The dean’s words echoed his own sentiments, and he knew, once again, his mother would blame him if Lorenzo got in trouble. But the most frustrating of all and what made him angrier than anything else was he knew he’d just blown seeing Rose next week and possibly the whole summer, depending on how much trouble he was in.

~*~

Rose

“You’re being completely unreasonable, Sal.” The tears streamed down Rose’s cheeks now.

“Rose, lower your voice,” Grace warned. “It wasn’t Sal’s decision. Vincent’s parents were the ones who made it. Sal is just supporting it.”

“But why? It wasn’t his fault!”

Sal shook his head. “He needs to start thinking things through and not just reacting, Rose. He’s gonna be an adult next month. He was this close to making it to the end of the year without getting suspended.”

Rose brought her hands to her face, holding in a sob. “But he hasn’t been in any trouble in so long.”

“And that’s why he’s still coming, Rose.” Grace reminded her as if that was supposed to be any consolation.

They were delaying his coming to La Jolla a whole month as punishment for getting suspended. Since they started seeing each other, they hadn’t gone an entire month without seeing each other even when they were in school. He’d made sure to come down at least twice a month if not more. “Don’t you see you’re punishing me, too?

If there’d been any doubt about how Rose really felt for Vincent, there wasn’t any now, and she didn’t care. She’d been looking forward to this so much. This summer was going to be better than the last. And not just because they’d decided to take their relationship to the next level, but because this summer they’d be working side by side at Sal and Grace’s restaurant. They’d be inseparable, and now here Sal was telling her their time together would be cut a month short because that’s how long his parents decided to punish him for.

Realizing that her pleading wasn’t going to get her anywhere, she gave up trying. “This sucks so bad,” she said through her tears as she spun around and stormed out of the kitchen.

“Rosie, honey,” Grace called out.

“Let her go,” she heard Sal’s hushed voice say.

Once in her room, she plopped on her bed and continued to cry. She didn’t want to be mad at Vincent, but she was. It really wasn’t his fault. Right now she was mad at the whole world. Days ago when he told her about the fight, she was sympathetic, until he mentioned Anita. This wasn’t the first time she’d heard of Anita. Rose trusted Vincent, and he’d told her she was just his neighbor, but the fact that he’d taken a chance and kicked the guy’s bike because of Anita irritated her. She couldn’t help it.

Vincent defending or being set off because of another girl had cost them an entire month apart. Rose was trying so hard not to be petty, but the more she thought about it the angrier it made her.

They’d waited for days until his parents finally told him how long they’d be grounding him for. The moment she got the text, she’d stormed straight into the kitchen to plead with Sal whose opinion weighed heavy with Vincent’s dad. She’d hoped somehow she could convince Sal to talk Vince’s dad into seeing that this was completely unfair, but he’d refused to go against Vincent’s parent’s decision.

Now that she knew it was hopeless—that it would be at least a month until she saw him again, she was fuming. She sat up on her bed and grabbed her phone off her nightstand. She had a couple of unread texts from Vincent. She read the first one:

Please don’t be mad at me. I’m going down tomorrow to get my own cell phone plan, so we can talk without me having to worry about using my mom’s minutes. I’ll call you every day. I promise.

Since she hadn’t responded to him right away, he texted her again ten minutes later.

So you’re not gonna respond to me now? You’ll kill me, Rosie. You really want that on your conscience?

Normally something like that would make her smile, but she could barely manage not to frown now. She almost didn’t send it, but she reread the sentence and decided it wasn’t an unreasonable request given the circumstances, so she hit send.

Tell me about Anita.

His response was immediate:

??? What about her?

She took a deep breath still not certain she wanted to take this there, but it was bothering her so much she had to.

Why did it upset you so much that he bumped her that you were willing to chance getting in trouble?

She waited and flinched, startled when her phone rang. Surprised to see it was him calling, she almost regretted asking because the only times he ever called had been when it was real important. But this was important. So taking another deep breath she answered.

“Hello?”

“Rosie, please, please don’t get anything in your head about Anita. It could’ve been anyone he hit. I was already pissed because he’d bumped me first, and he was driving around like an ass**le. I f**ked up, okay? I shouldn’t have kicked his bike, but it had nothing to do with the fact that it was her. I swear.”

Just hearing his voice made her want to cry again, and she brought her hand over her face. “A whole month, Vincent?”

“I know, baby. It sucks and I’m so sorry. I’ll make it up to you. I promise. After this month we’ll never be apart again, not for long anyway. When this whole thing blows over, I’ll talk to my dad and Sal about my going to college out there and working for Sal part time. I’ll pay my uncle to let me stay with them. I’ll work it out. I promise.”