Chapter Twenty-Nine
TWO WEEKS WENTby.
Sylvie and Salvador took a forty-eight-hour mini honeymoon on Galveston Island.
Kenji started a marine biology summer camp at the science museum.
My dad left the hospital for a stint at an inpatient physical therapy rehab to strengthen his limbs.
And I…
I didn’t do much. I’d taken the summer off from teaching when I got the Charlie Yates gig. So, when I wasn’t visiting and fussing over my dad… I binge-watched TV. I ate scoops of peanut butter straight out of the jar. I slumped by the window like an unwatered houseplant.
Any day now, I’d start figuring out my life. Any day, I’d start feeling better and come up with a future I could get excited about.
I was a little disappointed in myself, to be honest.
Was all this hopelessness really necessary?
I’d had an adventure. I’d seen a bit of the world. Experienced a little heartache. And now it was time to learn from it and move on.
But if I’m honest? Really honest? Honest in the way you can only be when you know for sure the person you’re telling won’t judge you?
(Don’t judge me, by the way.)
I missed Charlie.
I knew it was pathetic. I knew it was indefensible. I knew that moping over a man who didn’t appreciate me was ridiculous. I didn’t want to miss him.
Wasn’t that the number one rule of standing up for yourself?
Don’t like people who don’t like you.
It wasn’t complicated, I told myself over and over.
It was just hard.
Because everything had been better with him somehow. Swimming had been more fun when he was sitting grumpily on the steps. Writing had been more fun when I was sparring with him about love. Grocery shopping had been more fun when he was making me watch him juggle oranges. He just… lit me up.
And I missed that light so much.
But I guess this was a teachable moment.
If you wait for other people to light you up, then I guess you’re at the mercy of darkness.
I WAS LYINGon the living room floor of our apartment, watching the ceiling fan blades spin and avoiding cleaning the bathroom, when I got a call from Logan.
“Are you sitting down?” Logan said.
“Even better,” I said. “I am lying down.”
“Brilliant,” Logan said. “Brace yourself.”
I flattened my arms against the floor. “I’m braced.”
“Donna Cole,” Logan said, “wants your screenplay.”
I sat up. My screenplay? What screenplay? “The Accidental Mermaid?” I asked. I never even gave it to her.
“The Rom-Commers,”Logan said.
“Okay, there’s been a mistake,” I said. “I haven’t written a screenplay called The Rom-Commers.”
“Yes, you have.”
“How? In my sleep? I’m telling you, I didn’t.”
“It’s the one you wrote with Charlie.”
“But that’s not called The Rom-Commers. It’s called—”
“He changed the title,” Logan said.
“But—”
“And the plot.”
“Apparently.”
“Now,” Logan said, “it’s about two screenwriters who write a script together and fall wildly in love.”
I ignored the funny flutter those words prompted in my chest. “That’s crazy,” I said—though, actually, it was kind of a great idea.
“And guess what?” Logan said. “It’s good.”
“Of course it is. It’s Charlie Yates.”
“Spoken like a person who called his last rom-com ‘a crime against humanity.’”
“Everybody deserves a mulligan.”
“I love your loyalty.”
“Charlie Yates the human is complicated,” I said. “But Charlie Yates the writer is the love of my life.”
“You say that like they’re not the same guy.”
“When did he have time to do this?”
“After you kicked him out of Texas.”
“That was fast.”
“He’s fast when he’s obsessed,” Logan said. “And thank you for your service, by the way.”
“For my service?”
“You cured him of the yips.”
Did I?
“He’s the opposite of blocked now,” Logan went on. Then, like he was reading a marquee: “Charlie Yates is back.”
My heart stung at that. Charlie Yates was back.
“I’m sending it to you,” Logan said. “Read it. You will lose your mind with joy. It’s a love letter to fun. And to love. And to you, I think.”
“It’s definitely not a love letter to me,” I said. “That much I know for sure.”
“Guess who it’s written by?”
“Is this a trick question?”
“Check your texts,” Logan said.
A picture came in of a title page. There, in classic screenplay Courier font:
THE ROM-COMMERS
WRITTEN BY
EMMA WHEELER CHARLIE YATES
“But I shouldn’t have a credit,” I said. “I was the ghostwriter.”
“Stop talking,” Logan advised. “Let yourself have this.”
I stared at the photo.
“Charlie finished it and sent it to Donna Cole that same day, with a note that said, ‘Present for you!’—and she texted him within the hour and said, ‘I want it.’”
“She wants it?”
“And she wants to meet with you both. In LA. On Thursday.”
“In LA?” I echoed. “On Thursday?”
Guess I was going to LA.
So much for never seeing Charlie again.