Page 152 of The Rom-Commers

“But don’t you—need someone right now?”

“Of course! Obviously! Anyone—and everyone! Just not you.”

Charlie frowned, like that made no sense. “Why isn’tsomeonebetter thanno one?”

I sighed. Did I really have to explain this, too?

Apparently so.

“I really liked you,” I said. “And you hard-core rejected me. So seeing you doesn’t make me feel better. It makes me feelworse.”

I watched the understanding overtake him.

“There’s nothing I can do for you.” Charlie said, trying on that idea for size.

“Nothing,” I confirmed.

“Nothing,” Charlie agreed. “Not even”—and here he cringed a little, anticipating my answer—“a hug?”

I gave him a look. “To quote a famous writer we both know: ‘Absolutely not. No way in hell.’”

Charlie nodded, likeGot it.

But he was still lingering there. Like despite it all, he couldn’t bear to leave.

To be honest, I lingered, too.

Would I have liked Charlie to stay? Could I have used that hug? Was I tempted beyond description to just bring him inside and swaddle myself in his arms? Did I wish like hell that I could still feel about him the way I did before I knew how he felt about me?

All yes.

But there was no misunderstanding. I had fully, unabashedly offered myself to him, and he had clearly, plainly said no.

“The only thing you can do for me,” I said then, “is to get out of my sight and stay there.”

AND SO CHARLIEleft.

He left, and I got back to my life.

Almost—almost—as if those surreal weeks in LA had never happened.

Back at home, in our apartment, with my dad to look after, and Sylvie to ignore, and Salvador still living with us (now banished to the couch), and a whole new relationship to begin with Mrs. Otsuka, I was able to keep busy.

LA started to feel more like something I’d dreamed.

My dad spent a full ten days in the hospital, and—yes, I can hear how odd this sounds—it was a surprisingly pleasant time. That hospital was really a remarkable place. We got a surprise upgrade to a VIP room, for example, because my dad’s surgery was the ten-thousandth one they’d performed. And that room was part of some ongoing study about the impact of foliage on surgery outcomes, and so his windowsillwas filled edge to edge with jade plants, and aloe vera, and bromeliads and prayer plants. Not to mention a gorgeous leafy shrublike beauty that exactly matched the fabric of Sylvie’s tropical maxi dress calledMonstera deliciosa.

They asked us to keep them watered, so I got a little misting bottle and made one of my signature sticker charts.

And I guess this is VIP life, but the nurse’s station brought in astonishing, delicious food for lunch every day and insisted that we share with them. “It’s too much,” they insisted. “It’ll go to waste.” And so we were forced out of politeness to down steaming bowls of gourmet ramen, crunchy catfish po’boys, juicy gourmet burgers, gyros dripping with aioli.

I’m telling you, this hospital ward ate like takeout foodroyalty.

“Isn’t this expensive?” I kept asking.

“It’s the administrators.” The nurses would shrug. “They pamper us so bad.”

And who was I to argue?

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