Page 85 of Director's Cut

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I know this pain.

The knowing surprises me, but also brings me a measure of comfort, though that doesn’t make it feel any better when Maeve truly doesn’t initiate conversation aside from a single message asking for next week’s lecture notes. There are no sweet PSes, no flirty asides, she doesn’t even write my name on the email. It’s as if I’ve fallen down the ridiculously long chute in Chutes and Ladders after being three steps from winning the damn game.

I thought I’d be more discombobulated, more weepy, more angry over the whole thing. Like I was with Emily. But there’s just…nothing. A giant hole in my heart, and I know I’ll never fill it again if I can’t be who Maeve needs me to be. I want to fix it so badly, I do, but how do I fix who I am?

I don’t know. So, I spend the majority of the next week in bed, familiarizing myself with the Cannes lineup and obsessively following the blowup over Charlie’s Star Trek homophobia scandal. Gwyn asks if I want her to come over, and I say no. She leaves a pan of lasagna for me to heat up throughout the week on my doorstep anyway.

Usually, I can feign productivity for most of the day. Charlie’s on auditions and living his life, so he’s often out late. I hate to admit how much of a comfort his presence is when he is at home, though, hanging on my living room couch, forcing me out of bed to work near him. We don’t talk much. I fear talking is just going to make me spiral. I’m trying to postpone the realization that Wednesday’s going to be here before I know it, and I’ll have to actually face the fact that I haven’t magically become a person worthy of Maeve. I was the worst version of me—selfish and insecure and disrespectful. I’m terrified that on Wednesday, that one last bit of hope I have, that she’ll realize I can be forgiven, will be extinguished once and for all.

Sunday night, though, less than seventy-two hours before I have to face Maeve again, I’m paralyzed. Paralyzed by anger at myself for promising this time would be different even as I fell back into hiding the way I used to with Emily. And I’m paralyzed by the thought of having to show up at Cannes and seem not only intelligent, charming, and worldly, but also fucking happy about being there. That I’ll have to swallow my pain and deflect any questions about why Maeve isn’t with me. Something that should make me so happy is making me feel like I’ve been dunked under water and I’m unable to breathe.

“Hey,” Charlie says, my door whining as he opens it. “You decent?”

That sort of silly commentary would usually make me laugh. I pull up the covers, further burying me and Eustace. “Yeah.”

He pads his way over to me and jumps into bed. “So…can I sleep here tonight?”

My heart jolts a little. He’s up to something, clearly, but I don’t have the energy to find out what it is. “Sure.”

“Cool, ’cause, uh, I was in my room and I heard those creepy loud footsteps you’re always talking about. I—yeah, I really do think your house infested by a demon.”

Amazingly, this fills me with both body-wracking fear and excitement. I’d been—I’d been trying to convince Maeve that the haunting was real for months, even though she said believing in ghosts was like believing in fairies. But she’d always listen to my theories and stories anyway. “Cool.”

“It’s not cool,” Charlie says, his voice getting higher. “It’s fucking freaky, but I feel safer with you here, you lump, so thank you.”

“No problem.”

He wraps his arms around me, pushing up against me so we share body heat. It relaxes my shoulders. “I think you should talk to Maeve.”

I wince like Charlie’s carving Maeve’s name into me instead of rubbing my back. “Don’t go there, Charlie.”

“I mean I don’t think she even knows why she’s asking for this break.” It’s unlike him to be this bold. But I can’t summon the energy to leave this conversation. “I mean, all this over a scheduling conflict and you two touched each other’s nerves. It’s nothing a conversation can’t fix.”

As if I don’t know that. As if I haven’t tried to rationalize it that way all week. “Yet she’s been radio silent for days. If she wanted to resolve things, she would’ve reached out.”

“Okay, so she’s taken her sweet time to cool off. That doesn’t mean—”

I whip around, tears burning in my eyes. “Just drop it, okay? There’s nothing I can do to fix this. Let me mourn this relationship in peace. I have to get ready to go to Cannes and build upon the one aspect of my life that’s going well.”

“What even happened in your fight? Like, where exactly did you two leave off?”

My heartbeat picks up just thinking about it. “I thought she was pissed, and she was, but it was—it was like she was disappointed in me. Like I’m one of her fucking students. She said that I—that I wasn’t listening to her.”

“About what?”

“Her, I don’t know. Being sad that I didn’t tell her about Cannes.”

Charlie stares at me, long and hard. “Okay. That seems very normal.”

“She’s been against the celebrity thing since we met. Then with the Oscars—”

“Which she went to and told both of us she enjoyed.”

“She just…” I pause, taking a deep breath. “She won’t forgive me. What’s space going to do? She’ll end it just like Emily did.”

Charlie takes his own deep breath. “Val, you’re not going to want to hear this, but look at me.” His blue eyes have never seemed brighter. “You need to be honest with her. But more than that, you need to face your fears. Maeve isn’t Emily. Emily was an asshole who never respected you and was looking for any excuse to get out of a relationship with you and look like the victim doing it. But you’re not in England right now. Years have passed, and Maeve is a new person. You’re not in a relationship where you know the ending. You get to learn another person’s whole set of flaws and methods. And, if Maeve’s also a good girlfriend, she’ll do the same for you. And it seems like she is trying to do that! She literally told you what hurt her about what you did. Yes, this could’ve been resolved without her needing a break, but that’s her own shit. So tell her you’re sorry and try to bridge the gap.”

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