I checked my phone. Not so much as a text from my ungrateful mother. Ungrateful for what, I wasn’t sure. It was just the first word that came to mind. But there was a text from one of my costars:There go our Oscar nods.
I felt all the blood rushing to my face.What?I unlocked my phone so I could see the whole thing.
We’ve been moved from full-length feature film to a limited-run series.
I looked up at Kyle incredulously and furiously started typing:How is that even possible?
The response:That’s showbiz, baby. The director dropped out.
I let out a low, frustrated groan as she added,I guess we’re lucky it wasn’t scrapped altogether, but still...
Kyle squeezed my shoulder. “What’s happening now?”
“As if it weren’t enough to find out that my mom, my sisters, andJackare going to be one big, happy family, I just found out that my movie is getting changed to a series, which I would usually be beyond thrilled about, but if ever there were a chance for a supporting actress Oscar, Sissy would be the character.”
I leaned over and rested my head in my hands.
Kyle ran his finger down the length of my spine, leaving goose bumps in its wake. It actually distracted me so much that for a moment, I forgot my life was falling apart around me.
“Hey,” Kyle said, and I looked up at him. He smiled and wiped away my tears, and for a second, a beat of a beat, I thought he was going to try to kiss me. But he didn’t. He simply said, “Though she be but little...”
He trailed off and raised an eyebrow at me, and I finished for him, “She is fierce.”
I was reminded again of that night in LA and that he hadn’t forgotten, either. I wondered if it meant that maybe he remembered other things, too, and if that meant something. But then I looked down at my hand and wiped the thought away. I was engaged. I was Mark’s. And that definitely meant something, something I wasn’t willing to sacrifice, no matter how this moment with Kyle made me feel.
I nodded. “I don’t feel fierce. I feel defeated.”
Kyle stood up and began pacing around the cabin. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wanted to stand up, too, have him wrap his arms around me, and put my head on his chest. It occurred to me that was wrong, that I should want Mark to do that.
“Em,” Kyle said, “it’s none of my business. It’s not my place to tell you how to run your life. I know you’re frustrated, and I know it’s hard, but sometimes, when it feels impossible, when it feels like you can’t go on for one more moment, that’s when the change is taking place; that’s when the really big things are happening.”
I sniffed and nodded. “Kind of like in a workout.”
He laughed. “Exactly. Those last reps that you push through make all the difference.”
“The weird thing is,” I said, thinking back to all those nights alone in my apartment, “I would have sworn I never wanted to get married when I first moved to LA.” I shrugged. “But I mean, that future is all I know. My mom got married and had babies, Caroline got married and had babies, Sloane got married and had babies. So I feel like I need to get married and have babies, too.”
He stopped pacing. “Wait. I thought we were talking about acting and Jack.”
I waved my hand and said, “We are, but I’m having a full-on existential life crisis right now, and I’m going to need you to keep up.”
He sat down beside me again, his eyes locked on mine, and I saw something pass through them, like maybe he had a secret he wanted to tell me. But all he said was, “Em, you’re you. You don’t have to do what they do.” He laughed under his breath. “And, I mean, I love your family, but I’m not sure storybook marriages are necessarily their forte.”
Obviously, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that Caroline’s marriage was far from a fairy tale. Everyone thought Sloane and Adam were this perfect couple, but their relationship was just so traditional. It wasn’t what I wanted.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, it’s like even though their lives aren’t perfect, at least they have someone fighting for them, you know? Someone to share in their successes and their failures? They aren’t alone.”
Something akin to incredulity passed over Kyle’s face.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.” He shook his head.
I picked three yellow buttercups from the vase on the table beside me, the one I was sure my mother had put there. I jammed my pinkie fingernail through one, feeling the water inside the stem ooze underneath my nail. I inserted the stem of the next flower into the tiny hole I had made. I grabbed a few more and kept stringing them together, like my sisters and I had done when we were little.
“You can’t ‘nothing’ me, Kyle,” I said. I looked up at him. “I know you. I can read you like a cereal box.”
He laughed. “A cereal box?”
