Page 79 of The Rom-Commers

“She fell on me, okay? It happens! Sometimes objects in space collide with each other!”

“Do they ever,” Margaux said, justluxuriatingin innuendo, clearly enjoying this.

“I didn’t do anything!” Charlie said. Clearly not.

“I support you,” Margaux said. “It’s past time you released the ghost of our relationship.”

“There’s no ghost—and there’s nothing to support,” Charlie insisted, like he’d never heard anything more ridiculous. “She’s nobody. Just a writer. A failed writer, in fact. A person with a tragic past who Logan asked me to work with. Briefly. As a personal favor. She has no job, no money, and absolutely nothing going for her. She’s leaving as soon as we’re done, and I’ll never see her again. So don’t turn this into a whole thing, okay?”

I held very still.

The words were bad, but the tone of voice was worse.

So eye-rolly. So devoid of warmth. So authentically dismissive. As if there were truly no topic less interesting and less important than me.

There was a good writing lesson in there—that being dismissed is worse than being scorned. In a different frame of mind, I might have paused to think about it: Of coursenot matteringis worse. It means you didn’t even register. It means you’re not even worth getting mad about. It means you’reliterally nobody.

Was this how Charlie really felt about me?

I thought about Charlie’s tell—how good he was at pretending the things that mattered didn’t matter.

I felt tempted to hope he was pretending.

But the thing was, he just didn’t seem like he was.

More important: What was more likely—that I was important to Charlie? Or that I would engage in complex emotional gymnastics to wrongly convince myself that I was? Connecting dots that “didn’t need, or want, to be connected.”

This wasn’t the first time he’d said these things, after all. He’d voiced all of this to Logan when I first got here. Nothing here should be a surprise. But that was before he’d read my stuff and then asked me to stay. Before we’d worked together. And lived together. Before he’d revived me from fainting, and googled my heart attack, and used the worddazzling. Had nothing changed for him? Had nothing shifted at all?

Just a writer. A failed writer.

If he was acting, he’d missed his calling.

One thing was for sure. I wasn’t going to wait around here to find out.

Seventeen

THE NEXT DAYwas, of all things, my birthday.

I woke up feeling deeply homesick.

I’d driven around until midnight the night before, in that hostile way you embrace your independence after you’ve been rejected:Fine. Whatever. I never cared, anyway.

I cranked the music up too loud. I left the windows down. I burned all Charlie’s gas and did not refill the tank. I kept my phone turned off so that if Charlie wanted to find me, I was plainly unavailable.

I didn’t turn it back on until I was crawling into bed.

And then only to check for texts from Sylvie, or my dad, or anyone I actually cared about. Though I did happen to tangentially notice in the process that nothing had come in from Charlie, either.

Not that I was looking.

It was all so odd. Charlie’s saying those things should not have smarted so much. Three weeks ago, I didn’t even know this guy. My life had been fine then, and—for the record—it was still fine now. In the big picture:better than fine, in fact. My dad was in good health. Sylvie was performing her duties respectably. I was in LA living a personal dream I never thought I’d get anywhere close to.

I wasKILL N IT, as Logan’s license plate would say.

Whateveritwas.

I should be grateful! I should be delighted! I should be happy!

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