Chapter Two
Now — Late September
Lately, I’ve been bingeing Todrick Hall, Orville Peck, Phillip Phillips, Camila Cabello, Lizzo, and Arctic Monkeys. Not just during my walks to and from work, either.
Pretty much all the time.
Even my soul can’t make up its goddamned mind what to feel. I swing between sun-melting rage and soul-shriveling grief.
There are nights I think about swishing into some leather bar, tossing back a couple of shots of Patron, waltzing up to the butchest leather Daddy in the place, and promising him I can rock his damned world if he’ll only shut off my brain for a few hours.
Then there are the nights when all I want to do is curl up in bed with my sketch book and draw.
Except I think I’m going to sketch a design idea and then, invariably, Leo, or some landmark in DC, drifts out of my pencils, and my heart shatters again. It’s like automatic writing. As if my soul’s on autopilot and still stuck in our nation’s capital.
Probably because it still is.
And then I cry.
I frequently find myself frantically shaking my right wrist only to remember that, no, I don’t have my bracelet anymore.
Maybe I should have kept it, but that would have hurt even more, I think. To know Leo wanted me, yet I walked away because there’s no way in hell Elliot will ever want me.
You’d think I’d be used to rejection, but this one hurts even worse than losing my parents.
Explainthatone to me, because I don’t know the answer.
Mimi’s cookbooks and recipe box sit, untouched, on the counter where I put them over three weeks ago, when I unpacked them from one of the suitcases I brought with me from DC.
I can’t bring myself to cook. What the hell would I do with all that food, anyway? I barely feel like eating. I survive on soup, fruit, canned chicken, and ramen noodles.
Ironically, not too far off the mark from Elliot during his worst days. All I need is cereal, frozen pizzas, and TV dinners, and I’m the vice president.
Minus the hunky suits following me around.
And the caring Sir to watch over me.
I also burn between agony that I was a fucking dumbass to walk away from Leo, and seething hatred at Elliot for him wasting Leo’s time and mine when he’s got the perfect fucking guyrightthe hell in front of him.
Then he could’ve had me as a bonus. All he had to do was trust Leo.
I mean, isn’t that what this boils down to? That Elliot can’t fucking trust Leo to set the course for all three of us to follow?
In that case, Elliot should let Leo go, so someone who really appreciates Leo can take care of him.
Make him happy.
A bitch like me, of course.
Igetit—I did this to myself.
Totally own that.
Elliot isn’t blameless, though.
Guess I should’ve known Leo wouldn’t fight for me to stay. I mean, yeah, he asked me to stay.
I’d hoped he’dorderme to stay.
