In like?
Nothing fit when it came to Brighton, including Charlotte’s denial to Sloane, but she didn’t know how to explain that without getting into their whole messy, ugly, humiliating history. So she just shrugged and changed the subject.
“What about you?” she asked.
Sloane snorted. “Me?”
Charlotte stayed silent. She suddenly realized she had no idea how to really do this—inquire about Sloane’s innermost feelings. That was usually Sloane’s role, asking questions or offering stories. Charlotte usually just listened.
When Sloane said nothing else, Charlotte took a deep breath and tried to imagine what Brighton would say. Or, even better, what Bonnie Fairbrook would say.
“I just think Wes is really nice,” she finally said.
Sloane laughed. “You too, huh?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean my entire family thinks I fucked that one up,” Sloane said.
“Did you?”
Right away, Charlotte knew it was the wrong thing to say. Sloane stilled, blinked down at her plate of bacon and figs, her jaw tight.
Charlotte pressed her eyes closed for a second. “Sloane, I—”
“No, no, I get it. You’re Team Wes.”
“I’m not,” Charlotte said. “I can just see he cares for you, and—”
“You canseeit?” Sloane said, starting to slap her appetizer together, goat cheese leaking from her rolls. “Charlotte, you don’t see anything but your own—”
Sloane closed her mouth, but Charlotte heard the end of her sentence anyway. Charlotte’s face flushed with shame, withsomething deeper than any emotion she could name. Her chest tightened, thinking back through her entire relationship with Sloane, how one-sided it had all been.
Sloane asked all the questions.
She offered the stories.
And Charlotte just…
What? Nodded. Shrugged. Smiled even when she didn’t feel like it. Moved them on to work, work, and more work.
God, she was so bad at love.
Bad at people in general.
And what was worse, she knew she could fix it, or at least start to mend this huge gap in their two-year friendship by sharing something, anything, about herself. But everything about herself—from her relationship with her mother to her failed engagement—felt unlovable. Leavable and forgettable, the real heart of Charlotte Donovan.
She didn’t want Sloane to see how completely inconsequential she was.
She wanted to be seen as strong, as immovable, untouchable. Because if that’s how people saw her, that’s what she’d be. And she’d never have to feel inadequate again, never have to feel that innatesomethingthat was missing inside her, thatsomethingthat made people leave her and forget her so goddamn easily.
Even though she knew that what had happened between her and Brighton wasn’t that simple, that she shared blame—what of Anna? What of her own mother, who barely looked at her, barely talked to her, even when she was a child?
She should say all of that now. She wanted to, she did, but she couldn’t get the words to form on her tongue, all those ugly truths about herself.
“I’m sorry” was all she managed to say.
She couldn’t wait for what Sloane would say back either. Instead, she simply turned and hurried to the back of the restaurant, through the kitchen, where Dorian and Manish had stolen away to talk with their heads bent close. Manish frowned when he saw her.
