Page 90 of I Love My Mistake

Jess laughs and raises her cocktail. “To Nicole’s show coming up!!”

Amber raises hers fast, excited and happy for me. “To Nicole’s show!”

I pick up the Social Smoker and say, in a flat, dry tone, looking at my glass, my eyes heavy, “To The New Yorker.”

“What?!!!” “Oh my God!!!” “You’re kidding!!” “The fucking New YORKER?!!”

I nod, emotionless. I don’t even feel scared. I just feel… nothing. “Yep. The fucking New Yorker.”

We clink glasses and I down the whole thing. I set it on the table and look at their widened stares. “What? It’s a celebration, isn’t it?”

Amber exchanges a look with Jess, but Jess just grins, ignoring my mood. To acknowledge it would mean we’d talk about the thing we haven’t talked about since that night at Angel’s Share. “Wow. This is really happening.”

I frown, circling the rim of my empty glass with my finger. “What if they hate me?”

Jessica reaches forward, her hand flat on the table. She slaps it down. “Hey! They wouldn’t be coming if you weren’t ah-mazing. I’m sure the guy who owns the gallery – what’s his name?”

“Jack Fleming.”

“I’m sure Jack Fleming wouldn’t be sullying his rep for someone he didn’t believe in.”

I shrug.

Amber nods, looking back and forth between us as she takes over. “This whole nervous thing you’ve got going on…you know what it tells me?”

I shake my head, eyeing her suspiciously. “No, what?”

“It tells me you care. You care a lot. And that’s why you’re so scared. Remember when you guys helped me paint my office?”

Jess and I both say, “Yeah.”

“Remember how nervous I was?”

Jess and I say again, “Yeah.”

“And what did you tell me?”

My mind is blank.

Jess knows the answer, because Jess is the one who said it. She has a guru side to her that surprises you when you least expect it. She hits the table again as she remembers. “I said, you’re only scared because you’re meeting up with where you’re supposed to be!”

Amber points in the air and nods dramatically. “Yep! That’s what you said.”

I look at her, not amused or entertained. “Jess said it.”

Jessica ignores my tone again, which is beginning to annoy me. “I can’t believe I forgot about that. God, how long ago was that? Never mind. That’s not the point. The point is this!”

She’s being her normal funny self, but I’m not feeling it. It almost seems like she’s trying to be funny, like she’s trying to pretend like everything is fine and I didn’t just get run over by a cupid’s bulldozer on his way somewhere else. I remember telling Mark he reminded me of her, when he was being silly like she’s being now… and a shooting pain stabs my stomach. I shift in my seat, uncomfortable.

Jessica stares at me, her voice very serious, suddenly. “When we get close to where we’re supposed to be, we get itchy. Like we want to run. It’s human nature. Getting that close to something this good? You’re aching to do something dangerous and screw the whole thing up.”

Amber looks to me.

I shift my weight again, looking toward the stripes on the walls. I shrug. “I’m not doing that. I’m fine. The show will come and go and the world will continue to turn.” I’m lying, of course. Jess knows this. Amber would, too, but she’s too busy thinking about how this pertains to her.

Amber’s face crimps up. “I never do that.”

My head whips to her. “Seriously?”

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