning at a freshman literature class.

I recognize them immediately and with ease after all the research I’ve done on all of them, but even if I didn’t, the family resemblance is striking. In every feature of their faces, I see a little bit of my father.

I see Scottie watching me out of the corner of my eye, but I can’t seem to steady my breathing. She reaches over and squeezes my hand.

My fingers tingle as she applies pressure, and I stare at the front of the room.

“My big brothers have agreed to be my partners for today, good sports that they are, even though I’m pretty sure neither of them has ever read The Winter’s Tale before…or read anything, for that matter.”

Remington and Flynn both laugh, and my whole body shakes with the need to get the hell out of here. Seeing three of my brothers here, in the flesh, with the irony of my dad’s sick sense of fun names said out loud for all to hear, I want to crawl out of my skin. My dad probably thought it was poetic, starting all our names with the same letters as the kids we didn’t know about, but it’s not cute when the situation is as fucked up as this—it’s bullshit.

Scottie squeezes harder, and I do the only thing I can do without making an obvious scene; I squeeze her hand back.

If I can make it through this fucking class, I can finally free myself from the powder keg of this secret. It’s only one page of my dad’s journal, but I know it’ll be enough. The passage I’ve chosen is unmistakable.

“King Leontes has no trust for anyone in his life. His wife, his best friend, even his newborn by proxy—because of that, today, we’ll be exploring the idea of the opposite with our group members.”

Remington chuffs. “Pfft. Who wouldn’t trust a baby?”

Ty laughs. “See. I told you he hadn’t read it.”

Flynn smiles at the floor, and I have to work to keep myself from grinding my teeth down to nubs. I hate that I feel this way, but I can’t help it. Everything my siblings and I’ve been through has been for nothing. We could have been like this.

Scottie smiles at the brothers, but I don’t miss how closely she’s watching me too. I never wanted to put her in the position, but I can’t seem to help it.

I’m unbearably jealous of the life I didn’t get.

Scottie

Finn’s skin is an ashen pallor the likes of which I’ve never seen before. He looks sick and distraught and like every bone in his body is being broken, one by one. Ten times worse than he did fighting an ex-UFC fighter in a dark, dingy basement.

He stares intently at Professor Winslow and his brothers, his jaw grinding with every word they speak at the end of class. He squeezed my hand so hard I had to hold my breath as they explained the trust assignment—meant to be the antithesis of King Leontes’s treatment of his wife Hermione in The Winter’s Tale—and never stopped glaring through the entirety of their trust falls. When we finally got up to do our own with Nadine, she said she could only be the one falling, not catching, because of her bum arm.

Finn finally broke character when I nudged him and laughed, but now, he’s back to mean mugging.

“All right, guys. I’ll see you Thursday. Don’t forget to focus on the theme of trust in relationships as you’re working on The Winter’s Tale project for the next couple of days. We’ll be moving on to something else when we come back.”

“We won’t be here,” Remington, Professor Winslow’s older, incredibly handsome brother, says, making Ty and Flynn laugh.

“Class dismissed!”

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