You, with a View by Jessica Joyce

Author:Jessica Joyce [Joyce, Jessica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2023-07-11T00:00:00+00:00

“Were you in LA when she sent this letter?” I ask Paul, turning in my seat. Theo plucks the letter from my hands and continues reading.

Paul nods. “Yes, she had a girlfriend in Glenlake send it to me so her parents wouldn’t know we were talking.”

“You must’ve been so upset.”

“For her,” he says. “I knew she must’ve been a mess. I hated to read that last line in her letter, pleading with me not to give up on her. She was the one with everything to lose if she didn’t give up on me.”

It’s true. She had so much to lose if she chose him—her education, her relationship with her family, her access to Paul if they didn’t allow her back at UCLA. I sense the corner she felt backed into to tell this lie, how sick she must have been, torn between her family and the man she loved.

I think about the hope she had before that dinner, the mixture of want and fear, and my throat crowds with emotion. I know that feeling, too—the plans you make, the dreams you weave in your head, only to have them break apart under the slightest pressure. It could be a terrible dinner, a family who doesn’t approve. A mentor who makes you question yourself for years.

It could be a man who lets you lean on him, but won’t lean in return.

Plans can be made and then just as easily broken. Hope can be created and fizzle away.

I wish Gram knew how brave I think she was for trying, even in the face of almost guaranteed failure.

And god, I wish she’d tell me how to do the same.

Next to me, Theo is silent, sensing my mood shift. He leans into me, just a bit, like he heard my thoughts. It’s such a small movement, would be nearly imperceptible if I wasn’t so hungry for it. But I am, so I feel it as if he wrapped his arms around me, and though I know I should, I don’t push him away.

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