I Did Something Bad

Twelve

I know who Jared Kirkwood is. Okay, I don’t know his full identity down to what size shoe he wears, but I have found his Facebook and Instagram profiles (both public because of course he’s sloppy) and from what I’ve pieced together, I have a pretty good idea of who he was. Like the detectives said, he moved here from Sydney eight years ago. He’s a self-employed financial advisor who works remotely, which explains why no colleagues reported him as missing. According to the most recent photos of his apartment views, he lives downtown. And—this is the part that’s tripping me up—he has a girlfriend. Not just someone he started seeing, but a girlfriend of approximately two years. Her name is Dipar, she’s Myanmar, looks to be a few years older than me. They live together and even have a dog. Her profile isn’t public, but judging by her tagged photos, she’s alive and still lives in Yangon.

So why didn’t she file a missing person report?

I’m tempted to send her a follow request, but what if the police have contacted her first already and then they see my name on her phone? That would be a tricky situation to explain, even with the best lawyers that money could buy sitting beside me.

I know I could ask Nay or Thidar to do it (have we done it in the past after being unceremoniously dumped by a guy and wondered if it was because there was someone new in the picture? Who’s to say, really?), but I haven’t talked to them since dim sum–gate apart from a short I’m fine. It was a misunderstanding. No we’re not dating. I’ll call you guys as soon as I’m free.” And the next text I send in the group chat can’t be Can one of you guys add this completely random woman that we share zero mutual friends with but not ask me why? Besides, I’m still adamant about not pulling them into this.

After combing through the profiles of Jared’s followers whose photos Dipar has been tagged in over the last five months—and, yes, aware of the hypocrisy of my cyberstalking my stalker’s (potential) girlfriend—I’ve determined that she’s going to be at the Nagar’s Breath bar tomorrow night. If this were a regular assignment, I’d get there early to grab a prime seat that was centrally positioned enough that I could watch the entrance, the bar, and the toilets, but far enough away that I remained inconspicuous. But there’s Tyler’s shoot.

We’re starting at 11 A.M. until “tbd,” according to Clarissa’s email. I haven’t heard of this photographer—which is apparently the point. Keeping in mind that the whole cast and crew are Myanmar, Clarissa has tapped an up-and-coming Myanmar photographer called Thuzar Thant for this spread; the shoot is also taking place at her house, the second floor of which is her studio. Unconventional, but I’m intrigued.

Tyler, on his part, has respected my wishes all week. We don’t carpool anymore; I’m wary of cab drivers being bribed into sneaking photos of the set and of lurking paparazzi snapping photos of my license plate, so I’ve rented a car. And although, admittedly, I hadn’t realized quite how much I’d enjoyed our morning chats in the car, those forty-ish minutes of only the two of us in a soundproof limo backseat before we had to face the racket of a movie set, this new arrangement is for the best. His trailer is still my first stop when I arrive at the lot, but the extent of our greetings stops at a mutual, genial “Good morning.” Which is good. Preferable, even. Like I instructed, he’s doing his job and I’m doing mine.

Except, the rest of the week has also been a complete waste of time in terms of getting a scoop, and when you are working with a very limited amount of time (I triple-checked this morning, and this draft is due in under six weeks), half a week is a lot . At this point, I might as well already email Clarissa something along the lines of: Sorry, but it looks like I’m not going to be able to get any kind of scoop on Tyler because he’s keeping his distance because I, in a moment of unfettered fury, explicitly told him to.

I realize there’s a somewhat easy solution here: I apologize. Say, Hey, Tyler, I’m sorry about the other day. I’m generally in a bad headspace these days and I took it out on you when I didn’t mean to (even though I absolutely did). Let’s be friends again? and pick up where I left off vis-à-vis gaining his trust. While my pride would rather I jump into shark-infested waters than apologize to Tyler, I know this is what must be done. It’s the only way out. I suck it up, make niceties, become “friends” (ugh) again, get my scoop, file the story, get that job, and then before I know it, I’ll be shoving my entire wardrobe into two (okay, maybe four) suitcases.

Vogue. I can suck it up and be buddies with Tyler Tun if it means a job at Vogue .

On Sunday, I’m out the door by ten, and to pump myself up because it hits me that I’m casually on my way to a Vogue photo shoot, I put on a loop of Reyanna Maria’s “So Pretty,” Beyoncé’s “Run the World (Girls),” Fifth Harmony’s “That’s My Girl,” and Lizzo’s “Like a Girl.” I might be a one-woman team, but being a one-woman team is nothing new to me, and I’m not going to get overwhelmed now. As soon as this shoot is over, I’m going to haul ass over to Nagar’s Breath and sort out the rest of this mess.

Thuzar must either come from money or have recently won the lottery, because how else does an “up-and-coming” photographer afford a house with a front yard this size? It definitely screams “artist”: terra-cotta bricks starkly contrasted by neon-yellow shutters, mismatched wooden animal sculptures lining the concrete pathway, and tall metal gates whose imposition is undermined by their aquamarine-and-neon-yellow-flowers design. Not my taste at all, but I’m always a fan of someone who knows exactly what they like. Does it fit in with the neighboring white mansions and black gates? No. Does it seem like it cares? Also no.

I give my lips a final touch-up in the car mirror before I step out. Maybe I can find a way to apologize to Tyler without actually apologizing, for the sake of my article. Maybe something neutral like Hey, are we cool? without explicitly mentioning what it is I’d like us to be cool in regards to.

Despite its size, the pathway is already filled with cars, and I wedge myself into the last remaining space as the automatic gate doors rumble back shut. I press the doorbell—gold and shaped like a twinkling star with two long triangles jutting out from north and south, and two smaller triangles on either side—and a couple of seconds later, the door opens and I’m greeted by—

“Jason?” I ask, retreating backward.

If his bulging eyes and the pink tinge on his cheeks are any indication, Jason wasn’t expecting to answer the door to me, either. “Khin!” he says with a tad too much enthusiasm that snaps me to attention. “I… thought we were doing only photos today. What… are you doing here?”

“My editor wanted me to sit in on the shoot so I could have an idea of how to frame the story. What are you doing here?”

“I—”

“Khin?”

Every nerve in my body goes numb while the blood zings straight to my head. The result is an inability to blink, let alone speak. Is this what people experience when they get shot? Like you technically know what’s happened, but for a few seconds that extend for several eternities, you can’t feel anything, including the bullet inside of you?

It’s Ben’s voice (again) that snaps me out of that liminal state. “Khin?” he repeats.

“Ben?” I ask, probably looking like I’ve seen a ghost. He looks generally the same, still a solid foot taller than me, medium-length-ish hair still pomaded up and out of his face. The only noticeable new addition is his tan, although I guess spending several months on a beach in Indonesia will do that to you.

“I didn’t know you’d—”

“What are you doing here?”

“This—” Ben looks at Jason, who returns a panicked smile. “This is my… girlfriend’s house,” he finally says without looking at me.

I can feel the bullet now. I can feel the searing heat burrowing deeper inside my chest, feel my blood pooling and boiling in places it shouldn’t. Unsure where to look, my eyes wander around the foyer, up at the staircase with side glass panes, before skipping over each of the several dozen photographs that cover the walls. Ben always wanted to have walls plastered with photography, but I never saw the appeal of black-and-white portraits of strangers’ backs or the inside of a volcano as it explodes. Sure, they make great screen savers, but why would I want to stare into the volcanic abyss while sipping my morning coffee?

“Khin?” Every time my name leaves Ben’s lips, my insides have a small seizure. “I can leave if—”

I don’t mean to sound like a member of Alvin and the Chipmunks, but that’s what happens as I squeak, “What? That’s ridiculous!”

“Are you—” Ben eyes me like he’s getting ready to catch me in case I faint. “Sure?”

“Of course!” I roll my eyes in a please manner. “This is your girlfriend’s house! Who I’m so excited to meet!” I say, now thankful that I chose the jeans that make my ass look nice and perky.

“Okay then.” Ben nods. “Shall we?” He starts up the stairs with the speed of someone who has taken this route hundreds, if not thousands, of times before.

Thuzar is short, even shorter than me. It’s the first thing I notice about her, because despite her size, her presence is undeniable. Face framed by large, round, neon-pink-rimmed glasses, she’s marching around and talking to people, camera in one hand, the other free to gesticulate as she speaks, and I can tell even from over here that she knows how to toe the line between reminding everyone who’s in charge and not being a dick. Her smile expands into a grin when she walks over to us.

“Hi,” she says with a quick wave. “I’m Thuzar. I’m the photographer.”

“Hey, I’m—” I pause, not sure how serious the two of them are, and consequently, how much she knows about Ben’s personal history. “Khin.”

The small O that forms on Thuzar’s lips tells me instantly that she knows. She glances up at Ben, who returns an acute, confirming nod. To my shock, she doesn’t snap into some weird or tense mode. Instead, she opens her arms, exclaiming, “Oh my god, Khin! I’ve heard so much about you!”

“Really?” I ask, frowning.

“Yes! Ben has shared so many of your articles with me! You know,” she says, raising her brows at Ben, who rolls his eyes like he knows exactly which story she’s about to tell, “the day after our first date, he texted me one. Of your articles, I mean. And he was going on and on—”

“Okay,” Ben says, opening his palm in the air. “First off, I texted you because the article was relevant to our conversation the day before. And I wasn’t going on and on —”

“—and at first I was like, Oh great, this guy is clearly hung up on his ex. But then I opened the link and started reading and then I was like, Ah shit, I’d be bragging about her, too. It was your interview with that writer who was the first to translate bell hooks’s All About Love into Myanmar. And then I was like, Well, fuck, this Khin is so cool. And I’ve been a huge fan of your work ever since! I’m so glad you’re here! Ben didn’t tell me he invited you, though. Not that that’s a problem, but I would’ve prepared myself to tone down my fangirling beforehand if I’d known.”

Not knowing how else to process the avalanche of information that she’s just thrown in my face, I give a weak laugh. “Ben didn’t invite me,” I say. “I’m writing this story.”

Thuzar’s mouth hangs open. “Shut. Up. You’re doing the Tyler Tun profile? Holy shit!” She throws her hands in the air. “This is huge! Oh my god, now I’m really feeling the pressure. Because obviously you’re going to write a bad-ass profile and what if the photos don’t measure up? Ben!” Her jaw hardens. “No more messing around. We have to be serious about this.”

“We were se—”

“We’re starting in fifteen!” Thuzar yells back at the room, and her command ramps up the noise and movement and overall mood. “ So great to meet you, Khin,” she adds with a smile. “I’ve gotta go switch out a couple of mood boards, but I hope you have fun today!” And then she leaves, and despite his legs being twice as long as hers, Ben visibly struggles to keep up.

I’m still watching the two of them when a voice whispers behind me, “Hey.” When I jump and turn, Tyler has his hands raised. “Sorry.” He grimaces. “I was trying not to startle you.”

“You’re good,” I say, the feral, objectifying part of me that he always seems to briefly bring out noting that he looks incredible. He’s wearing a light cream shirt under a bubblegum-pink suit, white-with-beige-accents sneakers finishing off the outfit. His vibe is that of someone who will bring the perfect gift to your parents’ anniversary party, but also give you the best orgasm of your life when you get home.

Wow, Khin, what a weirdly specific vibe to have on hand .

“You know Thuzar?” Tyler asks.

I follow his gaze to the corner where Thuzar’s setting up for the first shots. “Apparently,” I say.

“Oh?”

I sigh and jerk a thumb over my shoulder. “You see the white guy helping her out?”

“Yeah, her boyfriend-slash-assistant. Ben.” His brows jump when I laugh. “What’s so funny?”

“Ben, before he was Thuzar’s boyfriend-slash-assistant was…” I chuckle, both at myself and at the situation. “My husband.”

Tyler’s eyes hop back and forth between me and Ben, gradually enlarging as my words settle in. “Oh,” he says at last. “He’s—”

“Yep.”

“Did you know he was—”

“Going to be here? Dating someone new? No and no.”

“Are you—”

I hold up a hand. “I’m fine. We separated over six months ago. Thuzar seems good for him. I mean, look at them.” I turn around and tilt my head to where Ben is holding up two different lenses as Thuzar studies them. “They… make sense. She’s an artiste . Look at her with her funky artiste glasses and flowy artiste overalls. He can now talk about apertures and ISOs with someone who’ll actually get it.”

“We’re starting in two minutes!” Thuzar calls out as she grabs the lens in Ben’s left hand.

“That’s my cue,” Tyler says. I flash him two thumbs-up and expect him to start walking, but he doesn’t move. “I just wanna say, Khin,” he begins—and yep, right on cue, my heart does that stupid twisty thing at the sound of him saying my name; apparently, it missed the memo that Tyler and I are no longer friends, but more in a somewhat cold war situation. “As someone who dated Annie Leibovitz’s niece for a year—”

My jaw drops. “You dated Annie Leibovitz’s niece for a year?”

One corner of his lip turns upward, just so slightly. “— Artistes might be what some people are looking for, but it’s not exactly in my top criteria when it comes to dating. It’s not in a lot of people’s, actually.”

Maybe I’m looking for an ego boost, or maybe I’m realizing that this is the longest conversation we’ve had in a week and I’ve missed talking to him more than I let myself admit, because against every iota of logic, I hear myself reply, “What is in your top criteria?,” aware that I am, by all accounts, trying to flirt.

“Overalls are overrated,” he says, brown eyes flickering down at something behind me, something that makes his smile quirk a tiny bit wider before adding, “I’ve always been more of a classic blue-jeans kind of guy.” And then he moves past me like he doesn’t clock my stunned reaction.

It doesn’t bode well for me that, as the situation dictates, I have to stare at Tyler for the next three hours. Things, thoughts, scenes are playing out in my head, and I don’t know how to make them stop. I want to be in front of him, near him, touching him. I begin inserting myself into each shot—and the longer I stare at him, the more my deep, primal (and not to mention, embarrassing) want grows. In my head, I walk over and take his hand to show him a new pose. I imagine Tyler staring down at me as he undoes his jacket buttons. Tyler winking at me, one hand casually ruffling his hair. Tyler grinning into a standalone lighted makeup mirror at my reflection . In that last setup, imaginary Khin then approaches him from behind, one hand reaching around to untuck his shirt as she tiptoes and whispers into his ear—

“Got it! Let’s take a breather! Good work, everyone!”

As soon as Thuzar calls for a break, I’m the first to speed-walk out of the room, down the stairs, and out into the blazing sun. Maybe the external heat will temper my internal heat and I’ll reestablish equilibrium. Maybe it’ll burn these—

“Khin—”

“What?” I ask, recognizing Ben’s voice before he’s in front of me.

“We need to talk.” He motions at me to follow him to the small walkway on one side of the house.

“What?” I repeat, eyes narrowed, defenses raised, a new, different flush replacing the previous one.

“Jason told me the police came to talk to you.”

I scoff. “Jason needs to remember that he signed an NDA.”

“Khin, for Christ’s sake—”

“And second, they came to talk to everyone. ”

Ben is unfazed. “What about on Monday?”

I feel my nostrils flare. The last thing I need is for yet another person to start digging around and me having to fend them off, especially when that person is my ex-husband. “Jason needs to shut the hell up. That’s none of your business. It’s not Jason’s business either.”

“He was worried about you.” He pauses, eyes flattening as they monitor my expression. “ I’m worried about you. If you’re in trouble—”

“I’ve got a handle on it,” I snap, my arms folding into a fortified X . “Besides, why do you even care?”

He recoils like I bent down, grabbed a handful of pebbles, and threw them in his face. “What do you mean, why do I care ? I’m always going to care about you.”

“We’re divorced, remember? A divorce that you asked for.”

A humorless laugh drifts out of him. “You think I’ve stopped caring about you because we’re divorced? Because I asked for a divorce?”

“That’s usually what happens when your husband of less than a year asks for a divorce minutes before literally walking out of the house you shared with a suitcase that he came home early that day to pack!” Feeling the first prickles, I lift one hand to swipe at my eyes before folding it back in front of me.

He shakes his head down at the pavement, as though I’m giving him the most absurd speech he’s ever heard. “Is that why you’ve been angry at me this whole time? Because I was the one to say the words ‘I want a divorce’ even though you had been thinking it yourself for a long—”

“I—”

“—and don’t you dare say that you weren’t because you were still my wife and I knew you better than anyone in the world, which is how I also knew that you were too proud to walk away even though we were both miserable! We fell out of love. It happens . I loved you, Khin, and believe me, getting divorced was the last thing I wanted to do. But we were forcing a relationship that was already in the grave.” Every word lands precisely where he meant for it to. Before I can recover, he asks, “Does this have something to do with the abortion article?”

Goose bumps needle my arms and chest, but I don’t flinch. “What the hell would you know about the article? We weren’t even married anymore when it came out, remember?”

“Oh, I remember,” he says, rolling his eyes, and then, catching himself, looks back at me with a remorseful expression. “Sorry,” he says.

I shake my head. “No, you have something to say. Don’t be sorry. Say it.”

“Come on, you’re doing that thing—”

“ Thing? What thing?”

“That thing where you pick a fight so that you can distract someone from, god forbid, trying to help you! That thing where you find something to distract yourself with so that you don’t have to admit that something is wrong! We might be divorced, but I still remember how you can be.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” I ask, and he grimaces in a way that reads, Don’t make me say it. “Say it,” I order. “What exactly do you remember?”

He swallows, regains control of himself. “I saw you, Khin. I remember that the more our relationship fell apart, the more you threw yourself into that article. Into work in general, and—”

“I will not apologize for being good at my job,” I cut in. Ex-husband or not, no one gets to guilt-trip me with some backward misogynistic nonsense about being the Uptight Career Wife. “I was working on something important.”

“I know,” he says, voice not rising in tone or hardness to match me. “And I was so proud of you for that. I always will be. But I remember Nay and Thidar trying to reach out to you, and you kept plastering on a smile and saying, It’s fine, we’re fine, I’m busy with work anyway, even though our marriage was crumbling. Look, there were fundamental issues in our relationship that we couldn’t work through. But just because we were getting divorced, it didn’t mean I wanted us to be on opposing teams. I still wanted to be on your team. I still want to be on your team. So, please?” His eyebrows raise imperceptibly as he asks, “Please, will you tell me what’s going on?”

The anger is so overwhelming that a primal part of me wants to scream in his face. He doesn’t get to do this. He doesn’t get to pull the plug on our marriage and then act like he’s the concerned good guy and I’m the workaholic ex-wife.

“If you care so fucking much about being on my team—” I take in a deep breath, but it’s not enough. There’s not enough oxygen in the world to bring me back to equilibrium. “Then why did you quit on us?”

“Because we weren’t in love anymore!” he snaps, and even though there’s nothing but open space around us, it feels like it echoes off of every rock and blade of glass. “You really wanted to spend the rest of your life with someone you didn’t love anymore?”

We stand there, eyes cloudy, chests trembling. I don’t know what to say, instead wondering how the hell it got to this. The life we used to have feels unfathomable now, like a wistful fairy tale that I read about in a book when I was a kid. Because now here we are, having a screaming match outside his girlfriend’s house.

He takes a deep inhale and I do the same in an attempt to dilute the adrenaline coursing through me.

“I only want to help—” he starts.

“I don’t need your help—”

“Fucking hell, can you please not act like this?”

I scoff. “Like what ?”

“Like you’re too good, too smart, too together to accept anyone’s help, when, hey, news flash, those of us who know you also know when you’re lying to our faces. That’s what you did then, and I cannot believe that you’re still doing it now.”

My jaw drops, and Ben visibly reacts, which at least tells me that he didn’t mean for it to cut as deep as it did. “Well then,” I try to stay even-tempered, but I’m unable to pack the surge of tears and hurt back in anymore. “Guess it’s a good thing you found a new partner who always accepts your help, even when it comes to something as trivial as picking out a fucking camera lens.”

Ben opens his mouth and I prepare myself for him to throw another log on the blaze, but the next sound that I hear comes from behind me, and is a register too low to be his.

“Everything okay?”

In a half-assed combination of blinking rapidly and rubbing at my eyes with the palms of my hands, I say without looking back, “We’re good.”

Except my voice cracks, and I don’t have to see him to sense Tyler move to stand beside me. “Khin?” he asks.

“I said I’m fine,” I snap, head facing down and away from him.

After a long pause during which I assume he and Ben exchange silent looks, he lets out a long sigh. I’m expecting him to remind us where we are, or tell me that I should take a walk to cool off, but instead, he asks softly, “Oh no, did they cancel SVU ?”

A disgusting, snotty laugh leaps out of me and I have to face him because how else am I going to make sure my punch lands on his arm as I reply, “Don’t you dare even joke about that.”

His eyes do a quick sweep of my face, but his expression isn’t reactive whatsoever. I, on the other hand, am two hiccupping sobs away from having a breakdown on my ex-husband’s new girlfriend’s impeccable lawn. I take a deep breath, square my shoulders, and lift my chin. “Just for the record,” I say, hating and consequently ignoring how wobbly my voice is. “I am generally an independent, self-sufficient, incredibly put-together woman. You just… have terrible timing.”

He looks like he’s pulling back a smile. “Did Reese Witherspoon back out of Legally Blonde 3 ?”

Despite myself, I gasp, and Tyler laughs, and I let out a wet laugh of my own. “You know,” I say with a glare. “One day, you’re going to speak one of these terrible misfortunes into existence and I will personally hunt you down.”

“Oh yeah?” One brow raises in challenge. “And then what?”

“I’ll tell PETA you would looove to sign a five-year spokesperson contract with them.”

He widens his eyes in horror. “You wouldn’t.”

“Try me.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Maybe I am, and maybe I’m not.” I shrug. “As long as Reese doesn’t back out of Legally Blonde 3, you don’t have anything to worry about.”

He shakes his head. “What have I gotten myself into?” he asks, smile no longer restrained, and the sight makes my spine sizzle.

Our bodies both stiffen when Ben’s voice says from the side, “I’m gonna go back inside.”

Ben. Somehow, shockingly, I had forgotten about Ben. The last ten minutes come rushing back to me as though someone’s turned the volume from zero to a hundred in one flick. Wordlessly, Ben leaves, but Tyler doesn’t.

“So.” Tyler gives an awkward half shrug. “Do you wanna… talk?”

I blink, although my tears are still presenting him to me as a tall semi-blurry figure. “About what?”

“Anything?” he says, although it comes out like a question, as though he doesn’t know what we need to talk about either. “Whatever you want. We can talk about why you were fighting with your ex, or about how you think this shoot is going, or your opinion on the Carly Rae album that came out yesterday? Anything. Do you want to just… talk?”

I know I should say yes—if there ever was an opportunity to call a truce and get back on track, this is it—but I… can’t. I want to rally, but after my shouting match with Ben, I don’t have the energy to walk back into that house and be present for the rest of the shoot, let alone don a smile and slide into Cheery Interviewer mode.

Besides, for some inexplicable reason, I get the sense that Tyler would see right through me if I even tried to fake it.

I shake my head, my chest squeezing when I notice the corners of his mouth droop. “I’m sorry I brought my personal issues to work and interrupted your shoot. I know we both agreed to stick to being professional, and I’m sorry I didn’t keep up my end of the bargain.”

“Kh—”

“It won’t happen again,” I say, and march toward my car without waiting for him to respond.

I know that I cry all the way home, and that I am still crying right now, bundled up on the couch with SVU playing on the TV. What I don’t know is whether the tears are because I’m jealous of Ben, or because I am furious with him for reminding me of this investigation during the few precious hours today when I was determined not to think about it. Or because this is the episode where Barba leaves and that final decision of his breaks my heart every time; I’m getting to the good sad part where he’s in the hospital room when my doorbell rings.

I scramble for my remote and press pause, hoping that if I stay still long enough, Nay and Thidar will leave. There’s another ring—which I expected, and to which I also don’t respond because they’re not going to break me with this amateur shit. A third ring, then a fourth. When there’s no fifth, I peer over at the door, stretching out my ear to listen for the sound of receding footsteps, but I don’t hear any.

Instead, what I do hear is the buzz of my phone on my lap.

It’s a text from Tyler: I know you’re in there. You really need to lower your TV volume or else you’re going to blow out your eardrums

I snort but don’t reply.

Another buzz. I should not be able to recognize Mariska Hargitay’s voice from down the hallway

Begrudgingly, I yank the door open to find Tyler—not model Tyler, but your friendly neighborhood Tyler, who’s changed into jeans and a plain black T-shirt. Disregarding how good he looks thanks to his outfit’s deceptive minimalism, I growl, “How dare you trespass onto my place of residence and critique my TV-watching habits. How did you even get up here?”

His expression turns sheepish. Guilty. “I filmed a video wishing your doorman’s daughter a happy birthday and he swiped his keycard for the elevator.”

Great, even my doorman has fallen victim to Tyler Tun’s charm. “You should go,” I say, knowing he won’t go, but still feeling compelled to insist.

“Ten minutes,” he says, using his palms to indicate the number. “Please.”

I rub the back of my neck, wincing a little at the giant knot between my shoulder blades. “Whatever it is that you have to say—”

“You’re right. I have been keeping a secret from you. The other week, I invited you to dim sum because my sister wanted to meet you. Or, well, she wanted to see you. Again.”

“What?”

He nods at the sliver of space between the door and the wall. “Ten minutes.”

“Speak,” I order as I sit back down on the couch and burrito-wrap myself back under the blanket. Tyler rolls in his lips like he’s restraining a smile while he takes in my giant pink faux fur throw, but doesn’t say anything.

“God, I rehearsed this so many times in the car ride over,” he says, propping one elbow on the back of my couch so he can face me. “I have a whole level of newfound respect for writers. This speech shit is ha—”

“Congratulations, you now have nine minutes. Now why did your sister want to meet me? Or”—What was it that he’d said?—“See me?”

He gives a dry chuckle. “You know her.”

“What? Jess?” He nods. I look down at the coffee table as I try to process this. Once I’m certain that he must have me (or his own sister) mixed up with someone else, I shake my head. “No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do,” he says, sounding as sure as I’ve ever heard him.

“Tyler, I don’t know a Jess—”

“She had an abortion.”

I sit up, the motion pushing the blanket down and off my shoulders. “What?”

Tyler nods once to indicate that I heard correctly. “A few months ago, my seventeen-year-old baby sister had to get an abortion because some old creep she hooked up with in a club bathroom knocked her up,” he says. His jaw hardens, teeth grinding silently. “And when she told him, he told her he was married, and gave her an unmarked bottle of pills from who the fuck knows where. And I only found out because she called me in tears, because she wanted an abortion but she didn’t want to take the pills, which, thank fuck she was still rational enough to come to that realization, but there was also no way she could tell our parents. And it was the middle of the school year, so I couldn’t just suddenly fly her out without making them suspicious. Which is—”

When his shoulders raise and drop, they slouch farther down than I’ve ever seen them, like it took him a while, but he’s finally gotten rid of the weight of the world. “Which is how I came across your article. Because all I could do while I was in LA was google ‘abortion clinics Yangon.’ And there was your article.” He closes his eyes while he recites the title. “‘Meet the Underground Clinic Performing Life-Saving Abortions in Myanmar.’ It was the first search result. And I swear I nearly cried. And then I emailed you.”

“No, you didn’t,” I say, because I would’ve remembered this.

“Yes. I did. I said my name was Nita, and that I was a seventeen-year-old high school student in Yangon. Basically, I pretended to be Jess, but under a different name. I needed to make sure you were legit. And you responded almost immediately. And you were so compassionate and patient and just… kind .” He pauses, gauging my reaction for something. “You know… you have met her. In person.”

“What?” I shake my head. At no point in this conversation have I been able to predict what he was going to say next. “I’ve met your sister?”

“She’s my height but with a more athletic build,” he confirms, nodding. “When you met her, I think she had bangs and the tips of her hair were blue. Very chatty. Although she might not have been on that particular day.”

Oh shit. He’s not making this up. Because I remember that girl.

“That was your sister?” I ask. It had been less than a month after the article came out, when I was still handling incoming emails by myself. I had insisted on meeting the email sender in person to make sure it wasn’t some undercover cop trying to bust the clinic.

“Yes. And she told me everything. How you paid for lunch, that you let her pick the music when you drove her to the clinic the next day, that your husband called and you told him you were in the middle of a really important meeting, and that you told her that the fact that she didn’t want a child was enough reason to get an abortion. She said she felt so embarrassed and scared, but you never once made her feel judged. That’s pretty much the main reason she wants to go to med school and become an ob-gyn now. She wants to be specifically trained in abortion procedures.

“The plan was for her to tell you herself at brunch, but—” He rolls his eyes. “Apparently, it’s not every day that Olivia Rodrigo is in Bangkok. Or that your boyfriend manages to score pit tickets. Teenagers,” he grumbles with a bemused shake of his head.

“Tyler—” I exhale. I would say I feel like I missed a step, but it feels more like I missed three steps. I slam into a wall of guilt as I remember what I’d yelled about the “real” reason he’d invited me to brunch, and how I had been so goddamn certain that he’d wanted me to meet Jess purely to promote his image.

“And I actually… have another secret,” he says. He doesn’t look away, as though he wants me to know that he’s telling the full truth. “I told Vogue that I wanted you to write this story.”

“What?!” Now it feels like I’ve missed the whole staircase and am plummeting through the air. “Tyler, what the hell are you talking about?”

He shrugs like he couldn’t have put it clearer. “When my publicist told me about Vogue, I said I would only do it if I got to choose the reporter. Not just because I didn’t want some random white reporter who only asked me questions about ‘representation’ and had never spent a week in Yangon, but because I wanted to meet the person who was there for my sister on the scariest day of her life. And because you sounded like a damn good journalist who actually cared about her subjects and wasn’t just hunting for clickbait.”

His words wash over me in a dizzying way. “ You’re the reason I got this job?”

He shakes his head, expression toughening. “No, absolutely not. Yes, I said I wanted you, but they didn’t give in immediately. But I insisted, and at last, Clarissa said that she’d look into your recent work. She must’ve seen what I did, because she emailed me back a week later to say she’d set up a lunch with you.”

“This doesn’t—” This doesn’t make sense. None of it makes sense. “Why didn’t you just, I dunno, send me a thank-you email?”

He surprises me with a laugh. “Because that felt a bit underwhelming given the situation. Believe me, I wanted to find a way to thank you immediately, but…” One corner of his mouth quirks like he’s holding back a joke.

“But what?”

He scans my face before answering, a spark of humor re-injected into his voice. “But Jess said you didn’t exactly seem like the kind of person who’d be, and I quote, swayed by a stupid pair of movie premiere tickets or an invite to Cannes like you do with all of the girls. I wanted to thank you in a way that would matter. To you . When we signed with Vogue, I knew this was it.”

“You were…” My brain’s neurons fail to fire once more. “This whole time?”

“Khin.” The way he states my name with such conviction is what breaks me out of my spiral. “I know what it’s like to be really good at what you do, to know that you’re good at what you do, only to have to wait and wait around for someone else to give you just one big break. I didn’t keep the murder a secret solely because I wanted to protect the movie. Yes, cards on the table, you’d made a fair point about how this would impact everyone else on the team, including May and Yasmin—but that wasn’t the whole reason. I changed my mind because you pointed out that your career would be over, and I realized it would overwrite all of the amazing past work you’ve already done. You don’t deserve to have your whole career, your entire life, derailed because of one prick. You are good at what you do, Khin Haymar,” he says with a small smile. I’m tempted to cocoon myself in the blanket again, if only to cover up the goose bumps that have sprouted down my arms. “It didn’t make sense to throw that all away over the actions of one asshole.”

“You’re… telling the truth?” I ask, even though I know he is.

I can read you, I realize. This isn’t the secret that Clarissa is hunting for, but he’s being honest, to the bone. And the way in which he’s allowed himself to be so vulnerable makes me feel like… like maybe, just maybe, I can let myself do the same, too.

He nods. “I’m sorry I kept all of that from you. I wanted to tell you, but there was never a good time.”

“Why are you telling me all of this now?”

He studies me. “Because you were right. I couldn’t keep insisting you should trust me when I was keeping secrets from you. Although, it does kind of hurt that I’m not as good of an actor as everyone keeps telling me I am.”

My laugh is broken and messy, but he doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, it makes him laugh.

“Do you want to know why those cops wanted to talk to just me on Monday?” I ask with a miserable smile. For once, the voice in my head that’s always on the offensive doesn’t chime in.

He nods. “If you want to tell me.”

“As shocking as it might be to hear, after that article came out, the authorities weren’t exactly thrilled about the fact that an underground abortion clinic had gotten such publicity. My divorce was nearly final by then, but we hadn’t sold our house yet and they came by while Ben was there. Twice. Of course, they couldn’t exactly charge me with anything, and there was no way I was going to reveal any of my sources, but it… wasn’t easy for a while there.” I look down at my hands, pausing to catch my breath. “At one point, Ben suggested I leave town for a bit. Until things kind of died down. But I didn’t.”

“Because you don’t scare easy.” I look up from my hands to find Tyler smiling, and it’s small but genuine and gorgeous and I feel the most naked I ever have in front of him, but it’s not scary, not even a little. And maybe that should scare me, but it… doesn’t.

“No, I certainly do not,” I say, returning his smile. “But that’s why those cops wanted to get me alone. Apparently the target on my back never really went away.”

For a couple of seconds, he stares at me with an intent that I can’t decipher. Right as I’m about to ask, he gives a slow nod. “Oh.”

“Oh?”

“Oh, as in, oh, I get it now.” At my quizzical expression, he gives a small shrug. “Why you didn’t want to go to the cops in the first place. I mean, I know you told me a few eyebrows were raised —”

“Yeah, I might’ve downplayed it a bit,” I admit through a grimace, noting that he can quote me word for word from our first conversation. I don’t have time to explore the small radiator between my ribs that that observation kick-starts before he continues talking.

“I understand now, though. I’m sorry I was so… what’s the correct word here?” He turns and squints out the window, as though the correct word will float by. “Ignorant,” he decides, and turns back to me. “Thoughtless? Both, really. I’m sorry I was pushing you so much.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“But… there’s no connection here. With the, um, incident—” He pauses, and for two seconds, our guilt stretches our faces to the point where you don’t need to be a body language expert to know what the hell we’re talking about. “What does you writing that article have to do with this murder? Why are they zeroing in on you?”

“Well,” I say, understanding for the first time that he’s never been working against me, not once; the shame I feel makes me want to look away, but instead, in a gesture of truce, I give him the two things he’s been pleading for this whole time: my trust, and the whole truth. “Funny story. I have a small secret, too.”

I tell him about my most recent interrogation and about the photos, and his demeanor unravels with every new detail. By the time I’ve caught him up on Dipar’s girls’ night out at Nagar’s Breath, he’s shifted so much that his knee is pressed against mine, one of his palms splayed firmly across my lower thigh. And for the first time since I’ve moved into this apartment, it feels… relaxing. Good. Safe. Like a place where I don’t have to pretend, where I can fall apart.

“Let’s go,” Tyler says, checking his watch.

“Go… where?”

“The bar. What’s the name? Nagar’s Breath?”

I nod. “But—”

“We can take your car. I’ll drive.”

“Tyler.” I laugh. “First of all, you can’t go to a bar here. You wouldn’t last twenty minutes! And I would prefer not to have a front-row seat to Tyler Tun getting ripped apart limb by limb. I don’t need to be in the center of yet another police investigation, thank you very much. Still trying to deal with the first one, remember?”

“I—”

I stop him with an open palm. “And to be honest, I’m not even entirely certain that talking to her will help me out. Maybe she knows why her boyfriend had been stalking me? I’m going off of a hunch here.”

“I think you’ve proven that your hunches are spot-on,” he cuts in with a playful smile.

“Well, if anyone knows why he did it,” I say, wanting to ignore but also reveling in the way he’s looking at me, “it would be his girlfriend of two years. But what if someone snaps a photo of us and she’s also in it? Won’t that look suspicious to the police if they see it somewhere online?”

“Probably,” he admits. “But for one, it’s my experience that club lighting makes for notoriously grainy photos, and two, that’s only if we get caught. We’ll be careful, and seeing as how she’s our only lead right now, I think it’s a risk worth taking.”

Of course I agree with him; it’s why I was going to risk going there on my own in the first place. “I need to get her alone,” I say, revealing the rest of my plan. “But she’s not going to just follow me because I ask nicely. It’s the first rule of girls’ night out: nobody leaves alone.”

After a beat of quiet reflection, Tyler says, “But… what about with a guy? Assuming everyone in the group had vetted him beforehand? Surely another rule of girls’ night out is ‘no cockblocking.’”

I snort and move back, propping myself on my elbows. My top rolls up, and as his eyes fall onto the section of my stomach that’s now exposed, warmth unfurls across my skin. “I mean, yeah, if he’s been properly vetted,” I say, snapping both of us back to attention. “But it can’t be just any man.”

The corner of his mouth curves like, Don’t make me say it.

“What?” I ask.

“What if,” he says, pursing his lips as though he’s musing it over, “it was someone who was potentially in talks to be the next James Bond?”