Page 134 of When We Were Reckless
* * *
Priya groaned and gripped the railing as we faced another set of stairs. “Give me strength.” She held the back of her arm over her forehead in a dramatic display. Priya was a theater major, and drama was her middle name. A natural. Her mom used to be a Bollywood dancer, and her dad worked for Universal Studios. “Someone needs to carry me.”
I laughed.
We lived on the Hill, where all the on-campus housing was, and therewerea lot of stairs. “Come on. You can do it. Just think of the amazing things it will do for our calf muscles.”
“You sound like my mother. ‘Priya, you won’t get anywhere in life by being a couch potato.’” She mimicked her mom’s accent, pretty and singsong. “And here I was worried about the freshman fifteen,” she said as we trudged up the stairs. “We lose a bucket of sweat and three pounds a day on these stairs.”
Priya was a few inches taller than me and rail-thin. If she lost three pounds a day, she’d float away. By the time we reached the top, we had to stop for a moment to catch our breath.
“I wonder what he left outside your door today,” Priya said, sounding just as excited as I was.
I didn’t want to admit that I’d been racing home from class every day this week just to see what he’d left me.
We still hadn’t figured out how he’d been getting inside the dorm to leave me little gifts. Priya thought he paid someone. Addison had questioned nearly everyone on our floor. But nobody knew anything about it.
“Maybe it’s like the twelve days of Christmas,” Priya said as we followed the sunlit tree-lined paths to our dorm. “What day is it today? The fifth, right?”
I nodded, and she started singing the Twelve Days of Christmas. Loudly enough to turn heads. “Oh my God. Today is the five gold rings.”
On the first day, Jesse left the daisy chains and the story he wrote.
On the second day, he left a pair of Nikes. Not just any Nikes, either. They were custom Nikes with multi-colored Murakami flowers. Happy flowers with smiling faces. I hadn’t taken them off since I’d found them outside my door.
On the third day, he left pink-frosted sugar cookies and a can of pink lemonade mix.
And yesterday, the fourth day, he left me a bracelet similar to the one he’d given me when I was twelve. This one, though, the gold bracelet I was wearing on my right wrist, said: The Sun and the Moon.
My pulse raced as we stepped off the elevator and walked down the hallway. When our door came into view, my shoulders sagged in disappointment. Even from the other end of the hallway, I could see he hadn’t left anything.
“Maybe Addie put it inside the room. She only had morning classes today, right?” Priya suggested.
“Maybe. Or maybe he’s waiting for me to call him.”
“I say, make him sweat.”
That had been the consensus. I’d spoken to Evie last night, and she said it was a good start but not good enough. “We’re talking some major grovel here, Quinn. Don’t cave too easily. And besides, it’s not like he’s proclaimed his undying love or anything.”
Which was true. He hadn’t. Maybe the gifts were just another way to tell me how sorry he was.About everything.
“Oh my God.” Priya checked her phone and stopped in her tracks. The look on her face made me think she’d gotten bad news.
“Is everything okay?”
“Oh yeah. Everything is great. But I totally forgot that I’m supposed to meet my friend at the… we have a thing. I have to run. Bye,” she called over her shoulder as she hurried away.
Okay. Not sure what that was all about.
I let myself into our room and froze on the threshold, my heart thrashing as he turned from the window with a smile.
“Hey, Sunshine Girl.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Jesse
I foundQuinn’s jar of wishes. It was after one of our yoga sessions, a couple of days before I found out about Gina. Quinn was in the shower, and we were going to grab some food afterward. We were alone, but it hadn’t felt right to take a shower with her in her mother’s house, so I was hanging out in her room waiting for her.
