Track 18 #2
“Them,” Delilah corrects, trying to ignore the flush rising on her cheeks. “And—that’s a very personal question.” Alex, who knows her too well, makes a strangled noise and audibly pours herself anther drink. “But it’s not—I mean. It’s not…newsworthy.”
“You,” Alex says with all the false pleasantry of a politician on a baby-kissing tour, “are so lucky you’re in Iowa, because if you weren’t, I would strangle you.”
“I love our working relationship,” Delilah says. “It’s not hostile or threatening at all.”
“I’m asking,” Alex continues, as if Delilah hadn’t spoken, “because someone got a picture of the two of you looking very cozy at a bar in Chicago, and I’m getting some questions about it.”
“Oh,” Delilah says. Emmett looks at her, concern putting a worry line between their eyes, and Delilah shakes her head in a way she hopes is reassuring. “Shit. Is it—who—”
“It was one very grainy photo, and we could probably play it off as just a random person you met at the bar,” Alex says, but there’s a tinge of care to her words now, like she’s choosing them carefully.
“And as of now, I haven’t seen it anywhere other than my inbox.
I took care of it for the moment, but if you’re keeping them with you on your little post-breakup adventure, eventually people are going to start putting the pieces together. ”
Delilah puts her coffee down on the counter so that she can rub her eyes. “This is why I always let Sam take the lead on being the public face of everything,” she says. “People aren’t supposed to recognize me.”
“The two of you did a Rolling Stone cover six months ago, kiddo. The incognito ship has sailed.” There’s a distant clink as Alex sets her glass aside.
“Look, if you’re doing a rebound fling with your hitchhiker, fine, that’s your business.
I think it’s an absurdly bad decision, but it’s your business.
But it becomes my business when I start getting press inquiries about it. ”
“I know. I know.” Delilah tries to remember the last time something was allowed to be hers, only hers, for even a little while, without having to be shared with six rounds of publicists.
Probably not since before Sam. So much for hoping that breaking up might give her some breathing room—at least long enough to see if this thing with Emmett was going anywhere.
But it’s not going anywhere, and she’d known that before she even kissed them, because how could it?
This isn’t the kind of trip where they swap numbers at the end, follow each other online, and meet up for a drink once in a blue moon to reminisce about the time they trekked across the country making out and taking an informal tour through queer American history.
It’s a Final Destination trip, for Emmett if not for her, and all she’s doing is making their last act of rebellion a little more rebellious.
Like maybe that’ll make it better, or worth it, or—
“Delilah? You there?”
“I’m here.”
A pause. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you taking your meds?”
“I’m not having an episode, Sam,” she snaps.
There’s silence on the other end of the line, and Delilah realizes what she said, and who she said it to, and who she didn’t.
She sets the phone down on the bed and puts both hands over her eyes, pressing against her eyelids until multicolored phosphenes bloom beneath her fingertips in a kaleidoscope of pressure and light.
A hand settles on her shoulder—Emmett, their touch gentle and almost cautious.
Grounding. Delilah leans into them. She forces herself to take a breath, and then another, before putting the phone back to her ear.
“Alex,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’d rather you be pissed and honest than lying and happy.” Delilah snorts, humorless. “She did a number on you, huh, kid?”
Delilah rubs her eyes.
When she looks back—really looks, without the rose-colored glasses—she can see it.
Subtle barbs, suggestive little comments about what Delilah was and wasn’t capable of, what she could do and what she couldn’t do without Sam at her back.
Not gaslighting, not quite manipulating, but a thousand tiny emotional paper cuts, sowing those seeds of doubt.
It had been so easy to play them off, ignoring the occasional twinges of frustration or discomfort.
Because Sam was so good to her, wasn’t she?
She’d done so much for her, always had her best interests at heart, put in so much effort—learning Delilah’s mom’s matzoh ball soup recipe so she could make it when Delilah was sick or depressed, staying up with her when Delilah pulled all-nighters to finish working on a song, leaving affectionate little love notes in the pockets of Delilah’s sweaters whenever she was the one to put away the laundry.
There had been so much goodness, so much sweetness in those years, and now Delilah’s stomach twists to think about it.
She feels like she’s spent years in a beautiful, glamorous home, and now she has to wonder if the entire foundation was rotten.
She takes another breath. “I think,” she says, and swallows.
“Maybe. Yes. I think she did.” She wants, very suddenly, to cry. “Am I…Did you know?”
“No.” The answer is immediate, firm, and so kind she almost doesn’t believe it’s really Alex saying it.
“I never liked how she put you down, but you always stood up for yourself, whenever I could see you. I’d have gotten you out of there, if I’d known.
” A heartbeat of silence, and then, “Let me handle the pictures. I’ll get them distracted with something else.
You just get the album written and…do whatever you need to do to take care of yourself.
You are writing, right? I don’t need to come pick you up and lock you in a studio? ”