Chapter 45 Owen
OWEN
I set my phone down on George’s coffee table, next to this week’s New Yorker, which I’d been flipping through when he called. But I can’t bring myself to care about Ronan Farrow’s latest exposé anymore. I stare mindlessly at the screen until it goes dark.
George asked me out.
Where the fuck did that even come from?
He asked me if I wanted to go on some kind of date with him. See him. Romantically. And I… I said no.
A wave of nausea hits me, so strong that I actually grab for the waste bin beside the sofa, just in case.
It passes, but all I’m left with is an empty ache. I can hear George’s voice playing back in my head, and no matter what weird, fleeting, misguided thing led him to even want to go out on a date with me, there’s no escaping the knowledge that I hurt him.
The last thing in the world I want to do is hurt George. I try to take a deep breath, but I can’t quite manage it.
How did this happen? Why did he even ask? I mean, obviously, he was swept up in the excitement about his editor wanting to publish his book. Which is so, so great. I’m honestly ecstatic for him—he deserves it.
But it just goes to show how different our worlds are. How much we don’t make sense.
Obviously, I know we’ve been talking a lot. Flirting. But this whole week, the swap, our texting, it’s like it happened in a separate space, outside of reality. I thought we both got that. There’s no way we work in the real world. “Boring” Owen Wilde was never going to be George Knight’s boyfriend.
I’m not going to be George Knight’s anything. I’ve known that all along, but it hits me now, the implications of what I just did. He’s not going to call again. He won’t text. And even if he did, there’s nothing I can say to him after that.
So that’s it then. We’re done. Whatever this was, it’s over.
Someone yells an obscenity outside. Then it’s quiet again, and all I hear is the ragged sound of my own breathing.