43. Lola
Lola
“Hello?”
“Lola, what the fuck?”
It’s Penelope, and she deserves to be pissed. I shouldn’t have turned my phone off for this long, and now I have to face the music and own up to what I’ve done.
“Hey,” I say, coughing a bit and desperately trying to hold back a sob. She’s silent on the other end of the phone, and I realize she’s going to make me say it myself. “I’m sorry, Pen.”
“Sorry?” she asks, then there’s a long pause before she adds, “So it’s true then.”
“Yeah,” I mumble.
“Lola.”
I sigh. “I know.”
“Well, first off, are you okay?”
“I don’t know. No, not really.”
“Shit, okay, well—I mean, this is really disappointing. But you know that already. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, babe. The publisher pulled out of the book contract. Stated you violated the terms by not holding up your end of the PR agreement.”
I stare straight ahead for a long moment, trying to breathe, trying to think. On my laptop is a nearly finished manuscript. This has been the fastest I’ve ever finished a book. And now it will rot on my laptop forever, and my fans will hate me.
Of course, I could always self-publish. But going from traditional publishing to doing it myself makes my insides shrivel with embarrassment.
“Lola, you there?”
“Yeah,” I say, my voice rough. Tears are welling in my eyes, and I can’t stop them. I don’t even know what to say to her—apologize? I feel like what’s happening to me is punishment enough, but I do it anyway. “I’m sorry, Penelope. I never meant for any of this to happen.”
“Do you love him, Lola?” Penelope asks.
“What?”
“Do you love him? Devon.”
“I mean…yeah, I do.”
“Then I hope this was all worth it. I know the reason you write these stories is because you’re waiting for your own happy ending one day. So, if you got it, I suppose that might be a good enough reason to give up this comeback.”
I sit in that for a moment. I haven’t got it, though. Devon has definitely seen the broadcasts by now—I have a thousand missed calls from him—but I have no idea what he’s thinking. Surely, he didn’t think our fake relationship would end with a real baby.
“Yeah,” I finally manage to get out. Penelope tells me to take care of myself, says she’ll be in touch, and then hangs up. I sit on my bed for another moment, then jump out of my skin when there’s a knock at the door.
“Lola!”
His voice makes me freeze.
Devon is at the door. Is he pissed? Demanding that I tell him my plan for what to do with the baby? I know the logical and rational thing to do is open the door, talk to him, and work this thing out, but I feel certain if I try to do that, my brain is going to melt right out of my skull.
I’m not ready. I can’t handle any of this.
“Lola, please,” he pleads after banging on the door for five minutes. “Please let me in.”
I grab my headphones from the end table and pull them over my ears, curling up into myself and crying under the blanket. I must drift off after a certain amount of time because when I open my eyes again, my headphones have slipped off my head, and I can hear a scuffle taking place in the hallway.
“…can’t sit out here forever, man,” a voice says.
“She has to come out at some point.”
“When I told you to go to her, I thought she would let you in. Clearly, she’s not ready to talk.”
“I can’t leave her.”
“Devon, the game starts in three hours. We have to do warm-ups. We have to take care of our team.”
“Fuck the team.”
There’s a pause, then the voice comes again, muffled.
“You don’t mean that. I know you don’t. We’re gonna get through this, then we’ll all be there for you with this shit after. But don’t you dare punish your teammates for the shit you fucked up. I mean, fuck, man, you’ve never heard of a condom?”
There’s a shuffle, and it sounds like Devon is standing up, his back to my door. I hear him take a deep breath, and I shuffle over to the door as quietly as I can.
When I look through the peephole, he’s standing there with his hand pressed to the door, his forehead resting next to it. I should open the door. I should talk to him. But Grey is out there with him, and besides, his game is starting soon.
Opening the door now would sabotage his chance at the championship, and he doesn’t deserve that.
So I listen, ear against the door, as Devon and Grey walk down the hallway. I hear the ding of the elevator and start to cry again, silently, when Devon is really gone.