Anger and hurt inflate into a lead balloon in my chest. “Fine,” I whisper, climbing out of the car. Tears unleash, hot and painful.
Tragedy is an icky slime that sticks. It insulates, creating a barrier between you and the world. Andno onewants to be around that.
chapter
twenty-nine
I forgotwhat heartache felt like. Grant was a slow death, dulled in some ways by the intense ordeal of the preceding eight months. Eitan was sudden and painful. Like getting a taste of the sun, and then being banished to the bottom of the ocean, leagues below where light ends.
I’ve texted him once. A short one, twenty minutes after our disastrous implosion, asking him to keep Pen’s and my agreement to himself.
He didn’t respond.
The days are long, time passing by like an incessant itch. Trying to pay attention to work calls feels like doing homework during the apocalypse. Who are we kidding? Pretty sure the world is ending. What’s the point?
On Saturday, a week before the wedding, I try to cheer myself up by going back to that boutique on Armitage and trying on that dress.
I was wrong; it does look amazing on me, small chest and all. The fabric hugs my hips and the plunging neckline shows the tips of two rosy pink scars.
It’s all the more painful knowing the one person I want to admire me in it, won’t.
I buy it anyway. It’s as good a revenge dress as any.
I walk back to my apartment as slowly as possible; I’ve got nowhere else to be. For a burning hot second, I almost had everything. I’ve been pinching myself into a shape that fits my old life, and now the walls are closing in.
The lone upside of this week? The one spark that’s stopped me from full-tilt spiraling? Pen emailed me yesterday.Send me your query package so I can share it with Alice before you meet her.
No salutation, no signature. But at least Pen is holding up her end of the bargain. It only cost me the best person I’ve ever met to guarantee it.
Fifty-two minutes later, I emailed her my query letter, manuscript, and synopsis.Thank you so much!I signed it.
Pen didn’t reply, but the email was delivered. That will have to be good enough.
On Thursday, it’s past ten o’clock, and I’m laying down in bed, wide awake. The apartment is dark, my face lit only by the faint blue glow of my phone screen, doing my best impersonation of a ghost. I should be getting a good night’s sleep before the wedding weekend begins tomorrow, but this whole week has been made ofshoulds.
I should be eating my strict regimen of oatmeal, salmon, and salad, not bags of popcorn followed by Froot Loops.
I should schedule my biopsy.
I should have answered my phone the one time Eitan called.
Trust me, I wanted to. But his words clanged inside my head.Maybe we should take a step back, over and over, in chorus with,It’s for the best, in Grant’s dumb, pre-teen voice.
My hand drifts up to my armpit, and I feel the lump. It’s tiny. A puffy lymph node. Probably nothing. I negotiate with myself that, with a warm intro, I could be signed onto Alice’s client listin a matter of weeks. And, who knows? By then, the lump could be gone.
If it’s not, Iwillget a biopsy. Once things are more settled. Once I’ve gotten what I want.
I watch Instagram stories and see Calliope out at a bar, cocktail sweating in her hand. I curl to the side and bring the phone closer to my face. Perhaps if I bring it close enough, I can telepathically merge with someone who’s out, living their life, and experience it vicariously.
I tap to the next one, realizing my mistake a millisecond too late, and see a wide angle selfie of Eitan with Josh and an entire gaggle of groomsmen, holding out their beer bottles. Eitan’s, I know without checking, is a nonalcoholic IPA.@JGoldie96’slast night as a bachelor!the caption says in bubble letters. There’s a second photo posted on his story; just for the sake of masochism, I tap into it. It’s a photo of Deep, raven hair long and shiny beneath the bar lights, holding up a dart.Celeb guest shot!the caption reads.@RollingInTheD33pis tagged.
I hate him. IhatehimIhatehimIhatehim. I never want to see him again. I want to hate him enough for two lifetimes.
Eitan is out, having fun, not looking at all like his heart was just ripped out and stomped on. Thrown beneath an oncoming train. He’s probably moved on already.Onto the next.Just as I always feared.
I close my eyes. A more rational voice—with a soft husk—tells me that he wouldn’t do that. That even though we aren’t together, what we had meant something to him. A few deep breaths later, I open my eyes and try hard to avoid thinking about whose voice that sounded like.
More Instagram stories cycle through, a brainless highlight reel of all the best moments of the world around me.
