Page 101 of The Charm Offensive
“How do you mean?”
“Fairy tales aren’t real. Happily ever afters aren’treal. I’ve been clinging to these false romantic ideals—theseheteronormativeromantic ideals about marriage and monogamy and domesticity—my entire life, and maybe it’s time I stop basing my ideas about love on these fabricated narratives. I’m happy now. I’m healthy. I’ve signed with an agent for my script. I’m pursuing my goals. Why have I let the world convince me I’m not enough without romance?”
Alex leans forward and sets their mug on the table between them. “I’m not sure I agree,” they say slowly, “that happily ever afters aren’t real, or that romantic ideals are inherently heteronormative.”
It’s the most definitive statement they’ve ever made, and Dev’s eyes dart to the wedding band on Alex’s finger. He wonders, not for the first time, who waits at home for his therapist during these 7 p.m. sessions. “But you’re right, Dev. You don’t need romantic love to be complete or to be happy. If you don’t want those things, then”—Alex waves their hands as if they’re casting a magic spell—“you don’t want them. But I want to make sure you’re giving up on your old romantic idealsbecauseyou don’t want them. Not because you think you don’t deserve them.”
He imagines a house, a puzzle on the coffee table, plants by the windows. The mug has gone cold against Dev’s fingers. “If I ask you something, will you answer it honestly?”
Alex’s mouth tugs down at the corners, but they nod.
“Do you watchEver After?”
“My wife does,” Alex says honestly, and Dev’s surprised. “Every Monday night. She has a whole watch party. There are brackets involved. And a lot of wine.”
Dev smiles. “Sounds right.”
“If I askyoua question, will you answer it honestly?” Alex quirks an eyebrow at him from across the office.
Dev nods.
“Do you still fall asleep listening to his old voicemails every night?”
He’s healthier, but he’s not perfect, and he slips back into humor when it’s all he can do to keep his heart from breaking. “You know, Alex, sometimes you make it very difficult for me to love you.”
When the session ends, he exits through an empty waiting room, walks past a stack of magazines on a corner table. He knows not to look. He looks anyway. TheUs Weeklyright on top has a picture of his face, and Dev feels the familiar pain in his ribs as his heart pushes past the boundaries he’s built for it. The face on the cover is tired, pained. The caption reads, “Will Charlie Winshaw Get his Fairy-Tale Ending?”
He knows not to pick it up. He picks it up anyway. There, in the corner, is a small photo inlaid with a white border. Him and Daphne, shoulder to shoulder, huddled under a polka-dotted umbrella, smiling at each other. A second caption: “Happily Ever After?”
One picture, three words, and it cuts through all his feigned indifference. He sobs in his therapist’s waiting room, then sobs in his car, then drives in circles around Raleigh until he can go home without looking like he sobbed at all.
When he walks into his parents’ house a little after nine, they’re both sitting on the couch trying too hard to be natural. The factthat they’re both reading books is a dead giveaway, but there is also the bottle of wine on the coffee table, the remote control askew on the arm of the couch, his mother’s flushed look of guilt as proof. They were watching. They watch every Monday night when he’s out of the house. His best guess is they do it out of some mixture of curiosity and a desire to protect him, but he’s too wrung out at the moment from crying to care.
His dad looks up from his book as if he were so engrossed in it, he didn’t hear Dev come in. “Oh. Hey, there. You’re home.”
“Devy,” his mother says, “how was therapy?”
“You know, the printer is making that noise again,” his dad cuts in. “Do you think you could take a look at it?”
“Do you want dinner? There are leftovers in the fridge.”
Living with his parents at twenty-eight is exhausting, but they’re both trying so hard. And Dev is trying so hard to accept their efforts.
He promises to look at the printer tomorrow, heats up the leftovers and eats them over the kitchen sink, then kisses his mother on the cheek before he goes to bed.
In his room, he imagines he’ll close the door and somehow feel stronger than he actually does. He’ll feel indifferent to what night it is and to the photo on the magazine cover and everything else.
He doesn’t, though, and instead he pulls the jean jacket out of the closet where he keeps it tucked away. He climbs into his bed, curls himself into a tight ball, and pulls out his phone.
In the first month after Dev left Macon, Charlie called every day, leaving short messages. Small, sad, desperate pleas.
“Please call me back. I just want to talk.”
“I love you, and you love me. It’s that simple, Dev.”
“I am trying to respect your health, but I can’t walk away from us.”
“Hey, it’s me. Just reaching out. I’m going to keep reaching, Dev. I will never stop reaching.”
