She’d never told anyone that. She’d gotten her last coursework grade just before finals and accepted, once and for all, that even a perfect score couldn’t save her. All the hours at the library making her eyes bleed, all the desperate emails to professors clarifying this point or that point because she struggled to follow the lectures, it had been for nothing.

She’d tried and she’d failed. So she’d told her parents she was bored, and weathered their disapproval, and chosen a new course and tried again.

And failed, of course.

But she didn’t need to get into all that—even if she had a sneaking suspicion that she just had, that Jacob could read between her every line even if she stopped the pity party here. Which she fully intended to do. How had she gotten this far off the rails? He’d asked about her voice. She’d told him . . .

Everything.

“Sorry,” she said. “Sorry. It doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t it?” he asked. Except it didn’t sound like he was really asking; it sounded like he was giving her an opening to keep going, to talk more, to release the rest of the bottled-up poison inside her. To say things like, I think I’m only capable of fuckups and not-quite-enoughs, just to get it out there before it burned up her insides.

She was about to take that opening. She could feel the words crowding the tip of her tongue. But then something else came along: a memory of the way she’d felt that morning, serving a fluffy tomato omelet and having old Mr. Cafferty from the Rose Suite dimple up at her and say, You know how I like it, Eve. Oh, you are a wonder.

That hadn’t felt like failure at all. It had felt like creation and nourishment and openhearted generosity—and syrup-sweet success.

“I told you before,” Jacob said into the silence, “that there are different ways to fail. Imperfection is inevitable. That’s life. But it doesn’t sound to me like you’ve failed at all, Eve. It sounds like your dream broke, and you’ve been picking up shattered pieces and blaming yourself when your hands bleed.” In the low light, his gaze almost seemed to shine at her, slices of summer sky warming her up. “Performing was your dream, yeah. Is it still?”

She blurted out the truth without thinking twice. “No.” Because she really did hate being told what to do—or she had, when it came to something that should stem from her soul. To have someone directing her voice, her emotions, her interpretation of words and characters she’d understood in her own way; that had seemed a violation every time, and deep inside she’d hated it.

She loved music, loved performing, but she didn’t want to make it her livelihood. It wouldn’t suit her. She’d learned that at some point over the years.

“Well,” Jacob said reasonably, “do you know what you want instead?”

She couldn’t answer. She couldn’t answer because she’d never had a chance to ask herself that question. She’d been too busy expecting herself to simply know, and get on with it already, and succeed.