Chapter 177 (1/2)

. . . excited.

Not excited, exactly, but happy. I can’t remember the last time I received a birthday gift from anyone, even my mum. I made it a point at a young age to despise birthdays, and I was such an asshole over whatever ridiculous gift my mum would buy me that she just stopped buying them before I was sixteen.

My father would send some shitty card with a check inside every year, but I’d get a kick out of burning the damn thing. I even took a piss on the one that arrived on my seventeenth birthday. When I finally get the box open, there are multiple things inside.

First is a tattered copy of Pride and Prejudice, which, when I take it in my hands, prompts Tessa to walk over and grab it from me.

“This is stupid . . . just ignore this one,” she says, but obviously that’s the last thing I’m going to do.

“Why? Give it back to me,” I demand, holding my hand out.

When I stand to my feet, she seems to remember that she obviously isn’t going to win this battle, so she places the book back in my hands. As I skim through the pages, I notice bright yellow markings throughout the entire thing.

“You know how you told me about highlighting Tolstoy?” she asks, her cheeks as red as they’ve ever been.

“Yeah?”

“Well . . . I sort of did that, too,” she admits, and her eyes meet mine.

“Really?” I ask her and open to a page that’s nearly covered in markings.

“Yeah. Mostly this book, though; you don’t have to reread or anything. I just thought . . . I’m terrible at giving gifts, I really am.”

She’s not, though. I would love to see the words in her favorite novel that remind her of me. This is the best gift anyone could have possibly given me. These are the simple things, the things that give me hope that somehow we can make this work, the fact that both of us were doing the same thing, reading Jane Austen, when neither of us was aware of the other.

“You’re not,” I tell her and sit back on the bed.

I tuck the novel under my leg to keep her from trying to take it from me again. A low chuckle leaves my mouth when another item from the box is revealed.

“What’s this for?” I ask with a grin, holding up the leather binder.

“Your work, that thing you use, is tearing at the seams and it’s so unorganized. See, this one has tabs for each week—or subject, you can decide.” She smiles.

This gift is humorous because I always take note of the way she cringes when I shove papers into my old binder. I refuse to let her organize it for me despite her multiple attempts, and I know that drives her insane. I don’t want her to see what’s inside.

“Thanks.” I laugh.

“That one wasn’t really a birthday gift. I got it a while ago and I was going to just toss your old one, but I never found an opportunity,” she admits with a laugh.