“I just need a moment of your time! Please come outside!” On a certain level, I know that no responsible adult would come running when an unhinged stranger is screaming their name from the street. Especially a responsible adult who is knee-deep in the writing of a serial killer story.
On every other level, I am out of ideas. I have no other options. He’s gaining on me; I can feel it.
“Anna!”I’ve reached the end of the street, and I turn the corner to find … another one just like it, an infinite line of identical houses.
“Roxie.”
Grant’s hand lands on my shoulder, turning me to face him. I don’t want to look at him, but he traps me with his gaze, his confused eyes searching mine. “What just happened?”
“I can’t do this!” I snap, a dam breaking inside me. “The dancing and the touching, and the one bed and the late-night talks and the—”
An explosion of thunder cuts me off out of nowhere and the skies promptly open. So now it’s not just that I have to face Grant. I have to face Grantin the rain. His hair is wet, and raindrops runtogether in rivulets down his neck, and his shirt clings to his body in a way that is just not fair. And he still doesn’t take his eyes off me.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I screech up at the clouds in vain. “Seriously? This is not even remotely creative!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” he shouts over the downpour.
“This is all in the book, Grant,” I shout back. “Somewhere, in a stuck-up cookie-cutter house that looks just like these but is evidently NOT WITHIN EARSHOT”—I really put my lungs into that last part, partly in fury and partly in hope that it’ll finally work—“all of this is being written. The rain, that party, the secret murderer. And you, Grant. You’re part of this. You’reinthe story, written into it. You’re not real.”
He stares at me in confusion, his brow as creased as I’ve ever seen it. I feel like my chest is caving in.
“What—” His mouth moves as if trying to form a proper question, but he can’t land on one. “What are you—” He goes still. He doesn’t blink, fixed on me like stone while the rain pelts us in the empty street.
“How do you know,” he finally says, barely a question.
This moment is torture, and even so, I would give anything to stretch it out if it meant I could avoid the one that comes next. But I’m at a dead end. I have no choice but to tell him the truth.
“Because,” I say, my voice thin. “You’re the love interest.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The big reveal hangs in the air between us, and Grant’s face is unreadable as he processes what I’ve just said. It’s the kind of taut, heated, rain-soaked moment any romance would be lucky to have.
It’s excruciating.
I’ve never felt so idiotic in my life. All those years of guarding my emotions and putting up walls to avoid heartbreak, and what do I do? Fall for a fictional character who will simply vanish at the story’s conclusion.
Worse than that, I’ve also shattered his reality by telling him the truth. But what was I supposed to do? Stay there and let him kiss me? Let him think there might be something real between us? Let myself keep wishing it were true?
Grant finally huffs out a humorless laugh.
“No, I’m not,” he says. “I’m not. It’s like the Gifter said; I just got dragged into the black hole by mistake. I’m a real person. I’ve had a whole life.”
“You only think you have,” I say, hating every word. “But it’s just backstory. Characters don’t know they’re characters. Look at Lissa and Lesley. Do you think they don’t feel real?”
I can see it flickering in his eyes—the truth sinking in.
“But … the love interest?” He shakes his head, eyeing me skeptically. “How could I be the love interest? We argue constantly. Half the time, you’re outright mean to me.”
“Okay, so you’ve clearly never read a romance novel,” I mutter.
“Well then, enlighten me,” he says, frustration crinkling his brow. “What makes you so sure?”
My heart twists into knots. “I’ve read a million of these books,” I say. “I know all the signs. One bed at the inn, posing as a couple, a big revelation in the rain. It’s all prettyheavy-handed, actually.” This last part I shout skyward, as if Anna Matthews were some kind of all-seeing god who might take a hint now and then.
Water droplets cascade down the sides of Grant’s face as he looks heavily at me. It’s that same loaded silence of the night we failed to meet Anna, only this time, hemustbe about to break. When you realize that everything you’ve ever known was a lie, it should shatter you into a thousand pieces.
He takes a breath.
