Page 93 of The Rom-Commers

My eyes flashed. “Don’t use a romance term against me!”

“You’re the one who taught it to me!”

“Are you really this cynical?” I asked. “Do you really think that love doesn’t exist? Or are you just saying dialogue that sounds good? Because if you really think love is something Hallmark made up to sell greeting cards, then we should just burn this screenplay right now. The last thing the world needs is another shitty rom-com. Produced or unproduced.”

“I believehormonesexist,” Charlie said then. “And I believe kindness exists. And affection. And altruism, sometimes. And longing. And I believe that every now and then those things can show up at once and knock you out of your senses for a while. But it’s random. It’s like the weather. It’s not something we all should be aspiring to. Or counting on. It comes and it goes, whether you like it or not. And then one day, you tell your wife the results of your biopsy, and she tells you she wants a divorce.”

Oof.

“So you’re bitter,” I said.

“Yes. Absolutely. But I’m also realistic.”

“And you’re lonely.”

“No argument there. But I’m also honest. And I’m not going to get out there and spin cotton-candy fantasies for gullible people who don’t know that’s not how life works.”

“How does life work?”

“People love you for a little while—when it’s convenient for them—and then they move on.”

“Not everybody’s like that.”

“But there are no guarantees.”

“There are no guarantees for anything!” I said. “Would you rather cancel hope altogether than risk the possibility of being disappointed?”

“Thecertaintyof being disappointed,” Charlie corrected.

I sighed. “But don’t you see how if you decide that’s the way it is, then it can’t be any other way?”

“I don’t make the rules.”

“We all make the rules—all the time.”

“I just can’t make myself believe in a total fiction like that.”

I felt so baffled. “But you’re—a fiction writer.”

“Not that kind of fiction, I guess.”

“Then you should write something else.”

“I can’t write something else! I can’t write anything at all.”

“That’s your problem, right there.”

“Don’t tell me what my problem is.”

“Your problem,” I said, “is that you can’t say no to everything,” I went on, “and say yes at the same time. You can’t cancel one emotion without canceling them all. You can’thate love—not without hating every other feeling, too. Stories existfor the emotions they create—and you can’t write them if you can’t feel them. This screenplay is a chance for you. You can makeanythinggood”—I was almost pleading now—“but you can’t make it good without believing in it. You can’t bring this story to life without coming to life yourself.”

This was my bid. This was my shot.

But I missed.

Charlie refused to take my meaning. His response just off-gassed disdain. “And you want me to come to life byline dancing?”

Why was contempt so hard to counter?

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