Just a Little Too Late

I had three rules for surviving the day Danny Blancham came home. Don't think about his voice. Don't picture his face. And whatever happens, don't drop anything. I'd kept the first two rules for almost a year. I lasted four hours on the third.

The estate had been awake since before dawn, and everyone picked up the pace when a Blancham came home; florists, chefs, housekeepers nobody wanted to mess up. I fell in step with them, tray in hand, eyes down, doing the thing I'm best at. Disappearing into the work.

"You're packing like you're leaving forever," Mom had said that morning, watching me seal boxes for the dorm. I laughed it off, said something about avoiding laundry, but the joke left my mouth before the smile caught up to it. She saw right through it; she always does. She let me have it anyway.

Then, quieter, like she was handing me something fragile: "You don't have to speak to him, Myra."

I grabbed another box so I wouldn't have to look at her face when I answered. "We live on the same estate, Mom. That's not really how it works."

She tucked my hair behind my ear the way she used to when I was small and scared of thunderstorms. "You know what I mean."

I did know. Knowing something and actually being able to do it are two completely different muscles, and mine had been weak for almost a year.

"If he tries to talk to me," I said, "he's going to learn I'm not his secret anymore. Not even a little."

I almost believed myself when I said it.

I sealed the last box and carried it to the door myself, even though it was heavier than it looked. Mom watched me struggle with it for three full seconds before she stepped aside and let me.

By midday I was buried in the ballroom, counting plates so my brain had somewhere safe to go.

"Sixty covers, and Mrs. Okafor wants the silver re-polished by three." Della dropped a stack of napkins beside me, already sweating through her collar. "You'd think the Pope was arriving, not just him."

"Don't let Victoria hear you say that."

"Victoria's been like this since dawn. She’d sent the florist back twice already." Della leaned in, lowering her voice the way people do when they're about to enjoy themselves. "You hear he's bringing someone? Some Ashford girl. Family's been circling for months, apparently."

I kept my eyes on the fork I was straightening. "Good for him."

"Mm." She gave me a look I didn't love. "Didn't you two used to run wild out by the oak tree? Years back?"

"We were kids."

"Sure." She clearly didn't believe that, and honestly, neither did I.

She drifted off toward the kitchen before I had to come up with anything better. I stared at the fork a second too long, at my own warped reflection in the silver, and made myself stop thinking about a boy with paint under his fingernails who once told me he'd build his first house just so I could design it. God, I'd actually believed him. That's the part that still makes my face hot.

"Careful." Victoria materialized beside me the way she always did, like the air just rearranged itself around her. I spun fast, already scanning for what I'd messed up. "The settings are perfectly aligned," she said, reading the apology forming on my face before I could say it. "You apologize before anyone's even accused you of anything."

I didn't have a comeback, because it was true, and she knew it was true, and that's exactly the kind of thing Victoria says to remind you she's three steps ahead.

"Your tuition's been settled for the term," she added, like she was mentioning the weather. "I expect you to make something of it."

"I'm grateful," I said, and meant it, even though gratitude toward her always tasted like a debt I hadn't agreed to.

She was gone before I finished the sentence.

A junior footman jogged past us toward the front steps, nearly knocking over a vase. "Gates just buzzed him through," he called to no one in particular. "Five minutes, maybe less."

Della reappeared at my elbow like she'd been summoned. "You good?"

"I'm fine."

"You're holding that tray like it owes you money."

I loosened my grip and said nothing. She didn't push. That's the nice thing about Della: she gossips like it's a sport, but she knows exactly when to stop.

Outside, the gates groaned open. A black car came up the drive slow, unbothered, like it already knew the whole estate was holding its breath for it.

"He's here."

The room fell silent in an instant, which is pretty unnerving given how many people were in there. I focused on the tray in front of me, trying to avoid glancing at the door.

You don't need to look. You've already buried that chapter of your life. Leave it there. Against every promise I had made to myself, I looked up. He seemed older now, almost more confident, like he was finally stepping into the future everyone had envisioned for him as the future head of the Blancham empire. But then I noticed his eyes; they were just as they always had been, unchanged and familiar.

As they made their way through the staff, being all polite and professional, they finally reached me. The moment they found mine, something in his face just stopped… it was like he just stopped putting on the mask.

I felt my fingers go numb before I even realized what was happening. The tray just slipped right out of my hands, and I heard the sickening sound of crystal smashing against the marble floor, echoing through the hall.

Every head turned at once. Somewhere behind me I heard Della whisper, "Oh, honey."

Danny didn't walk toward his waiting family. He walked toward me.

"Myra." Just my name, quiet, but it hit harder than a year of silence ever managed to. Because in that one word, I understood the thing I'd spent eleven months refusing to let myself think.

I had braced myself to see him again.

I had never once braced myself for the possibility that he still loved me.