“You came to the party together tonight,” I snap back.
“We came through the door at the same time, yeah. But we didn’t actually cometogether.”
“But—”
“I got here the same time as three other guys, too. FYI, Lane, I don’t do poly.” She appraises me. “This is a classic you move, isn’t it? You whirled yourself up without even talking to me first.”
“I thought you said you never wanted to talk to me again?”
“Put yourself in my shoes, Lane! You acted just like Kirk. You saw how bad he hurt me, and then you went and did the exact same thing. You treated me like shit for no good reason—”
“You were okay with bending over backward to get him back,” I frown. “But you won’t do the same for me.”
“That’s because back then, I was a total pushover. It was time for me to grow up and start living my life for myself, instead of clinging to people. In a weird way, everything that happened these past few months was actually good for me. I’ve learned so much.” She shrugs. “I’m never going to make the same mistakes again. I’m never going to bend myself out of shape to fit around some guy. I’m never going to be ‘just a girlfriend’—ever again.”
She sounds confident, in control. She’s changed, somehow. She suddenly seems more mature, and I swell with pride and sadness, all at once. First Kirk, now me: she’s going on a man strike, cutting us out of her life so she can get on with living it. Just my luck. She’s becomethe woman I was encouraging her to be, back when I scooped her up off the floor. I’m happy for her—even if it’s tearing me apart inside.
“Now that I know what I want from life, we need to talk aboutthis.”
She pulls a stack of rolled-up papers from behind her back, and I rip them out of her hand, my heart pounding in my head as I glance through my screenplay. I put so much of us in this story… This is the moment of truth. I need to speak up. I have nothing left to lose. Just as I open my mouth, Lois cuts me off.
“Lane, seriously. I’m sorry, but…”
I stare at her, scared to move.
“That stuff you said on page seventeen? That never happened.”
“What?”
She grabs the script from me and starts flicking through, the pages flying by in a blur of scribbles, dozens of comments scrawled in the margins, between the lines.
“Same thing here!” She jabs a finger at a page. “Ineversaid that!”
She continues working through my script, pointing out mistakes along the way, and when she tries to hit me on the shoulder with the bundle, I reach out a hand.
“What are you doing, Lois?”
I try to hold her gaze, but now that I’ve accepted I’m in love with her, it hurts too much—having her so close, yet so far. She lets out a long sigh, and looks out across the garden, drumming her fingers on her thigh before leaning into me. Fuck. She’s even more beautiful than I remembered.
“I don’t get it. Your usual vibe is so…” She waves her hand in the air. “And this? This is just…”
She looks up at the sky, like I’m supposed to just read her mind.None of this is making sense. What the fuck is going on?
“Oh, and the playlist? It’s boring as hell. You know the part where you act like some stupid guy who can’t see how crazy he is about me? Well…”
I watch as she hugs the pages to her chest. I get the sense she’s about to up and leave, and so my fingers close around the fabric of her dress as I pull her into me, so close our legs are grazing.
“You’re the most confusing guy I’ve ever met,” she whispers.
“What’s the problem with the playlist?”
“I was thinking some Rihanna could up the tension. Like what about ‘Hate That I Love You’?”
“And?” I can’t stop staring at her mouth.
“That last part? That definitely never happened. You changed the whole fight scene and then made up the rest. You didn’t explain athingthat day—you yelled at me, and then you left. The end.”
She has a point. The whole screenplay is true to life, except for the part where I find her in Mike’s room. I wrote my epic fuckup out of that scene—my way of trying to tell her just how much I regret it. And then I wrapped it all up with the happy ending I’m still hoping we can work out.
