Caught Up In Him (3 page)

Words didn’t come.

The silence choked me. It was as if
hands were on my neck, gripping me.

How could I have misread him so
badly? He’d said he was falling for me. Where else do you fall but
in love?

Then he spoke, and his words were
sharp glass. “I have to go.”

Breaking the clasp in a single,
fierce pull, I ripped off the necklace, then tossed it into the
trash, stuffing it at the bottom of the can.

That was the last time I spoke to
him.

Even now, five years later, those
words rang through me. I could hear them, the pause before he
spoke, the shape of each and every syllable. I have to
go.

That’s exactly what he did. He
left.

A preview of the first chapter of the
full-length novel CAUGHT UP IN US (Releasing late January
2013
)

He was my first favorite
mistake.

I hadn’t seen him in five years, and
now as he walked to the front of the small classroom, every muscle
in my body tensed, and my brain went into hyperdrive as I told
myself not to think of lights going down in movie theaters or of
hot summer nights miles away from here tangled up in
him.

Be strong. Be cool. Be
badass.

I ran my index finger across the
silver charm I made when I left for college, as if the miniature
movie camera could channel steely resolve into me, as it had these
last few years. Even though I’d absolutely moved on. That’s why it
hadn’t even occurred to me that he might be here today, even
though, technically, I suppose I should have known it was a
possibility since he graduated from this same business school. We
even walked around this campus together the last time I saw him, as
we made plans with each other, as we made promises to each
other.

Until he broke my heart and became a
charm on my necklace instead — the very first one, and the
inspiration for my jewelry — a cold, metal reminder that mistakes
can make us better.

But I was safely on the other side
now. I was over Bryan, over the anger, over the whole thing. I was
totally fine, thank you very much. Except, as he neared the
whiteboard with the name of the class, Experiential Learning,
scrawled in blue marker on it, I was being educated on a new
definition of the word unfair. Because I so wanted to be the girl
who didn’t even notice he was here, but instead I catalogued every
detail, from the slightest trace of stubble on his jawline, to the
way his brown hair still invited fingers to be run through it, to
how the checked navy blue shirt he wore had probably never looked
quite so good as when it hugged his arms and stretched across his
chest.

Bryan froze when he saw me. His
green eyes hooked into mine for the briefest of moments, and maybe
for real, or maybe just in my imagination, I saw a tinge of regret
in them. But then he recovered a second later, and flashed a quick,
closed-mouth smile to the class. Of course it wouldn’t bother him
to see me here. He didn’t care about me then. He wouldn’t care
about me now.

But I could pull off indifference
too, so I looked away first. There. Two could play at this
game.

Bryan stood next to the professor at
the head of the classroom, along with the other business school
alum who would be matched with my fellow graduate students for this
mentorship program. In his trademark three-piece suit, spectacles
and a silk handkerchief, Professor Oliver was his usual peppy self
as he introduced the mentors. One of the gals ran a venture fund
she’d started herself, another had been a superstar skateboarder
then launched a line of skatewear that was now hugely popular with
teens, one of the guys oversaw a firm that had designed some of the
most successful iPhone apps, and another founded a health video
service.

Then there was Bryan Leighton, five
years older than me, and I already knew what he did for a living. I
knew other things about him too. I knew what his lips tasted like.
How his arms felt under my hands. How his kisses went on and on and
I’d never wanted them to end. And like a snap of the fingers, I was
back in time, no longer a graduate student, no longer in the first
row of the classroom. I was just a girl fresh off high school
graduation, wrapped around her brother’s best friend. Bryan was
running his hands through my hair, and kissing my neck, and I
shuddered. Everyone else, everything else faded away. He was the
only one there.

I could have stayed trapped like
that, beholden to the memory of the way he felt, the things we
said. The words only I said.

I gripped the charm to break away
from the past. I let a tiny kernel of latent anger in me start to
come out of hiding. I needed that anger, because I needed to focus
on the present, and there was no room for him, or those kind of
memories, in it. I was a different person now. I was a savvy
twenty-three. I’d already earned my bachelor’s degree from NYU, and
now I was finishing my master’s degree from the same school and
growing a business, all while paying the rent in a Chelsea
apartment. I wasn’t that lovestruck teenager anymore. Besides,
there was just a one-in-five chance I’d be paired with him.
Wouldn’t it make the most sense for my professor to match me with
the skatewear gal since we were both in the fashion business? I was
a jewelry designer after all, with a line of necklaces already
selling well online and in several boutiques around the
city.

Professor Oliver rocked back and
forth on his wingtips, full of energy, while he rattled off names
of my classmates, then the mentor they’d work with. The first
student was paired with iPhone guy. Okay, there was a
one-out-of-four chance now. I crossed my fingers. Venture Girl was
partnered off next with a different student. One in three. I made a
quick wish on an unseen star. Professor Oliver read off the names
of another student and the health video service guy. I took a deep
calming breath. Clearly, the professor was saving me for the
skateboard gal. She looked so cool too, so hip with pink streaks in
her black hair and cat’s eye glasses. Yes, she’d be a perfect
mentor and I’d learn so much about a business that wasn’t that
different from mine.

I held my breath and hoped. But
Professor Oliver called out someone else’s name for skateboard gal.
My heart dropped, and I felt my insides tighten.

“And that means, Ms. Harper, that
your business mentor for this semester will be Bryan Leighton.
Allow me to officially introduce you two.”

Bryan held out his hand, as if it
were the first time he was touching me.

“It’s a pleasure.”

“All mine,” I said, wishing there
weren’t some truth to my words.

*****

One of the reasons I’d wanted to
attend New York University’s Stern School of Business was for this
class. Today would be our only day in the classroom. The rest of
the semester we’d spend time with real businesses, tackling real
issues, and gaining insight into how to make our fledgling little
ventures better. Ever since a boutique owner in my hometown had
stopped me at age nineteen and asked where I’d gotten my unusual
and eye-catching charm necklace — I’d made it myself, I proudly
told her — I had wanted to learn the ins and outs of building a
bigger business. I never told her the genesis of my jewelry line. I
never revealed to anyone but my best friend Jill that I’d started
it out of rejection. That it was fueled by hurt. The charms were my
way of taking something back, taking me back after Bryan’s callous
brush-off. If I were a rock star, I’d have Taylor Swifted him and
written one of those anthemic I don’t love you anymore songs.
Instead, I did the only thing I could do. I turned to my one talent
and uttered a quiet screw you, Bryan Leighton with my
jewelry.

The boutique owner had started
carrying my necklaces and the My Favorite Mistakes style had become
a — well — a favorite in her store, and soon at my parent’s shop
too, then at others in Manhattan. The trouble was my charms were
all handmade. By me. And the grassroots nature was getting a little
challenging. I needed practical skills and knowledge to grow, and I
was more than ready to get them through this mentorship.

But that wasn’t the only reason I
needed this class. My parents had stumbled into hard times when the
tough economy hit the tourist town of Mystic, Connecticut where
they ran a little gift shop and had for years. They took out a loan
to keep inventory stocked, and I hated to see them struggling
especially since the store was their nest egg, their third kid,
their key to an eventual retirement. They’d worked so hard my whole
life, putting my brother and me through college, weathering many
storms of the financial and the health variety for years. Now they
were within spitting distance of retirement, and I wanted to do all
I could to make sure they could enjoy some well-deserved time off.
I’d taken out loans to pay for business school, but they weren’t
due for several years, so my plan was to ramp up my own business
quickly to help pay off theirs.

So, really, was it so much for me to
want to learn in a distraction-free fashion? Working alongside the
man who’d broken my heart one summer night five years ago wasn’t
conducive to focusing. Especially not when he looked even better
than he did then. He’d had a sweet boyish face when he was in his
early twenties. Now, he was twenty-eight and while the boyish charm
was still present in spades, there was also a sophistication to his
features, to his style, to his clothes. Five years running a
corporation would do that to you. As I sat down next to Bryan, I
did my best to put on my bulletproof vest even though I could tell
his arms were even stronger and more toned, and that his forest
green eyes could still reel me in with one look.

I gritted my teeth. This was not
going to work. Clearly, I’d need a new mentor. I had to graduate,
and I had to succeed in this class. I tried to picture my strong
and sturdy mom, from the way she’d managed her recovery from a car
accident years ago with a tough kind of optimism, to how she could
stare down an overdue loan notice by brushing one palm against the
other and saying, “Let’s get to work.”

Work. Yes, work. I was laser-focused
on work.

“This was my favorite class when I
went here,” Bryan said, breaking the silence.

“Oh. It was?”

“Well, I guess it’s not a class,
right?” he added, correcting himself, then laughed awkwardly. He
must have been nervous. That made me feel the slightest bit
vindicated. “What do we call it? A workshop?” I shook my head. “Not
an internship,” he continued, and I shook again.
“Practicum?”

I wanted to laugh at the word, but I
wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Instead, I shook my head once
more.

But he was agile at playing both
parts and picked up the baton of the conversation himself. “That’s
kind of an awful word, isn’t it?”

“It’s dreadful.”

“Terrible.”

“Wretched.”

And as if no time had passed, we
were back in banter, one of the things we’d always done well — play
with words.

“Whatever you call it, the class was
my favorite. When you couldn’t tear me away from the statistics and
econ books, that is.” He flashed his lopsided smile that showed off
straight white teeth.

He was trying to smooth over the
past, but I wasn’t going to have it. I wasn’t going to let myself
go any farther in the chatter, the conversations, the
back-and-forth that had fueled us that one summer. So I didn’t
respond, giving a curt nod instead.

The other students chatted with
their mentors, and the buzz and hum filled the small classroom. I
glanced over at Professor Oliver, who looked as if he were about to
whistle a happy tune as he watched how well the initial “get to
know you” session was going. But it didn’t matter if everyone else
was getting along with their mentors. My success or failure would
be based on what I accomplished outside of the confines of this
classroom as I worked in close quarters with my mentor.

I had to be re-matched with someone
else.

Bryan and I didn’t say anything for
a stretch. He locked his eyes on me, then lowered his voice. “Look,
Kat. I had no idea.”

“No idea what?”

“That you’d be in this
class.”

This was supposed to make me feel
better, but it didn’t. It made me feel worse. He probably wanted
out of this too-close-for-comfort deal as much as I did. But I
couldn’t let on that he’d pierced me again. “It’s nothing. I’ll
just ask to be reassigned,” I said coolly, praying Professor Oliver
would agree. He had office hours tomorrow morning. I’d be lined up
outside his door ready to make my request.

Bryan shook his head, and lifted his
hand towards me, as if he were about to rest his palm on my leg, or
my arm. I inched away. Almost imperceptibly, but enough for him to
notice. He clasped his fingers together instead. He parted his
lips. Paused. Then, in a low voice that sounded smoky at that
volume, he said, “But I’m glad you are. I’m glad it worked out this
way.”

I’d spent the last five years
juggling classes and making jewelry, building my business and
moving past my first big love. The last thing I needed was to be
thrust back into the fire. I would only get burned
again.