One & Only (Canton) (4 page)

I didn’t argue with him. Why ruin what time we had left? Before I flew home, he told me when he’d be at Canton. He promised to call. I kissed him in response, because I couldn’t bear to say that I couldn’t promise him anything like that.

***

Dylan did call. He called six times, texted three, and emailed once, concerned that something might have happened to me. I never replied to any of them. I did see when he unfriended me on Facebook, and I convinced myself it was better this way.

I went to school three hours away, became that botany professor’s research assistant, and only came home for major holidays and my mother’s birthday.

I didn’t see Dylan again for two years.

FOUR

Two years later

“Of course I’m happy for you, honey,” my mother said when I told her the news of my scholarship. “You always wanted to go to Canton. I just don’t know what your father is going to say.”

“There’s not much he can say about it,” I replied airily.

Twenty-year-old me knew a lot of things seventeen-year-old me—and my mother—never had. Like how to get scholarships and interest-free student loans and line up research assistant positions that would defray the cost of textbooks. For two years, I’d given State my best shot, but their program didn’t have what I wanted. Canton’s did. Landing the transfer and the academic scholarship required to pay for it had meant everything. Even my old boss, Professor Stewart, had approved of my move.

“Everything is going to be paid for, so we don’t have to ask Dad for anything. And I’m going to pick up a few shifts at Verde downtown—you know, that restaurant where Sylvia works? So I can even help you with the rent and food—”

“You don’t have to help me,” my mom began. “I got a new commission last month.”

Well, I would if Dad decided to take my transfer to Canton out on Mom because she couldn’t keep their most dangerous secret three hours outside of town. If it were possible to hide my transfer from Dad, I would, but I knew that wasn’t Mom’s style. I just hoped that he wouldn’t punish her for my choice.

Like I said, two years—especially two years away—had given me all kinds of insights. But there was no point in stressing my mother out about that. And that was why I presented the whole thing as a
fait accompli
. I was already registered at Canton for the fall semester. I’d given up my apartment at State, sold my crummy thrift-store furniture, and packed every single one of my belongings in the back of my junky old car to move home, Canton course schedule clutched in my hand like some sort of talisman. Whatever arbitrary reasoning my father had convinced Mom of several years ago, she wouldn’t risk my academic career. My attending Canton wouldn’t pose the slightest danger to the maintenance of our little family secret. They would soon see that I was right.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

***

On the last night before classes started, there was a reception at the bioengineering department. Though I wasn’t really much for receptions, I figured it was a good idea to go and try to meet as many faculty and fellow students as possible before the year started. The only professors I’d had a chance to talk with so far had been the head of the department who’d interviewed me during my transfer application and two others he’d had sit in at the time. As I knew after my experiences with Professors White and Stewart, a lot of opportunities came from connections. I was a transfer student, which meant I was that much more of an unknown, even if I did come with stellar recommendations from my old teachers and a scholarship specifically due to my academic achievements. I wanted to make sure everyone in the department knew they’d made the right choice.

I dressed with more care than usual for the reception, eschewing the usual jeans and T-shirt look for one of my mother’s sheath dresses. My mom was only just forty, and she and I wore the same size. I had her curvy bombshell figure, though I was a few inches taller. The dress was pretty but conservative—a tailored, dove-gray sheath with a boat neck and pin tucks, and it fell to my knees. I paired it with stockings and a set of low, black slingbacks. As I stood before the bathroom mirror, pulling my hair up into a twist, my mother peeked in and smiled.

“That color’s nice on you,” she said. “Makes your eyes look almost like slate.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled. I knew what was coming.

“You have your father’s eyes.”

Yes, I did. My father’s mercurial, impossible-to-pin-down eyes. Every time I looked in a mirror, there he was, staring back at me, reminding me who I was and the rules guiding my life. My ex-boyfriend Jason had once written a rather awful poem about all the colors of my eyes. And he wondered why we didn’t last.

I applied some eyeliner and a touch of mascara. Cristina had taught me the technique—Cristina, who was still kicking ass at Cornell and had responded to my announcement about my transfer to Canton with the following text:

OMG HAVE YOU TOLD DYLAN?!?!?

Which, of course, I had not. I was not in touch with Dylan Kingsley, I had steadfastly resisted looking him up on Facebook, and I wasn’t about to indulge in my friend’s love of drama.

That being said, I’d definitely made sure to map out routes around campus that would bypass the environmental science department completely. I didn’t fear seeing Dylan—after all, it had been two years—but I wasn’t going to seek him out, either.

After all, it had been two years.

A touch of pink lip gloss, and I was done. The last time I’d dressed up this much was at my interview. Maybe I was giving the wrong impression after all. Most days, I had on a lab coat and a ponytail. At the same time, this was Canton. I hated to admit it, but I really wanted to impress them.

I climbed into my beat-up old hatchback and drove over to the campus. I’d brought my shiny new student parking pass and hung it from my dented rearview mirror as I entered the lot behind the bioengineering lab. Where State had been large and impersonal, its original central campus overspilling into masses of utilitarian outbuildings that would never show up in a college catalog, Canton University was filled with gorgeous architecture. From the picturesque brick quad where all the old buildings were located—including the one with my dad’s name on it—to the soaring glass walls and atrium that marked the famous bioengineering building, every location on campus dripped with the power and prestige of the Canton name. Coming here had always been my dream. I could only strive to live up to it.

When I entered the reception, which was being held in the central lobby atrium, I felt an unexpected wave of panic. I didn’t know a soul in the room. Some of the attendees had dressed up, others seemed to have come rolling in from the quad or even just sneaked away for a minute from their labs, as a few still wore their lab coats and were clearly grabbing dinner as they filled their plates with towering piles of shrimp from the buffet. I took a deep breath and decided I needed to find something to do with my hands.

In line at the bar, I found Dr. Cavel, who’d been at my transfer interview.

“Tess!” she said brightly. “I’m glad you came.” She tapped the shoulder of the elderly man in front of her. “John, this is Teresa McMann, who just transferred from State. She’ll probably be taking your Biophotonics course next term.”

“I hope to,” I said out of habit. It had been nearly impossible to find space in the courses I’d needed at State. “You must be Professor Chen.”

We chatted for a bit about my move and my past research.

“Algae, huh?” Dr. Chen said when Dr. Cavel, who’d apparently memorized my CV, brought up my old Siemens project. “What is it with the kids and algae these days?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Don’t mind him,” Dr. Cavel said with a shrug. “He’s biomed. We need more non-health folks around here or people will start to think we’re just a feeding program for Canton Chem.” She cast her eyes about the room. “There’s another student here who is interested in biofuel applications. I’ll remember to introduce you if he shows up.”

Armed with a sparkling water, I let Dr. Cavel introduce me to a few more faculty members and fellow students. I got asked the same questions and listened to their stories of summer projects and travels. They seemed nice enough, but naturally, they all knew each other better than I knew anyone. After a while, names and faces started to blur and I excused myself to find the buffet.

Perhaps it was fate that I was once more picking through a cheese tray when I heard his voice.

“Tess? Tess McMann?”

I looked up to find Dylan Kingsley standing across the table from me. The glasses were gone, the hair was tamed, and whatever baby fat might have lingered on his eighteen-year-old features had disappeared entirely, leaving behind perfectly planed cheekbones and a sharp jawline. The slim teenage body I’d never quite managed to forget had matured too, and he nicely filled out the expensive-looking gray sportscoat he wore over a close-cut Oxford open at his neck. Though I couldn’t see, I was pretty sure his pants were just the right length.

I found my tongue. “Dylan. Hi.”

He blinked at me. “Did you transfer to Canton?”

I nodded. Algae. Biofuel. I should have guessed that the other student those two professors had been talking about was the one I’d once slept with. This wasn’t State, with its tens of thousands of science majors. “Are you a bioengineering major now?”

“With a focus on sustainable resources,” he said. He stared at me for a second, but his expression was neutral. “It’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you, too.” I sounded like a parrot.

After a moment, he said, “You know, you never called me.” There was no malice in his voice and only the tiniest hint of scolding. He might have been talking about a string hanging off my sleeve.

I swallowed. I had no excuse, or at least, none that I was willing to share with a guy I hadn’t seen since my teens. “I know. I’m sorry, I—”

“That hurt.” He certainly hadn’t lost any of his frankness. “For a week or two.”

A week or two?
I narrowly resisted my impulse to gape. “Well,” I said, doing my best to smile. “I’m glad you got over it quickly.” I had kept his messages on my voicemail for months. Just because I hadn’t called him back didn’t mean I hadn’t
wanted
to. Even without seeing him, Dylan had taken up too much space in my head. A relationship with him would have been too dangerous. “How did you manage?” I asked lightly and popped a cube of cheese in my mouth.

“I slept with a lot of girls,” he replied.

I choked. I could not believe we were having this conversation over cheese.

He handed me a napkin. “Okay there?”

I snatched the napkin and glared at him as I attempted to get my coughing fit under control. Okay, I deserved that. I could admit it. Dylan was smirking at me, but his eyes held amusement, not anger.

Two could play that game. “Oh, I did the same.
Lots
of girls.” In truth, there had been zero girls and only two guys.

He raised his eyebrows and his grin grew wide. No blush though. The teenage blush was gone, completely masked by a nice summer tan. “Really?
That
I’d like to hear about.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “Sure you would.”

Dylan was who he’d always been: friendly and funny, gentle and genuine. I had little doubt he had been mad at me, but doubted even less that he’d held on to that anger. Long before we’d been lovers, we’d been friends.

“It’s good to see you, Tess,” he said after a moment, his tone more serious. “Welcome to Canton.”

And just like that, I knew we would be friends again.

***

It would be lying to say that I had anything else on my mind but Dylan that night. In between reading for my first classes, I scrolled back two years on my email to our old exchanges. I read them all, from his first email inviting me to work with him, through every note and message and quick reminder that came in between, to his final email—the only one out of all of them I’d never replied to:

Tess,

I’m worried something has happened to you. I don’t know why you won’t answer me or call me back. I wish you would, if only to say goodbye.

Love,

Dylan

Love
, he’d written.
Love
. At the time, I’d told myself that was silly. It had only been one day. But it hadn’t. All these emails, read in a row. It hadn’t been a day. It had been weeks of seeing him every day, working with him night after night, studying and researching and laughing and joking. That one afternoon in his bed had led from the runway of our entire acquaintance. He’d told me so at the time.

Not that it made the slightest bit of difference. I didn’t regret any of the choices I’d made except one—that I hadn’t been clear to him that we didn’t have a relationship. I might have saved him the hurt evident in his last email. But as he’d said at the reception, the pain didn’t last long. He’d slept with other girls.

Lots
of girls, he’d said. Lots.

I was glad I’d gotten him on a roll, then. And if I didn’t quite have the same scoresheet, well, I’d had other things on my mind. School, work, transferring to Canton and figuring out how to afford it. There’d been Jason, who I supposed was my first real boyfriend. I liked him because he hadn’t complained about seeing me only once or twice a week. After about three months of that, though, he’d said he didn’t “see where this was going,” and I really couldn’t blame him. There had also been Sean, whom I’d met at a friend’s party one night and taken home. It was…uneventful, to say the least. I wasn’t sure how to tell the guy that the virgin I’d lost my own virginity to had made me come more.

After that, the whole enterprise seemed to be more trouble than it was worth. I’d even wondered if that thing with Dylan was sort of a fluke—exciting because it was new and naughty and forbidden by the rules of the summer camp. Maybe it was genetic that I only liked sex if it was somehow wrong. After all, that was how I’d been conceived.