“It’ll blow over,” I insist, but my body doesn’t believe the lie. I feel like I slipped backward in time. My limbs are heavy, my thoughts scattered, my appetite nonexistent. A wave of nausea rises in my stomach when my phone vibrates with a notification. Hours blur together. Days turn into nights when I don’t sleep, and nights turn into days when I bite my fingernails until they bleed. I draft statements in my Notes app that I don’t post, scared to anger even more people. I brainstorm ways togive my readers exactly what they want. I vow to get it right this time.
It doesn’t take long forShattered’s online rating to tank. It’s not even published yet, and everyone already hates it. I’m accused of disrespecting and profiting off readers. I screwed them over once, and now, by associating with West, I’ve done it again.
West doesn’t escape unscathed. For every comment calling for the boycott of my book, there are two forDrought. He doesn’t blink when I tell him. He gives a very good impression of a man whodoes not give a shit about the opinion of strangers, but when I look closer, I’m not so sure. He has stress lines around his eyes, his fingers massaging the bridge of his nose every other minute. His face crumples into a grimace when he looks at me.
As if all of this weren’t bad enough, the looming premiere of the thirdTorchedmovie turns a minor internet scandal into a national frenzy. (It’s a bad time to remind everyone how much they fucking hated my last novel.) West and I read theEntertainment Weeklytimeline of our relationship on my laptop, marveling over which details they get right and which ones they get wrong. After, I scroll to the comments.
West snaps my laptop shut. “Don’t read the comments.”
Danielle calls to check in on me. “I’m fine! I’m fine! I’m not worried! I’m fine!” I say, increasingly shrill with each declaration. By the time we hang up, I fear she’s more concerned than she was before the call.
On Friday, West finds me sitting on the floor of his office. My knees gave out after a call with Whitney, and I collapsed against the wall before sinking down. He sits next to me and laces his fingers with mine.
“What happened?” he asks.
“They want to postpone the release ofShatteredand cancel my events,” I say, slightly dazed. He looks stricken. “My editor says it’s to protect my mental health. They don’t want a repeat of what happened last time. There’s also talk of canceling the sequel.” I know she doesn’t trust me to write one if I’m in a bad headspace.
I can’t even say that I’m surprised. I knew that at some point my publisher would decide I’m not worth the drama. It’s the loudest thought in my head and the monster in my closet. It’s the nightmare that wakes me up in a cold sweat.I chased my dream, and I got it—and now there’s nowhere to go but down.In the decade since I got my book deal, nearly every thought and action has been driven by the fear of what will happen when it’s gone.
“Well, fuck.” West lets his head fall against the wall. “My agent dropped me.” I open my mouth to let out a string of incoherent rage, but he squeezes my hand and shakes his head. “It’s my own fault. My agent represents a lot of YA authors.”
“Schedule another interview with that journalist. She won’t ignore you this time; you’re in the zeitgeist now. Make your apology tour, and your career will be fine. The Torchers will leave you alone.” The second half of that sentence hangs unspoken in the air.As long as you’re not with me.
West scoffs. “You’re worried aboutmycareer?”
“Obviously.”
He shakes his head. “I’ll be fine. All I care about is what happens to you.”
I swipe tears off my cheeks. “They can’t postpone my book forever,” I insist, though I wonder how long they’ll wait.Until the scandal blows over? Until I speak out against West?
“I’m relieved to hear that, but I’m worried about you.Here”—he lifts his free hand and taps me lightly on the temple—“and here”—over my heart. “I don’t want you to suffer the same way you did last time.”
We sit so long that we watch the light bleed from the sky, quiet surrender settling around us. With my head on West’s shoulder, I track the sun as it sets, shadows lengthening until they swallow the room whole. “You’re going to leave again, aren’t you?” he whispers into the dark.
I suddenly wish I hadn’t avoided this conversation until now. If we’d already made the important decisions without the weight of all this surrounding noise, maybe this week would have a different ending. But I’m leaving, and once again, he won’t ask me to stay, because he doesn’t want to be a person who holds me back. And I won’t ask him to follow me, because he deserves every bit of success coming to him, and I refuse to get in the way of that.
“What other choice do I have?” I ask eventually, so long after West’s question I wonder if he forgot it. “I don’t want you punished for your association with me.”
He drops my hands and presses his palms into his tired eyes. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Use me as a convenient excuse. I’m telling you that I do not give a single fuck what the internet thinks about me. When you leave, you don’t get to pretend like you’re saving me from anything. You’re scared,” he says bluntly.
“I have every right to be scared. You haveno ideawhat it was like for me last time, because you weren’t there,” I snap with more force than intended.
Hurt flashes across his features, an edge of resignation bleeding through. I realize with an unpleasant lurch thathe told me this would happen when he asked me to read his apology letter. He knew there would come a day, sooner rather than later, when I would throw our past in his face.
He rolls his shoulders and looks me square in the eye. “You’re right. I don’t know, and I feel awful about what you went through. But that’s not the whole story. You’re leaving because you’re scared of not measuring up to your warped definition of success. You don’t believe you can be happy without it.”
I push to my feet. “Don’t act like you’re the expert on me. We barely even know each other.” The lie burns all the way up my throat, leaving a bitter taste on my tongue.
West’s eyes flash as he stands, bringing us chest to chest. “And that. Right there. I think you’re scared that I’m all in. That I’m ready to start a life with you right now.”
“We live on opposite sides of the country!”
“Details.”
