Page 100 of The Paradise Problem

“There is an Anna Green who attended UCLA around the right time, but she recently worked as a convenience store clerk and rents an apartment in Los Angeles. That seems like it’d be a pretty nasty commute to northern California, where Liam lives, but what do I know?” He taps his chin thoughtfully. “Though I guess, if I’ve got the right Anna Green, she’ll be able to move back in with him now that she’s lost her job at the Pick-It-Up on Pico Boulevard.” He cups a hand to the side of his mouth and fake-whispers into the mic, “You never want to congratulate someone for getting fired, but in this case I can’t help but think it will be good for the marriage!” He stops and turns to walk the other way. Eyes follow his path, but many also flicker back to Anna, who’s gone as white as a sheet against me. With the guise of her pedigree slipping, their gazes turn harsh, judgmental, and they look at her with the disdain she’d expected all along.

“Oh, come on, friends! Who are we to get in the way of love? Who cares if she doesn’t really go to medical school? Who cares that she doesn’t even know what fork to use?” Alex huffs a laugh into the mic and a soft smattering of laughter drifts through the tent. “As long as my brother is happy, right?” He looks squarely at me. “At least, you look happy, Liam. It’s hard to know because we never see you. I mean, we wouldn’t have even seen you together here if that little scam artist right there hadn’t agreed to be your fake wife.”

I stare at him with thunder in my eyes. I want to destroy him.

Voices break out all around us—surprise, protest, speculation—but Alex quells it with a hand. “Sorry. I guess technically you’re married, right? Until…” Alex glances at his watch. “August fifth? Or was it the twelfth?” He turns his eyes back to me at last. I feel movement at my side, when Anna breaks free of my hand and turns, running out of the tent. “After all, being married was the only requirement for you to inherit your money. What admirable behavior for the man our father wants to be Weston Foods’ next CEO.” He lifts his glass aloft and smiles warmly, no idea that he could be destroying his own life right along with mine. “So thank you, Charlie and Kellan, for having this wedding so we could have some time together with Liam before he conned us all and disappeared forever.”

Thirty

ANNA

I burst outside, into air that is humid and thick and cloying with the perfume of flowering trees. I have loved this air with every breath I’ve taken on this trip, but right now I want nothing more than the foggy marine layer of Los Angeles in May. I want the sound of traffic and neighbors arguing and the smell of food trucks. I want to teleport myself off this island, back to my shitty apartment and my old couch where I don’t have to pretend to be anyone but Anna Green: Aquarius, cheese lover, and Enzo’s Pizza VIP customer discount card holder. I don’t know what’s going on back in that tent, but there’s no way in hell I’m staying to watch the rest of it.

Am I okay? No.

But will I be?

Probably also no.

I mean, Liam is still in there being humiliated by his brother, but I feel like I was decimated. Alex exposed Liam by destroying me.

My optimism about the world and the people in it has been ripped wide open, exposing the stain of humanity underneath it; I can’t unsee that. And I won’t ever forget this bone-deep feeling of humiliation, either, especially when there’s no way for me to exit this island before someone who witnessed that garbage diatribe sees me. This is very much a “never show my face in this establishment again” kind of situation, and yet I am unable to exit said establishment, being that it is an island in the middle of an ocean. Maybe I should raid the Old Hollywood costume stash and be Elvis until I can get on a fucking plane out of here.

I press my hands to my ribs, trying to pull in a full breath as I pace. The tide rolls toward the shore, water lapping at my feet and darkening the hem of my dress. I barely notice. I don’t know if this feeling is anger or sadness or humiliation, but I do know that when a hand comes around my arm, all I can see is Alex’s pinched, vengeful face, and for the first time in my life, my instinct is to react with violence.

My hands come up to a chest before I’ve taken the time to look at a face, and I shove, hard.

Liam stumbles back, his hands up. “It’s me.”

With a sob, I dive into his arms, and he holds me, his lips pressed to the top of my head. Several long seconds pass where he just rocks slightly, cradling me to him. Down the beach, in the tent, noise rises again. Music, voices, the clinking of glasses and silver on porcelain.

The show must go on.

Liam’s voice rumbles against the crown of my head. “Are you okay?” he asks.

“No. Are you?”

He steps back, taking my chin between his finger and thumb. “I’m more worried about you. I thought he was going after me. He didn’t. You took a real beating in there.”

My “yeah” comes out a little soggy. I don’t want to care what Alex said or what anyone else in that tent thinks of me. Would I care what they thought of my clothes or my hair or my job if I saw them on the street? No. They’re just like the people I serve at Amir’s Café—some of them are good, some of them are awful—none of them are better than me or Vivi or her parents or even Ricky in any of the ways that count. Well… maybe better than Ricky. The thing is, I don’t want to care. But I do.

“This is all my fault,” he says.

“It’s ninety-five percent your fault,” I tell him, sniffing. “I take five percent responsibility for agreeing to come. But this is what you’re paying me for, I suppose. For the odds that something like tonight happened.”

He stares miserably down at me. “I’m so sorry, Anna.”

“I know.” And I do. Regret is written all over his face, but so is the adoration he’s been wearing for days. We may have started with a crazy lie, but this much, I know, is real. “I don’t belong in this world, Liam, and everyone has always known it.” Humiliated tears surface again and I irritably swipe them off my cheeks. “I never fooled anyone.”

He shakes his head, swallowing thickly. “Anna, I want you to know that it was never my intention to set you up like that.”

“I know.”

Liam searches my eyes. “When I was dreaming up our story, I chose the path I genuinely thought you were taking. And at the time, it didn’t matter what the fake you did or who the fake you was, not really.” He swallows again, his eyes growing pained. “I want you to know—I need you to know—that I am not ashamed of your path as an artist. Not for one second. I think the real you is wonderful, exactly the way she is. You are funny, courageous, creative, and silly. You are honest and vulnerable. You are forthcoming and self-reliant. You are sexy as hell and amazing in bed.” I laugh, and he smiles. “I am well on my way to falling for you, and fuck anyone who makes you feel small. Fuck them.”

I let him pull me into his arms again, resting my cheek on his shoulder. A part of me really needed to hear him say that.

“I just want to get home,” he whispers. “But this is such a mess. Fuck. Alex doesn’t even know what he’s done.”

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