Page 56 of Us in Ruins
Van’s eyebrows lowered. “Ivy caps are not silly.”
Which was code for he totally had.
He took another swig. “I didn’t have anyone or anything. I was a ghost, practically invisible. No one knew me. No one would miss me. All I wanted was to be seen.”
“Is that how you met Atlas?” Margot asked.
A small laugh lifted Van’s lips. “In a way. I stole his compass. He wanted it back. We made a deal—I’d help him on his excavation, and he’d keep a roof over my head.”
“And you kept the compass.”
“Collateral,” Van said, eyes bright.
Margot thought of the grayscale image tucked between the pages of his journal, where his arm looped around Atlas’s shoulders and his smile cut through the photo like a knife. “What happened? Between you and Atlas?”
He tensed at the question. A caged look flattened his features.
Margot shifted toward him, a compass toward the north star. “You don’t have to tell me. But you don’t have to hide either.”
Van cleared his throat. “Different ideas of loyalty.”
“He betrayed you?” Margot asked. She sipped again from the wine, letting it make her brave. (Vaguely, she wondered if drinking from the same bottle counted as kissing someone. Not that she was thinking about kissing Van. Not at all.)
Van absently touched the crook in his nose where it had clearly been broken, and she wondered how many times Van thought with his fists. Maybe Atlas did, too. Had they fought like brothers or like enemies?
“It’s why I don’t do partners anymore.”
“What am I, chopped liver?” Margot asked, featherlight.
A reluctant grin flashed across his face. “Fair enough, kid. What about you?”
“Oh, I’d look incredibly cute in a newsboy hat.”
There was that look again. It was like Van was excavating her—digging into the deepest parts of her, the ones she didn’t even want to see.
“You know that’s not what I meant. You read my journal, so you already know everything there is to know about me,” he said. He leaned closer, closer, closer. Close enough that Margot’s nervous system was going to need a hard reboot. Close enough to kiss her. Instead, he plucked the bottle out of her hand. “Maybe I want to know you.”
A hopeful thing fluttered in her belly. To be known. But the words settled heavy in her chest, refusing to come out. What was worse: not being understood, or being understood and still not being enough?
“You’re different than your writings made you seem,” she said.
“You’re deflecting.”
So, Margot took a deep breath and prayed for courage. “All my life, I’ve been defined by things I quit—I quit ballet, I quit tae kwon do, I quit playing guitar. I stopped painting and got bored with field hockey. I got kicked out of etiquette classes—”
Van scoffed and downed another drink. “What’d you do? Forget to tuck your napkin into your shirt? Use the salad fork as the dinner fork?”
Margot winced at the memory. “Worse, I started a food fight in the middle of our afternoon tea because one of the girls called me a problem child. So, I decided to show her one.”
Van barked out a laugh.
“Shut up,” Margot said, but she couldn’t stop her spill of laughter. “Whatever. The point is that I can’t quit this. I—”
Van’s fingers found hers resting on the tile roof and squeezed. Patient and prompting. A soft touch that she realized was probably difficult for him.
“My mom left when I was twelve. Decided she didn’t want to be with my dad anymore, didn’t want to be with me anymore, and definitely didn’t want to be in Dogwood Hollow, Georgia, anymore.” Predictable tears rimmed her eyes. “Without her, I didn’t know who I was supposed to be.”
She’d tried everything. She tried to fit into a box—any box she could find. Summer theater, history club, math club. She’d given them her everything... until her everything inevitably wasn’t good enough. Quitting was easier than admitting she was worthless at something. Being wrong.