Chapter 19 #3
Then, I move to the Talking Points tab and find the bullets are neat and impersonal.
I read them out loud until my voice stops shaking and then adjust. Cut the phrases that taste like a lie in my mouth.
Replace them with one that tastes like water.
I build the evening like a series of stones across a river and tell myself I can step from one to the next without falling in.
I move to the Wardrobe tab next and type Emerald dress in the cell next to my name.
Next to Kyle, I type navy suit, white shirt, no tie, pocket square to match and then close my eyes because I can see him in it.
The exact angle of his smile when he sees me for the first time and how it will make my throat do the thing it does when I want to be brave, and instead, I am only a person.
Moving on to the Crisis tab, I keep the language simple.
If a reporter crosses a line, freeze the smile and pivot to Cooper’s charity.
If someone asks about origins, lean on “mutual respect” and “time spent getting to know one another.” If a photo leaks with a bad angle, post a better one before it trends.
At the bottom of the spreadsheet, I write: If I start to panic, name five things I can see, four I can touch, three I can hear, two I can smell, one I can taste.
I am not sure whether the taste will be guilt or hope.
After I finish with everything, I hit save and open a new document to draft a caption for the team account we can approve in the morning.
A night in support of our community. Proud to show up together for a cause that matters.
I try another version that sounds less like a poster.
I settle on a third that sounds like anything except calm.
The apartment clock ticks toward eleven.
The candles have burned down to little circles of wax, and I blow them out, watching the smoke unwind into the air.
I pull the emerald green dress off and hang it on the outside of the closet where I can see it.
It looks like a decision made by a person who will follow through.
The phone buzzes again. Not the group chat this time. A single text from the last person I want to talk to right now.
Kyle
You don’t have to send wardrobe. I’ll figure it out.
I stare at the screen long enough to count to twenty. I do not send the controlling text I drafted in my head five hours ago about color harmony and silhouettes. I type something else instead.
I’m wearing emerald green. It will photograph nicely against navy.
A dot appears. Disappears. Reappears.
Kyle
Make it blue.
I sit down on the edge of the bed and look at the closet door where the dress hangs like it could answer for me.
Why?
Kyle
You look beautiful in blue.
I can feel the way my face reacts without needing a mirror—the heat rising under my skin, the small tug at my mouth I learned not to show strangers. Compliments from him are dangerous. They sound too real, even when they’re meant as jokes.
This is business.
Kyle
Then consider it a brand request.
My heartbeat picks up because he is teasing me, but also not at the same time. He’s being the version of himself who knows when I need him to be other people’s version. I don’t know how to respond without sharpening the ache I’ll feel Saturday when we put all of this on for the cameras.
Smart casual for the part before we walk in. Hands where cameras can see them.
A pause.
Kyle
I can do that.
Another pause.
Kyle
Are you okay?
The word eats a small hole in the air between me and the phone.
I could say yes, and it wouldn’t be a lie because I am upright and typing.
I could say no, and it wouldn’t be a lie either, because my heart is a small animal that keeps trying to escape through my ribs.
I choose the version of the truth that lets us both sleep.
I’m prepared.
The three dots pulse for a long time. I think he is going to push, but he doesn’t.
Kyle
I’ll be there at 5:45.
I’ll be ready.
I set the phone face down and walk to the kitchen.
The water from the tap runs too cold, but I drink anyway, half the glass disappearing before I can stop myself.
I turn and head back into my room, leaving the half empty glass on the nightstand and catch my reflection in the mirror on the closet door.
The girl looking back knows how to sell a story, how to make the world believe whatever version she needs them to. But behind her eyes is the one who kissed someone in her doorway until she’d forgotten how to breathe until he reminded her.
The sheets are cold when I crawl into bed. I pull them to my chin and stare at the ceiling until the dark blurs. I count the way the therapist taught me—five things I can see, four I can touch, three I can hear, two I can smell, one I can taste.
I try to focus, but the only thing I can think about is the crisis notes on my tablet, the ones meant to fix everyone else’s mistakes.
I think about the way he said my name this afternoon, and how only I knew what it meant.
I think about my mother and how easy it would be to give her the fairy-tale version, let her believe it until the world moves on.
My job is not to want him. My job is to make everyone believe the story that keeps us both safe. I’m good at my job and can do it in my sleep. I keep repeating it like a line from a press release, hoping that if I say it enough, it’ll sound true.
The dress hangs in the dark like a warning, not a promise. When I put it on, it will become armor, something to wear between us and the world. I picture the flashes, the smiles, the space I told him to keep. The space I don’t trust myself to want.
“If I keep it professional, I can survive it,” I whisper out loud, because saying it makes it feel like the truth.