Page 51 of Smoke and Glitter

Plainly.

She moved every excuse out of the way and gave him the question I hadn't.

He had time to answer.

I heard him take it.

It's not that deep.

And then there's the envelope.

I stood across this same bar and said, Let me be useful.

He called it interfering.

Something hot moves up my chest and into my face. For a second, I don't recognize it. Then my jaw tightens.

I'm fucking angry.

Not asking isn't the same as not wanting.

Maybe Sam didn't know how much I wanted him. Maybe I should have said more. He didn't know about London because I chose not to tell him.

But he knew there was something here. Bex asked him. I asked him in the only language I seem to use without fear. And both times he chose the version of me that required the least from him.

My fingers loosen from the chair.

I don't know what to do with the anger once it's there. Anger wants things. It asks questions and waits for answers, and I've spent most of my life being the person who already has the answer before anyone realizes there's a problem.

I'm the one who is fine.

Standing in the half-lit bar listening to the man I turned down London for explain why I don't matter enough to frighten him, I am nowhere close.

Fuck this. I need to get out before he sees me.

My scarf is still looped over the hook beside the door. I take it on the way out without looking toward the storeroom.

I make it through the door before my breath catches.

Six steps later, one hand lands against the brick beside Vibes, and I stay there long enough to get air all the way into my lungs again.

By the time I straighten, my face feels like mine.

Somebody has to be fine.

So I am.

I go home without crying.

I don't text Summer or call Jake because, for once, I don't want anybody helping me find a kinder interpretation of something that was said plainly.

The apartment gets dark around me. Pieces of the conversation come back anyway.

She doesn't need me.

She doesn't ask me for anything.

It's casual.