Lia laughed. “You’re too bossy. You’d end up telling the pastor what to preach on. Besides, I’ve never met anyone who aspires to be a church secretary. Who calls it that anyway?”
“My mom,” I answered. “There’s nothing wrong with church secretaries,” I defended. “My grandma used to be one.”
“Brielle. Just tell me what the email says.”
“It says,” I skimmed it so I could summarize it for Lia. “That they want to interview me for the possibility of working in their summer program. That the program accepts twenty students, and if accepted, the writing program I’d take part in over the summer would count toward college credits with a partial scholarship.”
“You knew that when you applied, didn’t you?” Lia asked patiently. “But now would be a good time to decide if you want to pursue being a writer.”
“I was thinking maybe more of an editor. I like to pick stories apart more than try to write them.”
“Either way,” Lia crashed a dish into something, muttered, and then turned on the water. “What else does it say?”
“They said they want to interview me—”
“You already said that,” Lia interrupted.
“Annnnnd,” I dragged out the word more because I was afraid to say what followed out loud. “The topic they’ve chosen for our interview is to talk about my unique perspective on modern love. You know they select a topic in order to assess the applicant’s skills in communication, imagination, the merging of reality with fiction, plausibility—”
“Modern love?” Lia’s face filled the entire phone’s screen. The look of incredulity on her face didn’t help me relax. At. All.
I decided to just read it. “We’d love to hear about your experience with AI, authentic relationships, and unexpected connections made using technology as it relates to the young adult experience.”
“Oh. My. Gosh.” Lia’s mouth dropped open. “They must’ve seen your story.”
“I know.” I couldn’t help that my throat was closing up. I thought I was allergic to attention. Did they make Epi-Pens for that? Probably not. “The entire interview sounds like it will be based on my relationship slash romance with Brooks.”
“What romance?” Lia winced.
“Exactly.” I did my habitual fall-back-on-my-bed routine and took my phone with me. Grasping it with both hands, I shook my phone as I peered into Lia’s virtual eyes. “Myfutureis dependent onBrooks Mason.”
There was silence for a moment, and then Lia said what I was really thinking. “Your dad is going to kill you.”
I couldn’t tell Brooks about the interview. I mean. Talk about putting pressure on a guy I’d literally just met.
But here I was, sipping coffee—which, of course, in typical nice-guy Brooks fashion, he’d brought me—and sitting in the coffee shop with him. I hadn’t told my parents about the interview with the writing program yet. How could I? When I applied, I thought I was going to be interviewed about a fictional book concept or a relevant topic in current times. There’d been nothing to indicate it would be a personal interview aboutpersonalme and mypersonallife.
I’d prayed about it all night long. My prayers were more like “Dear God, make it all go away,” then morphed into “Dear God, help me know what to say to my parents,” and soon became “Dear Heavenly Father, whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?”
Brooks and I hadn’t said much. The only reason we’d come to the coffee shop together in the first place was that he’d called and asked me if I wanted to start working on our project together.
“What do you think of Mr. Darcy?” I was desperate for something to talk about besides us.
“Mr. Darcy?” Brooks lifted his eyes.
I sipped my coffee. His gaze dropped to my mouth, then flew back up to my eyes as though he’d caught himself doing something he didn’t want to be caught at. I felt a flush creep up my neck. “Lizzie’s love interest?” I answered quickly.
“Oh.” Brooks turned his attention to the window by our table. He seemed far away today. It was a different side to Brooks than I’d seen before, and definitely not one I’d imagined when I created the AI version of him. He was almost brooding, but not in a darkly handsome sort of way. This was like a—I wanted to wrap my arms around him and tell him everything was going to be okay sort of way. But I was scared to ask what was wrong, too. Because I probably already knew.
Us.
We were wrong.
This whole thing was wrong.
And Brooks had really gone out of his way for me, and I’d dropped him in the middle of an epic mess. I should let him off the hook. But—how did I do that now? I’d have to give Mom and Dad some sort of explanation, which meant the truth was likely to come out, and then I’d be grounded for life. Not to mention, I really wanted to do well in this interview, and if the entire thing was based on my very public relationship with Brooks, then how did I go into the interview and start with a, “Wellllll, we actually broke up”?
“There you are!” A woman’s voice interrupted the tense silence.
