Page 57 of First Impressions of You

“Do you want something to drink?” I offer, trying to dissipate the tense energy that has me crawling out of my skin.

“I’m good,” he says, but the huskiness in his voice says otherwise.

I nod to the couch, and we both make our way there, sitting on opposite ends.

“I need to apologize,” he starts. His body is bent over, his elbows resting on his knees, as his eyes turns to me. “I want to apologize,” he corrects himself.

I wait in silence for him to keep going.

“For what I did to Julia and Cameron.” His legs bounce up and down, and I feel a sudden urge to rest my hand on his knee to calm him. But I don’t. I stay right where I am and wait for him to continue. “I’m sorry. I should’ve never said anything to Cam. I shouldn’t even have thought that Julia was capable of something like that. You were right. Olivia made a comment, and I jumped to conclusions. Wrong ones. I’m sorry.”

He rakes a hand through his hair, and I follow the movement. When his gaze meets mine, there a shadow of pain behind his determination.

“I had something similar happen to me once,” he says looking down on the carpeted floor. “I had someone be with me only because of my status. My fame. She threatened to go to the press. She said she would ruin my life.” He takes a deep breath. “And she could’ve. She could’ve done it. When your sister said you were all looking for husbands, I…”

“Olivia was joking,” I tell him.

“I know. I know that now. I just couldn’t think straight. At that moment, all I could see was that girl and what she did to me. And I couldn’t let that happen to Cam too. Not when he’s just getting his career started. I just wanted to protect him.”

“You broke my sister’s heart in doing so.”

“I’m sorry. I… I didn’t think her feelings were that strong. I didn’t think she’d be hurt.”

The thing is, I believe him. I believe he didn’t think of the consequences of his actions beyond how they’d affect him and the people he loves, but that just proves to me that he can’t think of anyone but himself.

“It’s not me you should be apologizing to,” I say.

“I know,” he repeats. “I’ll talk to Julia and Cam. I’ll tell them I made a mistake. I’ll take the full blame. I just needed to talk to you first.”

“Why?”

“Because you matter the most,” he says simply as if his words aren’t arrows shooting straight to my heart.

“What about Graham?” I ask, watching him carefully. I can understand him doing something out of love and worry for his friend. But what he did to Graham is not excusable, and I won’t believe he truly regrets his actions if he won’t take responsibility for betraying his friend as well.

“What did he tell you?” he volleys back, dodging my question.

“Everything.” I turn my body to fully face him, my left leg resting on the cushion, crossed under my right knee. “About your friendship. And your father. How lost you were following his funeral. How he helped you through it. How he helped you with the script for your class. And how you sold the movie about your friendship without crediting him.” He listens to me without interrupting, his eyes hardening the more I say.

He remains in silence, gathering his thoughts.

“How could you do that?” I ask.

“Graham has…” Winter takes a breath and clears his throat. “Will you let me tell you the story? The real story?”

I search his face for any sign of deception, but his eyes are giving me nothing but the truth. I nod, encouraging him to tell me his version of the story.

“I met Graham in our freshman year. We had geology together, and neither one of us wanted to be there. It was an eight a.m. lab, and we hated it. Nothing like hatred for a class to bond two college freshmen together. We became friends quickly. I was trying to fly under the radar. I asked all my professors to call me Brian—that’s my middle name—but it didn’t take long for people to realize who I was. The one thing I wanted for my college experience is for it to be normal. I’d been out of the public eye long enough to be able to pull this off, but as soon as word got around, everyone wanted to meet Winter Davis. I only found out much later that Graham was the one to told everybody about me.”

A memory pops into my head. Winter asking me not to call his full name in public when we’re right outside the theater. At that time, I thought he was just being annoying, but now I wonder if he was just trying to do the same thing he wanted to do in college. To fly under the radar. To go unnoticed in a crowded place.

“He didn’t lie about my father. My father did die our sophomore year, and Graham was by my side the whole time. But when we returned, I wasn’t the mess he told you I was. He was the one who dragged me through the gutter. He kept saying I needed to get out. I needed to party in order to move on. As if a bottle of beer was the recipe for getting over grief. It got to the point we were missing more classes than we were attending. And I had a girlfriend back then.”

“The one…”

He nods, confirming. “That’s the one. The one who threatened me. She started saying that I wasn’t the guy she fell in love with anymore. And she was right. I wasn’t. I’d become a mess. But that was not what she meant. She was mad that I wasn’t giving her the clout she was chasing. That being my girlfriend didn’t give her status any longer. She threatened to go the press. She had pictures. Videos.” He brings his hands up as if reading the next words from in the air. “‘Former child star gets drunk and flunks out of college.’” He eyes me to make sure I’m following. I give him a quick nod. “That’s front-page material right there. It was a wakeup call for me. I sobered up. Went back to focusing on school. Graham was barely getting by, but I carried him through his classes. We made it to our junior year, but only by a thread. I knew we couldn’t go on like that.

“I was a film major. He was studying screenwriting. I decided to take a writing class with him to help him get on track. We never wrote that script together. I wrote it by myself. It wasn’t centered on our friendship as he made you believe. It was the story of my relationship with my father. It was about a boy who resented his father for all he put him through. For carrying the weight of supporting an entire family from the age of seven. For not having a childhood like all other kids. Graham didn’t add a single comma to that script. My mistake was showing it to him. I let him read it after I’d turned it in, and then he stole it.”

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