“I—” Suddenly, my plan sounded juvenile. “I was going to spread rumors about myself. She said once that I’d never understand what it felt to wonder if everyone’s whispering about you.”
“Fun!” Carmen said. “Whatcha got?”
Maybe it wasn’t as silly as I thought. Maybe it was just the right kind of petty to show Nina I knew I’d messed up.
Together, Carmen and I wrote down snappy comments about me.Lincoln’s biggest accomplishment: mansplaining Photoshop shortcuts.She laughed out loud, her curly ash hair bouncing. And I raised her with aLincoln has a small penis. He doesn’t even use it well.Then came,Lincoln uses AI for his graphics, andFor Lincoln, Helvetica isn’t just a font, it’s a lifestyle,and my favorite,Lincoln can’t rebrand for shit without a Canva subscription. Carmen added a couple of additional jabs, but we had a good spread.
We stuck them to the most visible places in the staff lounge so no one would miss them. Let the rumor mill run wild. As we rode the elevator up toward the office space, I asked Carmen if she thought that’d even out some of what I’d done in high school.
She scoffed. “Not even close, man.” She pressed the eleventh floor bottom. “But it’ll for sure make her laugh when I show her the pictures later today.”
“You guys are meeting?” I asked, forcing myself not to dip my shoulders.
“Yes, Reality Bites. I’m taking two hours off so I don’t have to listen to Curt brag about my work.” She turned to me. “You should come.”
“I don’t know that I’m Nina’s favorite person right now.”
“I guarantee you’re not.”
I stared at her blankly.
“What? You gonna cry and give up?”
I shook my head. No, I needed every second around Nina I could get, especially since I couldn’t get her to change her mind on moving out, and I’d have even fewer opportunities to woo her.
“I need to ask another favor,” I said.
“You’re racking up favors, and they ain’t free, Lincoln.”
“I know. It’s for Nina.”
Her expression softened before she nodded.
“You’re good with computers, right?” I asked.
“Understatement.”
“Could you look into someone’s inheritance? What it was? Where it went?”
Carmen’s eyes glinted. “You know what? You’re not as stupid as I originally thought.”
I found no joy in her assessment, but I might have at least had another thread to make things better for Nina. Something about Vinny’s speech on safety nets and trustfunds carried a dark air to it.
I’d finishedout the workday. Carmen hadn’t been wrong about Curt. He’d sang her praises about a proposal for a new client, bragging on how hisleadershipmade it happen. Except the man had no fucking clue. He called the logo “that little thing in the corner,” and referred to the color palette as “fonts.” And he raved about how unique it was to finally have a woman, Carmen, who was good with numbers. Curt didn’t know shit, but he sure knew how to take credit.
I left the building by 5:13 p.m., dodging Natasha on my way out, and I spotted the hanging chalkboard sign of Reality Bites around 6:30 p.m. They’d closed half an hour earlier, but Lynnie had reluctantly given me a key. I paused, admiring the shop that had carved out a place for both Nina and myself, as well as for every discarded, mismatched secondhand item inside.
Slipping off my pink leopard sunglasses, I pulled out the keys and let myself in quietly. The little doorbell chime had already been switched off for the night. We weren’t on good terms after her date, and I wanted to make things right. My silly Post-its wouldn’t fix anything, but maybe they’d coax a smile from her—and, just maybe, convince her not to move out.
Closing the door behind me, I heard it. Familiar chords floated through the speakers, and I knew the song before the words even came. “Songbird.” My chest tightened, and my hand went to my ribcage, as if the notes themselves had reached in and bled onto me. Then this verse hit and my breath staggered. I didn’t just know the song, I knew her, Nina, listening to it: hair falling into her face as she looked at me with those brown pools of sorrow as if I could ease her pain. That brief fucking moment when I’d known Nina Reyes was my soulmate but hadn’t known how to handle that she needed something different than I did. From then onward, I’d stopped feeling grief, trading it for rage.
I shoved the door open and ran out into the street. Memories crashed in, filling in the blanks I’d never wanted to remember. But these were my memories. Mine again.
I blindly walked until I rounded the corner and collided with someone, both of us hitting the pavement. But what I saw wasn’t the man in front of me; it was Nina, younger, drenched, heaving and rattling on the ground with filthy jock straps around her. My stomach lurched. I knew what it was now. An attack.
Hands gripped my arms, pulling me upright even as the swirl of every rumor I’d ever started pressed down tightening into avise around my chest. All the shit I’d talked, the lies I’d fed into break rooms, the poison I’d left to eat at her—it all clawed at my skull. Fingers lifted my chin, and through the haze, I caught those sharp, unyielding charcoal eyes.
“What the fuck, Lincoln? Are you okay?” Vinny’s voice cracked through the static.
