Page 22 of The Rom-Commers

“It was the best plan I could come up with.”

“Well, it was a shitty plan!”

“I see that now. I definitely see that now. But he needed to meet you, Emma.”

“There are lots of ways to meet people. Coffee! Brunch! Dinner!”

“Would you have flown all the way across the country for a coffee?”

“With Charlie Yates?Yes!Hell, yes!”

“Ah,” Logan said. “Well, I didn’t—fully—understand that. I thought you needed… a push.”

Unacceptable. “You manipulated me.” Then I added, “I gave up my whole life, and I left everyone I love for nothing.Worsethan for nothing! For humiliation! For crushing disappointment!” I glanced over at Charlie. “For you to lie to this asshole about his apocalyptically shitty screenplay and tell him that I loved it!”

We all let that land.

Then Logan said, “You heard us?”

“The door didn’t close.”

Somewhere in the yard, a bird decided to tweet.

Then Logan said, “Just come inside and let’s all talk.”

But that was the other thing. Seeing that video made me overwhelmingly homesick. “I don’t want to talk,” I said. “He doesn’t want me here, and you never should have brought me here.” Then I added, “I just want to go home.”

I pelted Logan’s phone and keys onto Charlie Yates’s lawn, and then I grabbed my bags and started dragging them away, the broken wheel on my carry-on screeching in protest.

“Hey,” Logan said, following me. “You don’t even know where you are.”

I kept walking.

“Look,” Logan went on, “I know I did this all wrong. But at heart, I’m right. Charlie needs you. And you need him.”

“He already said no. Like fifty times. In no uncertain terms.”

Logan nodded. “Okay, that’s true. He did say no. But he can change his mind. And the only person who can make him do that is you.”

But I just kept walking.

“Emma,” Logan pleaded. “Help me do this for you.”

“I don’t want to,” I said, keeping my eyes straight ahead. “And I’m not going to. I’m leaving. And then I’ll find a fancy hotel that I cannot afford—and send you the bill. I’m going to take a scorchingly hot bath and eat everything out of the minibar. And then tomorrow? I’m going back home where I belong—to see if Sylvie can get her internship back. And then I’ll start finding another career. Because you’re the only person I knew in LA. And we’re not friends anymore.”

Six

THAT WAS Apretty strong exit. Right?

I spoke my piece, and ended on a zinger strong enough that they both mutely watched me walk off. I felt their eyes on me all the way down the street, as my broken carry-on wheel bewailed every step I took—and I held my head high until I was out of sight.

Though as soon as they couldn’t see me, I felt the air that was holding up my lungs—and my posture, and my remaining shreds of dignity— release itself… and I deflated like a balloon.

That’s how I walked after that: slumped, lopsided, lost.

I’ll just call an Uber and go to a hotel, I told myself, in an attempt at a pep talk.

But I’d never called an Uber. I didn’t even have the app on my phone. And I’d never been to LA. I hadn’t traveled outside the five-mile radius of my apartment in almost a decade. How would I even find a hotel? I was alone, I had no idea where I was, and I was too humiliated to turn around.

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