Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Numb, Vivian sat in the folding chair the makeup team brought. Around her bathroom, three people moved in a practiced rhythm. Three sets of hands working on a body that belonged to someone else.
Vivian stared at her reflection. She recognized herself, but barely. Like how a person and a corpse shared a resemblance, but the absence of a soul altered everything just enough to confuse the grieving mind. To leave the smallest flicker of hope that there had been some mistake.
When her phone vibrated against the bathroom counter, the woman styling her hair into side-swept Old Hollywood waves looked at it. The man curling her lashes straightened.
“Do you need to get that?” he asked. “Someone keeps texting.”
Even without having looked at her phone, Vivian knew who it was. Not only did she rarely give out her number, but only one person would have the temerity to machine-gun message.
Heart screaming, Vivian slammed something shut inside her chest to stop the noise. To muffle it at least so that she didn’t have to listen to her own heart shatter.
“No,” Vivian replied, her voice a soulless ghost.
“You’ll get used to the lash extensions in a minute. I promise your eyes will stop watering soon,” he said, as if he had any hand in the unshed tears stabbing the back of her eyes.
They were packing up and Vivian only needed to put on her silver-beaded dress with a plunging neckline when she picked up her phone. Bryn’s texts were a play-by-play of the last three hours.
Vivian barely let herself read the messages, and she didn’t allow herself to open any of the photos for a better look. She couldn’t allow herself to linger. Responding only to her many questions about hairstyling, Vivian looked up from her phone and directed her questions at the team.
For a reasonable fee Vivian paid, they were happy to go to Bryn’s room and put a professional polish on Bryn’s supermarket-sourced hair and makeup. When she told Bryn the team was on their way, she sent another barrage of thankful texts.
Vivian couldn’t read them without wanting to cry. Every word. Every ridiculous emoji and silly selfie was an axe cleaving her heart in two.
She couldn’t even tell Bryn that her beauty shone from the depths of her being and she shouldn’t dampen that with a bunch of cheap tricks. Tonight was so important for Bryn.
All Vivian could do was put one foot in front of the other and keep moving. If she stopped—if she so much as hesitated—she wouldn’t stand a chance of getting back up.
Standing in her suite, dressed and miserable, Vivian did the thing she swore she’d never do again. Hand on the door handle, she took a trembling breath and reached for someone she’d buried years ago. Just one more time.
She stepped into the hallway as Vivian Taylor.
The ride to the theater with Bryn was a blur of Bryn’s excited energy. The red carpet gauntlet was the same. All the noise and lights and inane questions swirled around them, but all Vivian could see was Bryn.
Bryn, looking dapper and cool in a light blue tuxedo tailored so perfectly to her body. Bryn laughing and posing and constantly reaching back for Vivian. Reaching back with just a look like she wasn’t sure whether Vivian wanted to take her hand in front of all the prying eyes.
How Vivian wished she had the words to explain. Wished that she could tell her how incredibly proud she was of her—that she’d happily take her hand if it wouldn’t make their impending goodbye just that much more unbearable.
The moment they found their seats, Vivian’s stomach, already crushed in a cincher, clenched. Steps from the stage, she knew in her bones they were going to win. That Bryn was going to win, and Vivian hadn’t considered an acceptance speech.
“Hey, are you okay?” Bryn leaned over, the blue of her eyes absolutely arresting against the gold shadow and copper mascara.
“Yes,” she lied.
Bryn looked down at the plate Vivian hadn’t touched.
“Do you want me to ask if there’s something else?” Bryn asked. “I didn’t eat my roll if you want—”
“I’m fine,” Vivian replied, wondering how many times she had to lie in a row to be pathological.
Bryn scooted closer to her like they weren’t sharing a table with ten other people. She leaned in close enough to torture Vivian with her clean perfume. “I know this is a lot of people, and chaos, and you hate—”
“I’m fine,” Vivian repeated because she couldn’t tolerate Bryn’s kindness. Couldn’t tolerate Bryn knowing her well enough to understand how she hated crowds and attention. Her being worried about Vivian when she should only be thinking about the awards.
Despite unrelenting nausea and barely being able to choke down water, Vivian grabbed her fork and shoved a piece of tasteless food in her mouth. She chewed it like it was made of unbreakable rubber, and swallowed.
Unconvinced, Bryn watched her. “Is something else wrong?”
The tears burned again, but Vivian Taylor had never cried once in her life. She held them at bay with sheer will. “These lashes are torture.”
Bryn wore her complete disbelief in the furrow of her brow. She was going to say something else when the lights flickered. Their ten-minute warning.
“Go to the bathroom,” Vivian said because Bryn, in her nervous state, had chugged three glasses of water and two iced teas. “You’ll thank me later,” she lied.
With a nod and uncharacteristic silence, Bryn heeded her advice and stood.
The Grammys of the voice acting industry was a thousand people packed into a theater gagging to congratulate themselves. Only one person deserved to win in Vivian’s estimation, but they still had to sit through twenty-nine categories before finally arriving at Audiobook of the Year.
Bryn paled when they started reading the shortlist of nominees. She hadn’t practiced the art of concealing her hope. Vivian should have told her to make her face a mask, but she never wanted to see less of Bryn.
So what if she showed the cameras floating around for the livestream that she wanted to win? Pretending not to care seemed so stupid now. Vivian couldn’t bring herself to reach for apathy, so she took Bryn’s hand in hers instead.
Bryn’s trembling fingers clamped over Vivian’s like she was debating taking off in a sprint. Like she hadn’t actually imagined what this moment would be like. Or if she had envisioned it, she’d grossly misjudged the feeling.
Vivian smiled at her and graciously accepted losing all blood flow to her hand.
“And the award goes to…”
The presenter spoke, and the audience roared, and Vivian was on her feet. Clapping so hard it hurt, she funneled all of her tangled emotions into sheer joy over Bryn’s win.
But Bryn wasn’t moving. Stunned and overwhelmed by the sound of a thousand people looking only at her and cheering had apparently triggered a complete freeze response.
Before they could start playing the come-get-your-damn-award music again, Vivian held out her hand and waited for Bryn to take it.
“I don’t know what to say,” Bryn mouthed with abject terror on her face.
Vivian smiled and gestured toward the stage with the tip of her head. “I’ve got you,” she vowed.
Mercifully, the walk to the stage was short, because Bryn moved as if her legs had gone numb. The more struck she appeared, the more the audience blasted her with cheers. Just like that, a thousand people saw Bryn and loved her. Vivian couldn’t blame them.
On stage and facing everyone who mattered in their industry, Vivian had to resist the urge to shield Bryn with her own body. No one would read it as protection, and she wouldn’t tarnish Bryn’s win by fueling her diva rumors.
Never letting go of Bryn’s shaking hand, Vivian opened her mouth without knowing what would come out.
“There was a time, not that long ago, when a book like Magpies wouldn’t have existed.
” Vivian took a deep breath, surprised by her own emotions.
“When queer love stories were expressly prohibited unless they were cautionary tales, unless they presented fatalistic endings for the women who dared choose love. Choose each other. And we must never forget how easily those days can return. We must never let go of the love that defines our identity.”
She cleared her throat but the knot lodged there was immovable.
“For every queer kid who will stumble across this audiobook someday…” Vivian’s voice trembled when she looked down at the glass award in her hand. “Our love stories matter. They deserve to be beautifully told, and they deserve to win awards.”
She made the mistake of looking at Bryn, vision blurring and her hold on herself slipping.
“Bryn, this award truly belongs to you alone. It was your magic that elevated every syllable in that book. Your vulnerability. Your artistic integrity. Your light.” She laughed and stupid tears burned her cheeks.
“You reminded me why I fell in love with this work, and I can’t wait to listen to what you create next.
” Her breath hitched and all she had left was a weak and insufficient, “Thank you.”
Following a thunderous standing ovation, photographers quickly removed them from the stage for photos in front of a stand and repeat. The moment Harvey ushered Bryn toward a group of suits eager to talk to her, Vivian slipped away.
The complete silence in the back of a rideshare after hours of deafening noise was jarring. Ears ringing, all she could do was take deep breaths. She would not break down in a stranger’s car. She would not make a fool of herself. At least not in public.
She focused on solving problems. First she texted Harvey, insisting that he take care of Bryn at the afterparty where everyone would clamor to meet her. Then, she changed her flight to a red-eye leaving in a couple of hours. Finally, she texted Bryn.
Vivian: Enjoy the evening. You deserve it. I’ve run out of social battery and it’s time to go home. I meant what I said, Bryn. Thank you. For everything.