"I didn't take the job." He said, immediately after announcing that his mother had offered him a position and receiving Shannon's sneering rejoinder.
"What?" She muttered dumbly. She'd gone from disappointment to bitter anger to surprise at his last three sentences.
"I turned it down." Boone repeated, quickly resting his forehead on the arms he had crossed over top of the back of the kitchen chair he was straddling.
Shannon knew immediately that he'd done it for her and that he was hiding his face so she wouldn't see the truth she would have read on it.
"Boone?" She said gently, her own spirits wanting to soar, but being tempered by the sacrifice he was making. He'd sacrificed so much over the lat ten years for her. Giving up tennis at her demand that he be her dance partner when she'd signed them up for ballroom, wanting to experience something different from ballet. The beatings he'd taken, defending her honour, the missed sleep, waiting up for her when she'd been especially late getting home from a date. His own dates, cancelled to spend sitting home with her, trying to cheer her up after any number of bad experiences.
He'd chosen NYU to get away from her, she suspected, and Boone knew. He'd accepted a job with a Manhattan firm after a head hunter had approached him when he'd graduated at the end of his senior year in the top two percent of his class. He had no interest in advertising, he'd just done it so that he didn't have to return to LA and her tantalizing and all-consuming presence.
"What?" He sounded so beaten.
"Thank you." She rose to her knees and stroked her hand through his hair.
He didn't pretend he didn't know what she meant, just nodding silently.
"I'll book another ticket. You'll fly back with me, right?" She'd been evicted, not able to replace the rent cheque that had already bounced.
The plane ride was a quiet affair, Shannon hid behind her magazine and Boone watched the in-flight movie intently even though it was some stupid and horribly miscast chick flick. So much had happened in LA, so many life changing moments, they simply couldn't face them. Boone hadn't expected to be returning to NYC with a room-mate and Shannon hadn't been expecting to go with him as a mendicant. She had been looking forward to her internship at Martha Graham, to be sure, but had anticipated being far more independent, even though she'd expected her big brother to be in the city for her. To say that their departure was awkward given the coldness of Sabrina's farewell, and the sneer on her face, would be like comparing Mount Everest to an anthill.