“I think that’s kinda the point,” Kitty said. “You have to work through your shit. Be at peace with your mind.”
I planted her with a look. “This, from the least peaceful person I know.”
She held up her hands. “I’m not sayingIdo yoga. I’m saying that’s why people like it.” She examined her nails and blew on them. “It’s not our fault we have a more expanded emotional capacity than the rest of society. We feel things bigger.”
“Ah, but see, there’s the difference between you and me,” I said. “Your parents let you have emotions. I had them, but I wasnot allowed to show them. That’s why you get paid the big bucks to be a walking emotion, and I get paid the sorta-big bucks to remove emotion from things and focus on the facts.”
“That’s such a sweet way to talk about us. We really are made for each other,” she said with a simper. “Oh! You used to like running! That’s both aggressive and relaxing, right? And you could just put on your shoes and go!”
“I did for like . . . a month junior year. Mostly because I had a crush on the head of the running club. Then I figured out boys run faster and are fucking annoying about running.”
Kitty looked smug. “I think somebody’s making excuses. Go now.”
I moped at the dark window next to me. “It’s dark out. Also, ew, why are you picking on me?”
“Because there was a time when you picked on me for being sad.”
When Kitty broke up with her eventual husband, I took it upon myself to manage her emotional recovery. Why? Probably because I wished someone had done that for me when I dumped Colt. But, you know, an upbringing full of stuffing down emotions so other people could thrive didn’t let me accept that sort of care even when it was offered to me. Who could have known that I was sad? I was just now letting myself lean on others. Mostly Colt, because he was forcing me to.
Okay, maybe it felt a little nice to be cared for.
I got back to my bickering with Kitty.
“Excuse me, I also ate junk food, listened to breakup songs, and watched bad romcoms with you,” I objected.
“And you made me go to parties sometimes, and go be brave when I really didn’t want to.”
I pointed at her with a diamond in my tweezers and, annoyingly, it tumbled onto the sticky mat below. “It was good for you.”
“Yeah, and maybe I’m telling you what’s good for you now,” Kitty argued, then looked up at the roof of her trailer. “They’re paging me. I gotta get back on set. Talk again soon?”
“Yes, please. Love you.”
“Love you too, bestie.”
TWENTY-TWO
COLTON
OCTOBER | IN THE AIR
“Cap. Hellooooo, Cap?”
I held up a finger. “One second.”
“He’s too busy reading his pornography,” Royce said.
“Who could blame him? It can be enthralling,” Sorrento mused.
My eyes scanned through the rest of the page, my finger tracing the sections I wanted to highlight. I’d graduated to an e-reader after the first everybody-comment-on-what-Colton’s-reading debacle. Plus, the thing could hold so many books! And I could just buy them without making time to go to a bookstore? Wild.
But like, support your local bookseller too.
I planned to as soon as I was back in Columbus, with Violet by my side. I had to pinch myself. Violet was back in my life.
I was on my third book of the week, racing to get plenty of material for Violet to read and choose from. Did they still give out pizzas for reading books? I would’ve had so many pizzas.
It was the most I’d ever read in my life—outside of those few years I went to an Ivy League and had to actually actlike it.
