Page 37 of Perfect on Paper

“—and she won’t even miss Austin and Ally.”

“Who are Austin and Ally?”

“That’s what we were going to call our twin babies.” I stabbed a fork into my mac and cheese, then stabbed again.

“No, as your sister, I would not allow you to name your kids after a TV couple, that iswildlycreepy and gross.”

“It would’ve been adorable and nostalgic by then, but you know what? It doesn’t matter, because now Austin and Ally aredead.”

“Dark.”

I wiped my nose on the back of my hand. “This is allwrong.I hate this.”

“I know. Have some mac and cheese.”

I did, and it was goddamn delicious, but it didn’t fix anything. It just made my throat feel gluggy.

“Maybe we should head off soon,” Ainsley suggested. “You look like shit and I don’t wanna get home too late. Do you think Brougham will mind?”

Brougham.

Suddenly, I remembered the extra texts that had been sitting on my phone. I scrolled through my messages. There was mine to Brougham telling him we were gonna be behind doing the rapids. A text from him saying no worries. Another text with his location. A third message asking if I was off yet. A fourth message saying things were feeling off with Winona, but he couldn’t figure out why. A fifth, with his updated location, and a plea for help. Then a response from Ainsley, telling him we needed a dinner break—she’d obviously not read his previous messages. And, finally, one more from Brougham.

Winona just ditched me

My sniffles cut off as I read his message, and all my sadness was replaced with horrified guilt and frustrated rage. “Are youfuckingkidding me?” I hissed, then I picked my tray up and slammed it down on the table. “WHY IS LOVE DEAD?”

Now everyone reallywasstaring. A few parents were glancing nervously between me and their precious, innocent children. I shot them all a dirty glare. “Don’t blame me! I’m not the one whomurdered Cupid!”

“All right, let’s go,” Ainsley said brightly, grabbing me by the arm and dragging me, still loudly ranting about the injustice of it all, away from the café before anyone could call security on us.

NINE

It was getting close to dinnertime for regular people now, and the restaurants around us were filled to the brim with diners and people cutting through to get somewhere else, all lit up by warm orange lights. The music from a number of different lands all mingled together at this crossroads, a mishmash of flutes and trumpets, smothered by the chatter of hundreds of strangers. Ainsley and I pushed past several families hovering smack in the middle of the walkways as we fought our way across the bridge to get back to the entrance to Pixar Pier.

Not far from the flashing lights of the Pixar Pier sign, Brougham stood with folded arms, leaning against the stone base of a towering, Victorian-style lamppost. Behind him, flashing lights in every color reflected on the black water beneath the pier.

Leaving Ainsley, I joined him wordlessly and stood facing the water, leaning my elbows on the ornate, swirling metal top of the barrier. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“We didn’t fight or anything.” His voice was measured.

I turned around to face the same way as Brougham andleaned my back against the barrier. “Oh?” I’d been expecting him to bring up my disappearance. I guessed he had bigger things to worry about.

“Yeah. It was just bad luck. We started running out of things to talk about, and she was doing her one-word answer thing, then she ran into some friends of hers, and they wanted to go on some rides together and stuff. So, she asked if I minded her going home with them.”

“What did you say?”

“I said it was fine, of course. What else was I gonna say?”

“Is it fine?”

“Totally. She’s allowed to do whatever she wants.” His tone seemed a little too airy. Then his eyes caught mine, and a touch of uncertainty flashed across his face. “Do you think I did something wrong?”

The realistic answer was: “Hard to say, I couldn’t hear everything from where I was,” or, “Possibly, it’s a minefield dating someone you’ve dated before,” or, “Wouldn’t surprise me, given my experience with you and what it seems like it would be like to date you.”

But none of those answers were constructive right this minute, and though he was doing an excellent job at pretending otherwise, I had a feeling he was bruised. So, I said, “Nah, I’m sure it was just what it looked like. She saw her friends, and wanted to hang with them. You couldn’t have helped that.”

“Right. It’s normal to wanna hang with your friends.”

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