Page 103 of Friend Me

“Austin?” It didn’t compute. He’d just moved from Austin less than a year ago. He’d said it was his dream to work for Jackson in San Francisco.

“I’m sorry, honey. I’m sure he’ll call to tell you about it. I hear it’s a great job. Director-level, and he’s not even thirty. Jackson’s working on a counteroffer, but I don’t know that Tyler will take it. He had to have a reason to ask Jamila for a job.”

My face was wet, and I couldn’t tell if it was rain or tears or both.

“Marlee, are you okay?”

“Fine.”

“You don’t sound fine. Do you need to put your head between your knees?”

“No.” But standing wasn’t working out for me. I squatted right there in the courtyard in my heels and my skirt and no coat. I hoped no one was watching me lose it.

“Talk to me. Or I’m going to come over there and make you talk.”

I gripped my phone as if it could save me from drowning. “Before my dad fell, Tyler and I—I told him how I felt. But he didn’t believe me.”

“You told him what?”

“I love him, okay? Like, not friends-love like I love you. Love-love, like you love Jackson.”

Her inhale was loud. “You love him.”

“But he—but I—Cooper was there, and it was awful. And then my dad went into the hospital, and now this.”

“Oh.” She was quiet for a few seconds. “You know what you have to do, right?”

“I have to call him. I should’ve done it before, but I—”

“I know. You had a lot on your mind. He’ll understand.”

* * *

He didn’t understand.

At least, that was the conclusion I had to draw. Seventeen texts and six voice mails—including one that I left after one too many glasses of wine where Imayhave sung “I See the Light” fromTangled—without a response was a pretty clear message.

But the clearest was his two-word response at the end of my one-sided text conversation.

Tyler: I can’t.

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