Chapter 34
Charlotte’s apartment is in Murray Hill, a neighborhood full of overgrown frat guys with their first finance jobs—or at least that’s what she tells me. Her roommate begged her to move here so she could be closer to her boyfriend, and Charlotte reluctantly agreed.
“I thought you were a professional athlete,” she shouts down to me as I drag my suitcase up the stairs.
“Five flights? You do this every day?” I ask between heavy breaths.
“This city takes strength.”
It fucking does. And now I’m stuck here for another week. That’s what Mom and Charlotte negotiated. Helen was part of the decision too. She has a family vacation coming up at the end of the week, so she can see me only until then, and after that I’m headed back home to figure shit out.
Charlotte hands me a water as I collapse onto her couch.
It’s not even a couch—more of a love seat, really.
It’s all she and her roommate can fit in this living room.
My eyes land on a framed photo on Charlotte’s shelf.
It’s of all of us at a junior event in Texas, me holding up a trophy, Robbie included.
It was a rare occasion when the whole family could make it to a tournament together.
I want to walk over and take a closer look at the picture, but my body won’t move—not after those stairs, not after yesterday.
“What do you want to do today?” she asks, sitting down on a floor pillow next to me.
I groan.
“Come on. We can do anything. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”
“You don’t have to be nice to me just because my life is over.”
“Oh my god, Auz.”
“I have no coach. I have no career. I have no bedroom,” I say, swinging my legs across her couch.
“You have a bedroom. You’re taking Kara’s room.”
“Where is she gonna be?”
“She’s literally always at Hunter’s apartment, and she’s just gonna stay there for the week. That one’s all yours,” she says, gesturing. “It’s the biggest out of the two, so enjoy.”
“Why does she get the bigger one?”
“So I can afford to live here.”
“Fair,” I reply. “You know you don’t have to hang out with me today. You’re supposed to be in the office.”
“I’m working from home.”
“And I’m so much work.”
“You are sometimes, but not right now.” She grabs my foot. “Have you heard anything from Diego?”
“Who?”
She rolls her eyes.
“Nope. He made it very clear that he’s not interested in anything with me, so I’ve begun the process of erasing him from my brain. And I’m sure the only thing he’s focused on is the quarterfinals.”
“How do you feel about all that?”
“Oh, has therapy started?”
She smirks. “You can talk to me, dummy. I’ll be around long after your therapist.”
“Your office could use some plants.” She shrugs, and then waits for me to answer her question. “I don’t know. I feel stupid. I let this happen again, where I like someone, I get close to them, and then they change their mind. It’s like they get to know me and they decide it isn’t worth it.”
“Nope, no, that’s not about you. That’s about them. It’s about not knowing themselves,” she says. “You are worth everything in the world.”
Charlotte was my person during Jakegate. After him, she was the first one I came out to. She threw her arms around me, hugged me as hard as she could, and asked if we could go see Love, Simon.
“I’ve already seen it,” I told her.
“What?”
“I streamed it on some bootleg site, like, the day it came out.”
“Well, you’re seeing it again, and I’m paying for a third ticket to make up for your illegal activity. We have to support it. It’s the first film from a major studio about—”
“Yes, yes, a gay teenage romance. I know. It’s very important. We’ve all seen the articles.”
I smile at the memory as Charlotte stands up and heads to the fridge, which is literally right beside the couch. “Okay. Let’s mope for a few more hours,” she says. “We can watch something mindless on TV. And then I want you to come with me to this event tonight.”
“No, I can’t schmooze in this condition,” I groan.
“I know your life doesn’t expand much further than tennis, but it’s New York Fashion Week, and you’re gay, so you should care about it a little. It’ll be full of gorgeous models, and you’ll forget about him immediately.”
“You think I’m shallow enough for that to work?” Charlotte squints. “Diego is funny and smart and sensitive—and he just happens to be hot,” I say.
“Why are you defending him?”
“Good point.”
“Come flirt with guys tonight. They’re your age, maybe a little older.”
“Will you be flirting too?”
“They’re all gay, so no. They’ll tell you they’re straight, but then they’re always going to Barry’s Bootcamp with their friend Tyler.”
“That’s very specific. Did this happen to you?”
“No, they’re actually all named Tyler.”
I shake my head.
“Come on,” she says. “Have one night when you forget about all the things that are making you sad right now.”
That list is long, so there’s no chance in hell I’ll forget about everything. But I agree to give it a shot.
—
“I don’t know anything about tennis, really.”
That’s what a guy with tight curls and a dark suit says to me after lifting a champagne glass to his lips, taking a sip, and resting his shoulder against the wall next to me.
And for the first time in a while, I feel anonymous.
He doesn’t know who I am, and more importantly, he doesn’t know I just had one of the most public anxiety attacks ever recorded on camera.
I wish I’d said I was in New York for a different reason though. I could have said anything.
I’m an intern at Good Morning America.
I’m here for a barista competition. I paint faces in oat milk lattes.
I grew up here. I went to Timothée Chalamet’s high school.
But no, “I’m here for a tennis tournament,” I said, because I panicked and didn’t want to get too far from the truth.
He’s cute enough. And I’ve spent the last ten minutes trying to hear him over the noise of this party and figure out how old he is. He just graduated from college—early, he said—so maybe twenty-two? He has too much confidence to be any younger, because he just slid an inch closer to me.
I haven’t seen Charlotte in a while. She knows half the people here, so she keeps getting pulled into conversations. She told me to scratch my left ear if I need her to get me out of anything, but that only works if she can see me.
“I don’t know anything about tennis either,” I say. “I’m just here with my friend, and she wanted to see some matches.”
Okay, I’m turning this thing around. This could be fun.
“Oh, the US Open? Who did you see?”
Dude, you just told me you don’t care about tennis. Why are you grilling me?
“You know, the usuals.”
“Did you see Diego Cruz?”
How? How is that the first person he names? I can’t escape Diego. This guy just told me he doesn’t know anything about tennis, but he knows about him. I take it back. This is not fun.
“No. Who’s that?” I ask.
“You don’t know who Diego Cruz is? He’s like the number one player in the world—”
“Number two.” I can’t help myself. And now he’s confused. “Ya know, I think I have heard of him,” I add.
Curls carries on. “Yeah, he’s one of our brand ambassadors. I was a postproduction assistant producer on a shoot he did in Paris.” A mouthful of a job. “Such a nice guy. I didn’t actually meet him, but that’s what everyone tells me.”
“Incredible,” I say, not even trying to hide my sarcasm. I scan the room for a champagne tray. I promised Charlotte I wouldn’t drink, but she promised me she’d stay by my side.
“Am I boring you?” he asks, and, surprised by his directness, I turn back to him. I mean, the conversation absolutely is boring, but I didn’t think I’d get called out.
“No. Why?”
“Well, I just think you’re handsome, and I’m starting to get self-conscious.”
I smirk. I can’t help it. If that was a move, it was endearing, and I might be blushing.
“Do you like guys?” he asks.
Famously.
“Why do you ask?” I say instead.
“Just hoping,” he says with a smile. “Do you want to go somewhere where we can hear each other?”
I text Charlotte as I’m walking into the elevator. going up to the roof
As soon as the doors open and I get reception again, her text is waiting. What with who
tyler i think ??? I reply.
I laugh at my own joke and shove my phone back into my pants.
We duck under plants, weave between rooftop tables.
“There’s a great spot right over here,” Curls says, and he leads me to a little bench with a view of the city sparkling around us.
Electronic music plays in the background, a bass line traveling up from another roof.
He sits next to me with his leg tucked up on the bench, and stares into my eyes as if we’re in some kind of rom-com. He talks about various things: more celebrities he’s met through his job, his apartment search, his favorite restaurant downstairs…
He asks me questions, and I continue to invent my new persona. I’m not a professional tennis player. I don’t know anything about tennis either. How was my week? It was perfectly fine—no mental health issues, no heartbreaks, no fights with my dead dad’s best friend. I’m anyone other than stupid me.
And maybe life is easier this way. Maybe that’s why I chose to fuck around with him in the first place. But as the words come out of my mouth, they feel wrong and weird. They’re lies, after all.
Curls continues talking, and just beyond his electric green nail polish waving against the night sky is the Chrysler Building, only a block or two away, so close that I can see into its windows.
Someone is sitting at their desk. They stand, pace their office, sit again.
A little farther away, to the right, is the Empire State Building, the top of it glowing blue and orange.
From this angle, it doesn’t look like the taller of the two buildings at all.
A moment passes, and I realize no one’s said anything in a while.
“I’ve had, like, three of these,” Curls says, after finishing his champagne, “so I’m just gonna go for it here.” He pauses, and asks if he can kiss me.
And I nod. I nod because he’s cute. Because it seems like the right thing to do here. Because his hand is already halfway to my face. And I nod because I want to forget about Diego.
His lips touch mine and his hand takes my cheek—and suddenly I’m on the court again, staring up at the sky, and Diego is staring down at me, his hand in the exact same position.
I kiss the stranger with curls and green nail polish back, but I’m not thinking about him. I’m thinking about someone I met a little over a week ago who turned my life upside down. I’m lying again as I kiss this stranger.
I pull back, slowly. I don’t want to offend him, but I want this to be over.
“That was nice,” he says.
I nod. Another lie.
“I’ve gotta go back and find my sister now,” I say.
“I thought you were here with your friend?”
“Yeah, my friend—she’s like a sister. We’re very close.”
“Okay,” he says, disappointed. I know the feeling, dude. This week was full of it. “We should follow each other,” he says, pulling out his phone.
Fuck. I did not think this through. The second he goes on my profile he’ll know exactly who I am and I’ll officially be a monster.
“I’m not on social.”
“Smart. It’s brutal out there.”
It really is.
I settle for giving him my phone number, and a piece of me dies as I change the last digit. He’s perfectly wonderful, but I’ve dug a hole too deep, and the thought of kissing or talking to anyone other than Diego makes my stomach turn. I wonder how long that will last.
In the elevator, I try to remember his name. He told me. Fuck, he looked me right in the face and he told me, but I wasn’t listening. My mind was on someone else.