Page 57 of The Summer I Destroyed You

Her eyes gleam. “Wow. Was it amazing?”

I shrug. “It was okay.”

“You’re a goddamned liar, Emerson Hughes. There’s no way sex with that man was just okay.”

“Fine, it was good. But nothing’s going to come of it. He’s my employee…”

“Not really.”

“And I’m moving.”

“You don’t have to move.”

Oh yes, Chloe, I absolutely do. For my own sanity, if nothing else. “It’s just a bad idea.”

“Okay, so what’s the problem? He doesn’t seem like the type to break into a home and boil a rabbit on your stove. Just tell him you’re not interested.”

“I would, if he’d even look at me,” I sulk, copying her as she gets into warrior pose. “He’s barely acknowledged my presence today.”

She starts laughing. “Now I get it.”

“Now you get what?”

“The problem isn’t you having to fend Liam off—the problem is that you don’t have to fend Liam off.”

“Well, it’s bullshit!” I cry, throwing my hands in the air and falling out of the pose entirely. “You don’t just fuck someone you work for the way he did and pretend it meant absolutely nothing.”

“So, you’re saying it meant something.”

“Not to me, it didn’t. But it should have meant something to him.”

She grins. “So just to clarify: the reason you’re upset is that the guy you don’t want to go out with appears to not want to go out with you either.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re oversimplifying it.”

She laughs. “No, I’m not. It really is just unbelievably simple. You like him and you wanted to be secure in the knowledge that he likes you while you continue to fend him off.”

“I just think it’s shitty to imply you like a girl in order to get laid and then ignore her.”

She is bent over but grins at me from between her legs. “Quick question, hon: did you at any point last night remind him that it didn’t mean anything?”

I bend over. “Possibly,” I mutter.

“So he’s doing exactly what you asked him to do?”

I groan. “I’ve had enough of this conversation. Just give me the worst workout ever.”

Chloe is laughing as she goes into downward dog.

When I get home, my mother is on the couch watching Love is Blind. I run my hands through Snowflake’s fur and endure her licking my face while a sparklingly pretty girl onscreen attempts to converse with the dullest man of all time, a man she apparently believes she’s in love with though he’s still hidden from view—a perfect example of why any semi-intelligent female should write relationships off entirely. Because you otherwise risk becoming someone so desperate for connection, you persuade yourself to love a guy who can’t string four consecutive words together without an awkward chuckle.

Love means handing over your power and your sanity, and it never lasts anyway, so what reasonable person would bother?

“You’re going to be mighty unhappy when you meet him in real life,” my mother says to the TV.

It’s possibly the first thing we’ve ever agreed on.

“She ought to be mighty unhappy already,” I reply. “That guy’s an idiot.”

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