“I gathered.” West’s eyes are heavy with unspoken words that make me feel too many things. I drop my gaze to the raindrops sliding over his lips.No.I look at his chest. His shirt is plastered to every groove and hard line. My eyes slide back up to his face, and my rib cage feels like it’s been cracked open.
I grit my teeth. “It’s not fair.”
He nods, relieved that I’ve decided to stay and hash this out. “Which part?”
“You can’t write about me like that.”
His eyes narrow, his focus sharpening. “Like what?”
“Like you’re in love with me!”
West looks genuinely surprised. “I knowyouof all people aren’t trying to argue that art can’t be inspired by real life.”
“Not yours!” I step closer to him. “You lost the right to be inspired by me or write about me or eventhinkabout me the second you sat down with that journalist. If you think my books are trash—”
“You’ve seen what I think of your books, Darling.” His stern voice knocks me off-kilter. He read and reread and marked up my books like scripture, and I don’t know how to handle the cognitive dissonance this gives me.
“You had an interview with that same journalist scheduled today,” I accuse.
“I’ve been trying to schedule that interview for months, but she’s been giving me the runaround. She’s the one whocanceled today’s call. I’ve been trying to publicly apologize for everything I said in the first article.”
I narrow my eyes. “Like when you said you didn’t want to be associated with me.”
Pain and regret are etched in every line in his face. “I need you to believe me when I say this: I was an idiot back then. I’ve been an idiot a lot, unfortunately, but especially during that time, with those people. What I said was awful, but if you walk away from this weekend with anything, I need you to know that I did not mean it. Not then, not now, not ever.”
“Those thoughts didn’t come from nowhere, West.”
He squares his shoulders. “Have you ever had a thought you didn’t believe?”
Every time I’ve told myself that I hate you, I can admit, but lying to myself is not the same thing as humiliating someone in public. “If you have something more to say, just say it.”
He presses his lips into a hard line. “Okay. I’ve been waiting seven years to explain this to you, and I don’t want to mess it up, but I hardly know where to start.” He paces back and forth on the road, his body restless as he sorts his thoughts. Finally, he rolls his shoulders and faces me again, fixing me with a determined, naked expression.
“I was so fucking insecure, Mars. Full stop. It’s embarrassing, but it’s the truth. From the moment you signed with Danielle, if not sooner, I knew that you were going to take over the world.”
I roll my eyes in disbelief, but he’s not having a second of it.
“Doubt me all you want, but your success was never even a question to me, Mars. I met you, and I fell in love with you, and I saw your path so clearly that it made my future all the more laughable. Who the fuck was I, to think I was good enough foryou? I dropped out of school. I broke your heart when I couldn’t go to New York. I was replaced in a matter of hours—”
“West—” My voice rasps.
“Let me finish. I felt replaceable and discarded, and it confirmed all the insecurities that were already suffocating me.
“I stockpiled rejection letters. I wrote, and I wrote, and I wrote, while the walls of my parents’ house closed in on me, but I didn’t let myself write about you, because I knew once I started, I’d have to take a hard look at my life and my choices, and they would be found wanting.” He is a man possessed, confessions pouring from his lips like honey.
“So then finally,finally, I make it to New York with an expanded version of a story I wrote in Dr.B’s class. It tanked—it wasn’t that good—but in exchange for hanging out with the worst crowd on the planet, a journalist was going to talk to me. Aboutmy writing, Mars. The one and only thing I had going for me. God, was I naive. I thought I’d done something worth talking about, but in the end, all she cared about wasyou.” The softness in his voice matches the tenderness in his eyes. His next words are a reverent whisper. “And how could she not? You are spectacular, Mars Darling.”
My head spins. “West,” I say again, not sure what’s on the other side of that plea.
He’s not done. “So she asked me about you, about us, and in a matter of seconds, I was reduced to a juicy bit of gossip. I’m not proud of it, but it brought back every doubt I’d ever had. About myself, about my career, about why you would want to be with a man who is a footnote in your biography. Years of pent-up self-loathing and frustration erupted. Frustration at my god-awful friends and with the journalist and with the fact that right when I almost had you, you had to leave for your ownmovie premiere! I was convinced that you’d land in London and realize that you’d made a mistake in letting me touch you again. I just…snapped,” he finishes at last. His eyes fall closed, and his shoulders relax with the unburdening.
I never got the impression from the article that West was losing his temper, but I forgot about his capacity for restraint. “Thank you for telling me.” I exhale the words, unsure if they’re the ones he wants to hear.
He steps close enough that I can see the raindrops clinging to his eyelashes.
I close my eyes and swallow the hard knot in my throat. It’d be so easy to lean into him and let him put his arms around me. “I wish I hated you more,” I whisper.
He cups my face in his hands and brushes his thumb over my cheek, wiping away either rain or tears. “I’m sorry for the article. Thinking about it makes me physically ill. And mostly I’m sorry that I ever let you or anyone else believe that I have not been amazed by you since the day we met.”
