My chest caves at the thought of him opening that email with excitement and then reading…that.
I wish the circumstances had been different.
I wish I’d been there.
“What a bastard,” Ayesha says.
West runs a hand through his hair, a wry smile on his face. He’s good at this. Confident, calm, funny. Meanwhile, I’m out of practice, riddled with anxiety, and desperate to succeed. Is there anything less likable in the eyes of the public than a woman who’s a try-hard? At our panel tomorrow night, West will be charming, and I’ll be drowning in flop sweat. I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours spinning my wheels to make him feel like he doesn’t belong in this world, but the joke of it all is that he’s more at home here than I am.
“That is uniquely brutal,” Rowan says.
“At twenty-two, I wasn’t mentally prepared for that level of rejection.”
I frown, positive I misheard him. West wasn’t trying to get published back then.
“You were a Wildcat then, weren’t you?” Ayesha asks.
“I’d dropped out by this point, but I read that letter on the day of my would-be college graduation.”
I shift uneasily. He never told me that.
“You think that’s bad?” West continues. “That email’s not even the worst thing that happened to me that day.” He laughs as if he didn’t just rearrange my entire past with one careless sentence.
I’m frozen in my seat.
Our eyes meet. It’s hard to breathe. Like there’s cement drying in my windpipe.
The missing piece of a decade-old story clicks into place.
I lean againsta tent post as West slowly descends from the stage. He takes his time chatting with everyone who stops tointroduce themselves. I watch, tapping my foot and listening to a rush of blood in my ears. Eventually he runs out of admirers, and he braces himself as he approaches me.
“I learn something new every time I come to one of these things,” I say with a bright, fake smile before stepping closer. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I demand under my breath.
“Not here,” he growls. West wraps his hand around my elbow and turns, running us straight into Dr.B.
“My star pupils!” the man booms. “Can’t say I’m surprised to see you two together again.” His eyes drop to West’s hand on my arm, and I wrench it out of his grasp.
“Thanks for coming, Dr.B,” West says.
“You should be extremely proud of yourself, Mr.Emerson.” He claps West on the shoulder. West nods his head in silent thanks. “Readers are going to really respond to this one.” His eyes twinkle with something I don’t understand as West stiffens slightly.
Dr.B turns his attention to me. “Don’t forget about your promise!” He winks at me again as he walks away, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
I frown at his retreating back when I feel the heat of West’s chest crowding me. “Ugh, stop looming.” I glare over my shoulder at him.
He barely manages to suppress an eye roll. “Don’t act like you don’t love it. You wanted to talk?”
“I do. Move.” I grab him by the biceps, sighing heavily when he flexes, and spin him. I shove him lightly between the shoulder blades.
“Where are we going?”
“Koffler.” I push him again, and we march to the front doorof a large cinder block building that vaguely resembles a wildcat. He opens the door and waves me through, his hand brushing over the small of my back. I lurch away from him, pretending to hate that he’s touching me, and then immediately invalidate this by grabbing his hand and pulling him into a large lecture hall.
Inside, he leans against a desk at the front of the room and drums his fingers on the edge. It reminds me so much of last night that a welcome anger builds in my chest. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask again, bringing us back to the reason he refused to go to New York with me all those years ago.
“When would I have told you?” he sneers.
“Before you dumped me would have been ideal.”
