Page 67 of The Pairing

“It’s the same thing.”

This is absolutely the wrong thing to say to Sloane in any context, but I’m not currently my best self.

“It’s actually fucking not, Theo,” Sloane says acidly. “It’smymoney. Did you seriously just—do you think I have what I have because of Mom and Dad?”

I shrug. “I mean, it doesn’t hurt.”

“Let me remind you that I am agoodfucking actor.” Her expression is dead serious, the way it gets when we really fight, when I’ve actually managed to wound her. A pang of guilt and self-loathing shoots through me. “I studied. I did Shakespeare. I fucking did workshops, and I am very expensive, and directors want to work with me—”

“I know, I know, that’s not what I meant—”

“—and you know what I don’t have to do? I don’t have to show my tits unless I want to. I never had to play Crying Girl Number Two just to get my name on a desk. I don’t have to put up with any bullshit. And that’s because I am very fucking talented,andI know how to use what we have, so you could be a little more grateful for it.”

“Iamgrateful,” I say, sounding awful even in my own ears. “I know I’m lucky. But I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to be fucking Chet Hanks. I don’t want to be another jerk-off with a trust fund and a famous family who gets them embarrassing gigs at fucking influencer festivals in Ibiza.”

“Well, it’s better than being broke on purpose so you can feel morally superior.”

I feel her words like a punch.

“Jesus, Sloane, that’s a bit fucking harsh.”

Sloane sighs. The rollers in her hair wobble. “Look, Theo, I love you. But you get in your own way. You have this—this nepotism chip on your shoulder, and you make your life harder on purpose just to prove to yourself that you’re not what you are. But you’re a Flowerday. You have options other people would fucking kill for. You’re just too proud to use them.”

I hate this. I hate that I don’t have anything to say in response.

“The offer stands,” Sloane says. “Let me know if you changeyour mind.”

She hangs up, leaving me alone on Castle Hill, feeling worse than I did before I called. And I was feeling pretty fucking shitty.

You get in your own way.

Kit said the exact same words to me in the fight that ended our relationship. I can hear the jet engines rumbling, the crinkle of a biscuit wrapper. I can see the look on his face when he said it, the gentle fucking pity.

I worry that sometimes you get in your own way.

This is why I had to keep myself away: As soon as I look into Kit’s big sparkly brown eyes, I forget that I had every right to be angry.

The aftermath of our breakup may not have been Kit’s fault, but it doesn’t change the fact that the breakupwas.He did what he did, and he said what he said on that plane, because he thought he could decide how my life ought to be.

That’s what everyone thinks, isn’t it? Everyone thought I should be in the family business until I was in front of a camera. Everyone thinks I need to be saved from myself, like I don’t know I’m a fuckup. I know. Iknow.Every day I wake up in the town I grew up in, and I put on my boots and roll up my sleeves and work so hard to be pretty good at a few things, because I know I’d fuck up anything bigger. I would be so much braver if I was someone I could trust.

But what’s the point of trying not to be a fuckup, if everyone thinks I’m one anyway? If I’m ruining my life, there are more pleasurable ways to do it.

I climb down Castle Hill and wander into bars, one after another until I find a guy who looks enough like Kit. After a few rounds, I pull him into the bathroom and put my hands in his hair. I laugh until I mean it.

I won’t ask anyone for help. And I sure as shit won’t ask Kit for love.

I’m the wrong Flowerday for Monaco, but today, I’ll be good atit.

Everything about this place, from the marble palace to the luxury cars, screams Este. The Princess Grace of it all, the pink glow of family money. My baby sister would swan into Monte Carlo and giggle over Dom Pérignon until someone invited her back to the VIP suite. She’d pick out the archduke of whatever made-up principality by clocking his Loro Piana cashmere baseball cap and be on a yacht by lunch, sun shining on that Flowerday strawberry blond hair.

Fuck it. I could do that for a day.

I slept like shit and woke up feeling like I do riding my longboard home after a long day of inventory: delirious, clammy, careening too fast, head swimming in languages I can’t speak. On the bus, I pulled my bucket hat down low so Kit wouldn’t try to talk to me for the thirty minutes between Nice and Monaco for today’s day trip, and now I’m sitting at our four-course champagne brunch, pretending not to listen as Kit explains our dessert to Dakota and Montana.

I watch the cream sploosh out of the strawberry mille-feuille under my fork and think it looks like me, like how there’s barely room left for me in my body. I’m a splat on the plate of life. If I’m nothing, I could be anything. I could be the car crash I’m always trying not to be. I could be one more renegade nepo baby in Monaco.

When Kit glances across the table at me, I smile, all teeth. I finish my champagne in one go and let the buzz take over.

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