The Break Up Plan

28: JAMMING TO BLACKPINK

"Why don't you want to go to Harvard?"

The popcorn freezes halfway to my mouth.

We're still in my room, sitting in front of my laptop, watching Lion King (Cole's idea)

I'm sitting cross legged on my carpet, a huge bowl of popcorn in my lap and Cole is sat on my bed, braiding my hair (I insisted he finish)

I turn to face him slowly, "What?"

He takes the popcorn out of my hand and pops it into his mouth. I watch him as he chews.

"Why don't you want to go to Harvard?"

No one has ever asked me that question before, they all assume I want to follow Tyler there and when I say I don't, they don't ask why, they just bite my head off *cough* mom *cough*

I love how he asks questions no one else does.

I uncross my legs and push myself up. Cole looks up at me expectantly and I tilt my head towards the door, "come on, I want to show you something"

I lead him out of my room and he follows closely till we reach the door of my library. I push the large door open and leave it ajar for Cole to follow me through.

I lead him to the book shelf and stop, Does Riley like reading?" I ask as my fingers skim the binds.

Cole looks confused but answers anyways, "Yeah, she loves it, why?"

I pull out a book, one of the popular ones. I hand it to him and his eyes fall on the book, "has she ever read this?"

His eyes fall on the book cover, The Disappearing Fairy, "I've read this to her a dozen times, it's one of her favorites"

"I wrote it"

His head snaps up and he blinks multiple times, "come again?"

I shrug, fiddling with a charm on my wrist, "I wrote it, when I was six"

Cole scoffs and shakes his head, "that's not possible, it was written by someone named-"

He looks at the cover again and stops short, "-Gwendolyn Paxton"

He looks up at me, his eyes wide. I shrug, "my mom thought that name was more befitting, I was too young to argue"

"How?" Cole asks incredulously.

I drop down on the beanbag and fix my gaze pointedly on my toenails, "we were really poor when I was little. My mom and dad both had projects that were never taking flight. I loved reading but we could barely afford clothes, let alone books so I used to write behind my school notes to amuse myself."

I glance up briefly at Cole to see he's giving me his undivided attention. A blush stains my cheeks as I return my gaze to my French tipped nails. "My English teacher stumbled across one of my stories one day and her husband happened to be a children's writer, he showed his publishers and the rest is history. I wrote more books with a stupid flower print number two pencil and they got published; till I was eight and my parents finally got their big breaks. I was made to stop because according to my mother, I didn't need to write anymore since we were rich, because of course, money was the reason I was writing in the first place"

Cole hasn't quite gotten to saying words so I continue talking for both of us, "to answer your question, I don't want to study engineering at Harvard because I want to write, it's the only thing that ever truly made me happy"

Cole exhales and turns to the rest of the first edition books lining the shelf, "amazing"

I sigh, "funny how my parents won't let me do the one thing that funded all their projects and put food on the table"