Bind You Mine by Poppy Dale

Author:Poppy Dale [Dale, Poppy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-08-04T21:00:00+00:00

For two days after they take Malcolm home, Jo is weird with her. Anna is initially so flush with excitement over having people to spend the holidays with that she doesn’t notice, but on Wednesday she notices how Jo isn’t acting at all like they went on a date.

It’s like nothing happened and part of Anna wants to let it be. Clearly Jo isn’t interested in her. Clearly it was a mistake somehow and now Christmas is going to be super awkward. Whenever she sees Jo walking across the office, her stomach lurches in the worst way and her cheeks overheat horribly.

School is what it feels like. School and college all over again, and when Anna remembers this, the sense of it prickling under her skin, of liking someone and them turning away to smile at somebody else, she thinks of Seth.

Seth turned away, but only in increments, and only in company.

Understandably.

This is not like Seth, more like school after all. Like friendship. It feels like the girls on the other side of the playground, and then the hallway; the ones who sometimes seemed so close but then, when Anna blinked, would be so far. So many of them had crossed an invisible boundary and left her behind. Or perhaps it was the opposite and Anna was the one doing the crossing.

And Anna really does intend to leave it as it is; she’s quite sure she’s learned her lesson over the years. The burning and the shame will go away, the urge to cry when she sees the top of Jo’s head moving across the office. Anna is going to let Jo go, except she happens to bump into her at lunch on Wednesday, both standing at the sink. Anna catches sight of her reflection in the window and remembers her bright blonde hair. It’s the hair of someone who is brave, who says the brave thing even if it’s not the right thing.

Jo steps back. “Sorry, I—”

“I’m not always perfect at reading people,” Anna interrupts, because if she doesn’t say it, or at least begin to say it, she never will. “But have I made you mad?”

“Shit.” Jo’s eyes flutter shut for a moment and she holds her tin water bottle tight, tight. “Listen, no, look. You haven’t.”

“Then why are you avoiding me?” It’s so much more direct than Anna has trained herself to be, but she has to know. She has to know and then they can move on, and the dress she has chosen already for the Christmas party is either foolish or it isn’t, but this moment decides that, too.

Jo blinks. “You don’t take any prisoners, do you?”

“What?”

“Can I… Conference room’s free, can you pop in for a sec?”

Anna crosses her arms. “Okay.”

The conference room is made of glass, so Anna doesn’t really get how it’s any more private, but she supposes that if she bursts into tears or something, Jo can beckon someone over to deal with her. It’s the same reason she broke up with Seth in a cafe.

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