Crushing On The Billionaire (Part 3) (5 page)

“I want to refute your apology, even though I know you’re only trying to show support,” he said. “You did nothing wrong, okay? You have to let me take responsibility for my own actions—and reactions.”

“I don’t think I understand….”

Shawn set his teacup down on the saucer with a tiny clink. “I told you I was in love with you,” he said, his face neutral. This couldn’t be easy for him to say out loud. “And you said you were in love with my father. That was disappointing, because I did—I mean, I do…damn it…I am in love with you. But I realize that just because one person is in love with someone doesn’t mean that the other person automatically has to be in love with that same person, too.”

“Shawn, I’m sorry.”

“No,” he said, cutting me off. “Loren, this is what I’m trying to tell you. You don’t have a single thing to be sorry for. Not one damn thing. Okay?”

I wasn’t sure that I could agree to that. I felt wretchedly at fault, and still did, no matter what he said. If I had just steered clear of Patrick, then maybe none of this would’ve happened. I could’ve let Shawn down easy, and we could’ve stayed friends without any of this mess happening.

“You love who you love,” he said. “I can’t help loving you because I admire you. You’re a good person; you’re an amazing photographer; and you’re beautiful. But I was selfish. I wanted you to love me the way I loved you, and that’s wrong. I didn’t process rejection the way that I should have. I let it take ahold of me. I wanted it to take ahold of me. And everything that followed, every harmful substance I put into my body, that’s all my fault. I didn’t cope properly with what happened. I was immature, privileged, and maybe too used to getting whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it. I wasn’t a good person.”

“Dr. Adams said not to disparage yourself,” I reminded him, my voice shaking.

He sighed. “It’s the truth, no matter what she says. I was a spoiled brat, and I let it consume me that you loved my father and not me. I put myself at risk; I put others at risk; and I tried to kill myself—nearly killing my father in the process.”

“It was a situation that was difficult for you to understand,” I argued. “You and I spent so much time together that it almost would’ve made more sense if we did fall in love with each other. We’re the same age, first of all. We’re both getting a degree in an artistic field of study. We make each other laugh.”

“But we’re not in love with each other,” Shawn said. “I was wrong to think that I was entitled to your love. You love my father. That’s just what it is. I accept that. And I apologize for every drop of disrespect I sprayed at you in the process. I was angry and hurt, but I wasn’t willing to face those feelings and move on. I used everything I could get my hands on to bury them. And that’s something I have to take responsibility for.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. How could I not try and take responsibility for making him feel like that? I took a shuddering breath.

“I feel like if I had just stayed away from Patrick after realizing how it made you feel, we could’ve avoided all of this,” I said.

“Lesson one that I learned here,” Shawn said, holding up a finger, “is that it is useless to try and revisit the past. The past has lessons, sure, but when you talk about going back and doing something different to change the outcome of a situation, it’s a waste of time. Use the past to influence your future decisions, if you’ve learned anything. But that’s not the main point. You don’t have to feel like you should revisit the past and stop yourself from loving my father. That’s ludicrous, Loren, can’t you see that?”

I shook my head. “I feel at fault.” Stupid tears filled my eyes, and I took a scalding gulp of the tea to try to keep them at bay. “I should’ve been more supportive for you. I should’ve insisted on being near you instead of letting you drift away. I knew you were in trouble, but I hid it from your father at first. I didn’t do enough, and I caused all of this.”

“You can’t help who you love,” Shawn said. “That’s something you and my father told me. I couldn’t help loving you, and you couldn’t help loving him. That was just the situation, and I refused to see it. I can’t spend the rest of my life blaming myself for everything that happened. You asked earlier if I’d been in contact with my father. I almost robbed him of his life. I apologized to him first, when it came to that part of my treatment. I have to take responsibility for the things that went wrong in the past, then simply move forward. It’s all I can do. I can’t dwell on it. But I’m here to assure you that you’ve done nothing wrong. I wouldn’t let you help me.”

“You reached out the night you got arrested,” I said. “I should’ve done something, at that point. Anything.”

“What would you have done?” he asked, looking almost amused. “Tie me up and force me to listen to reason? I was beyond reasoning with at that point, Loren, especially on that night. I’d just seen how easy it was to dodge responsibility—even in breaking the law. All I had to do was throw money at a problem to make it go away, and do you know how much money I have access to? It was the best thing in the world for you to suggest to my father that he cut me off to get me back home. Not having money was the only thing that got me back that day. I sold my car for a fraction of what it was worth just to have cash in hand.”

“All I want is for you to be okay,” I said, the tears finally overwhelming me. “I’ve been really scared for you, scared of what could’ve happened, scared of what almost did happen.”

“All of which was my fault, my responsibility, not yours,” he said, taking my hand gently. “All you did was love somebody, and since when has that been wrong? I’m owning everything that happened, right now, Loren, and you need to let me.”

“Are you going to come back to school?” I asked, drying my face on the cloth napkin that my spoon had rested on.

“That’s something else I wanted to talk to you about,” Shawn said. “I’ve been in contact with my adviser in the visual arts department and the dean. Given the circumstances, including all the work I’ve missed, they initially recommended that I take the rest of the year off and plan on graduating later than planned. I assured them that I was ready to put my nose to the grindstone. In my free time here—what little free time I do have—I’ve been painting and doing some of the reading that was posted on the syllabi for my classes.”

“Are they going to let you back in?” I asked, pressing my hands together. “Are you going to graduate on time?”

“That is entirely up to you.”

“Up to me?” I scowled. “What kind of decision is that? I’m not on the board of trustees. I’m not a professor there.”

“My adviser spoke with your adviser,” Shawn explained. “And your adviser had several choice words for me that she wanted conveyed through my adviser.”

I grimaced. “Mercedes…I’m so sorry. She was badgering me in class one day about the senior project. It was actually the day after everything happened…with you and the gun. I shouldn’t have gone to class, but I thought it would’ve been better to try, and I lost my temper at her.”

“My adviser told me that Mercedes told her that you’re so behind on everything that you’re in danger of not graduating on time either.”

I fell silent. I supposed that was why Mercedes had been pushing me so heavily to drop the idea of Shawn as a partner for my senior project. I just hadn’t realized it was so dire.

“I didn’t know it was that bad for me,” I said. “I guess I’ve been a little distracted. That’s not really the word for it. I’ve been really distracted, and it’s been hard to understand the point of going to school when everything else has been happening. School seemed … superfluous.”

“School is important,” Shawn said. “How else are you going to break into the world of artistic photography? You know how good our school looks on a resume.”

“That’s just the thing,” I said, almost wonderingly. “I have kind of broken into the world of artistic photography.”

“Really?” Shawn looked excited, clutching the edge of the table. “How so?”

“When I hadn’t heard from you…when Patrick and I stopped seeing each other…I used my camera to cope,” I said. “I always have. And I was frustrated with Mercedes, frustrated with school, so I took a chance and submitted my work to a contest I stumbled upon while I was out shooting.”

“And?” Shawn was practically vibrating in excitement.

“And I won the contest, which means I’ll be getting my own exhibit at the gallery that was hosting the competition.” I hadn’t realized how excited I was about it until I said it out loud, and I giggled and clapped my hands right alongside Shawn.

“This is fantastic,” he said, “but not a replacement for a degree.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I think that my real-life work and my portfolio are more important. That’s going to carry the most weight.”

“But when a potential employer looks at your resume and asks why you didn’t complete school, what are you going to say?” he asked. “That you gave up?”

I bristled. “I’m not giving up. I’m just finding a different way.”

Shawn held his hands up. “I’m not trying to offend you. I’m just trying to get you to understand. This situation with me, with my dad…it hurt you. You’re immersing yourself in your photography, which is admirable. It’s not self-destructive, which is what I did. But what is self-destructive on your end is your willingness to let all of your hard work at the institute count for nothing.”

“It doesn’t count for nothing,” I argued. “I know that I’ve learned a lot here. It’s really honed my craft. But what am I going to learn in the next semester that I haven’t learned already?”

“How to rise from the ashes.” Shawn smiled. “I’m probably being selfish, but I do want to graduate on time—just to prove that I can, really. I want to prove it to my adviser, to your adviser, to the dean, to my father. I want to prove it to you. And I want to prove it to myself, that I can do anything I set my mind to.”

“Then do it,” I urged him. “Work hard. Go back to school. Finish on time. I know you’re capable of it.”

“I need your help to do it,” he said. “I still want to complete our senior project. The one we knew was going to be incredible. Do you still want to?”

“I still think it’s a great idea,” I said, hesitating. “But the way Mercedes talked, I don’t think we could ever catch up to where everyone else is in producing their projects.”

“Why would we want to catch up to everyone else?” Shawn asked, laughing. “Wasn’t the plan all along to surpass them?”

I grinned. “Yeah, I guess that was the plan. We were going to win the whole damn thing.”

“It’s going to be hard work,” he warned me. “As soon as we get started on it, we can kiss all our free time goodbye. We have to find the models, screen the models, design the artwork, find the studio space, take the photos, print the photos, frame the photos, decide about the exhibition…”

“We’d better stop talking about it and start doing it,” I said, interrupting him. “It sounds like we have a lot to do.”

Shawn threw his head back and laughed, and for the first time in a long time, I felt like everything was going to be all right.

“I don’t want to drop out of school,” I said, clutching my camera, sitting on the edge of the chair across from Mercedes’ desk in her office.

“I know you don’t,” she said, smiling at me.

“I’m sorry about everything.”

“I know. I’m sorry that I didn’t fully understand the situation, that I pushed you in class.”

“You didn’t know,” I said quickly. “It’s fine. You didn’t know. I should’ve told you from the start what was happening, but I just didn’t know how. It would’ve felt like a betrayal to Shawn. He was going through a lot.”

“You’re a good friend, you know that?” Mercedes asked, that smile never leaving her face. “I wish I had a friend as loyal as you. I would’ve left Mr. Paulson behind a while ago to focus on my own success. But you were determined not to give up on him, and that’s pretty telling indication of character—albeit one that has left your graduation date in the lurch.”

“I really, really want to graduate on time,” I said, loosening my grip on my camera and setting it carefully in my lap. I was gripping it so tightly I was afraid I was going to do it damage. “Do you think it’s possible? I know we’re going to have to work hard. We’ve missed several benchmarks.”

“Loren, if you and Mr. Paulson are serious about completing your senior project, which I hope you are because I really wanted to see it, then I don’t see why you couldn’t be given the opportunity to make it up,” Mercedes said. “I’m not saying it’ll be easy, but if you can produce a quality project by the deadline for the show, I’ll make sure the institute allows it. Both of you have been through an ordeal, and it’s my firm belief that you should both get a second chance. You’re talented, and I would hate to see you both lose out because life reared its head at you.”

I couldn’t help myself; I practically launched myself across the desk to hug her.

“Thank you so much,” I said. “I promise I won’t squander this second chance. We won’t squander it. I’m so excited to complete the project. I won’t let you down.”

“You’d better hop to it,” Mercedes said, fighting a smile and patting me swiftly on the back. “No more time to waste.”

There was so much work to do that it was almost overwhelming to sit and think of it all, so I didn’t. Shawn and I launched our plans immediately, peppering the campus with posters seeking models of either gender, of any body type, just anyone willing to strip down and be on display in the name of art.

I kept copious notes of our process, photographing each and every step, starting our pamphlets and the book that would be part of the crowning jewel of the project. When we narrowed down our applicants for models—there were a surprising number of people who wanted to participate—we developed and printed contracts for them to sign.

“This is all very official,” Shawn remarked, examining the papers and putting them away in their own special file.

“We have to keep it professional,” I reminded him.

It was good to spend quality time with him, and equally good to have an impetus behind it. It helped us overcome the awkwardness of finally being together again, and the growing pains of our tenuous friendship. Shawn had recently left the treatment facility, where he’d been living full time, and returned to his father’s house.

Which meant that I was constantly on edge, waiting for a sighting of Patrick.

“Stop being so nervous,” Shawn commanded, as we both worked in his home studio. He was designing some of the paintings he’d apply to the models, and I was taking photos of him and writing up our project.

“Nervous?” I said, giggling uneasily. “What do you mean? I’m not nervous?”

“You’re so nervous you’re making me nervous.” He looked at me. “What is it? What’s weird? You want a beer? It wouldn’t bother me.”

Shawn had mentioned in passing that he was embracing sobriety, especially after what had happened. It was the best decision for him at this point.

“Maybe, in a few years, I’ll feel like I can sit around and have a beer with you, just hanging out, like we used to do,” he’d said, shrugging. “But right now, I just don’t want to, and I don’t think it’s wise.”

I admired him so much; I admired this new strength and perspective that Dr. Adams and the rest of the facility had allowed him to develop.

“I don’t want a beer,” I said. “And nothing’s weird.”

“Uh-huh.” He looked doubtful. “Is it weird spending time with me, after…?”

“Stop!” I said. “It’s wonderful spending time with you. I’m happy to be here with you, working on this. I really am. You’re precious to me, Shawn.”

“Then it’s weird that you’re here. In the same physical structure as my father.”

“Is he here?” I gasped, betraying myself at once.

Shawn gave a long sigh that I misinterpreted, feeling awful, until he spoke.

“I feel especially terrible that I was a wedge that acted to drive you both apart,” he said. “What can I do to push you back together again? You all obviously were in love. Are in love?”

I screwed my eyes closed and shook my head back and forth quickly. “No, no, it’s not your fault. Really. It’s just not going to work out between Patrick and me.”

“But why? Give me one good reason, and I’ll drop it.”

There were several good reasons, but all of them pointed to Shawn. I didn’t want to do that to him. I didn’t want to make him think he was the problem.

But he nodded all the same at my silence. “Loren. I’m going to get you and my father back together. I owe it to you both. I put you through so much, and it wasn’t fair.”

“Please, don’t.” I all but begged. “Don’t concern yourself with it. It’s over. I don’t want you rehashing anything that happened.”

Shawn smiled at me and patted my hand before going back to his designs. I knew I should focus on the project. We’d had enough delays, and I was afraid if Shawn thought he had to play matchmaker, it would completely jettison our hopes for graduating on time.

He looked studious and focused, but I wasn’t sure that I’d heard the last of it.

We did the majority of our project at Shawn’s house, and as the weeks went by, it became easier and easier to focus on the task at hand. There were so many of them. We hosted models in the home studio one at a time; I was always on hand as an ice breaker. The majority of them were women, but there were a few men in the mix, which offered interesting variations on Shawn’s designs. I photographed the entire process, including the hours that it took to transform a human body into an organic canvas for Shawn’s designs.

It was transfixing, the entire project, and I knew it would be magic for our senior project, as long as we finished on time. I took detailed shots of the paintings, as well as portraits of the before and after versions of each model.

“What’s next?” I asked Shawn one afternoon, the latest model on her way out. I was uploading the most recent photos to his computer, deciding that in addition to the book, we would have a website people could visit to better understand the project. I marked a few of the photos as ones that would become prints.

“Next, we graduate.”

I stopped what I was doing, my fingers hovering over the keyboard. “We what?”

“We graduate.” He was grinning. “That was the final model. We’re going to make it. We actually did it. We’ll have to rush print the rest of the photos and frame them ourselves and rush the book, but we did it.”

We whooped and hugged and jumped around, and I finally recognized that it was worth it. Everything was worth it—this feeling of accomplishment, and my best friend here to enjoy it with me.