Chapter 37
Present Day
New York is freezing when I land at JFK.
It’s cloudy and gray in that way that screams seasonal depression.
The subway line to my apartment is down, because that only ever happens on what is already the worst day of your life, and it takes more than two miserable hours to get home.
Inside, my fridge is empty, the air smells stale, and there’s a pile of mouse poop in the corner by my bed.
I have the jarring realization that I wouldn’t care about any of that if West were with me, followed by the even harsher understanding that he would be with me if only I’d asked him to come.
New York hasn’t felt less like home since my first summer here.
I never blamed Daphne for leaving the city, but I feel the sharp ache of her absence now more than ever. I’m so tired of being alone. I’ve learned to live with it, but at the moment it feels less like living and more like existing.
As I sit in the middle of my empty apartment, I scroll through the Notes app statements on my phone, unable to believe I’ve become such a cliché. Another author mired in internet scandal. I numbly delete the statements defending West. What I end up posting doesn’t mention his name at all.
Hi, Torchers! Festival schedules are often changed last minute and without any input from the participants, which is what happened to me at the Tucson Festival of Books.
I will never tolerate or excuse any hate toward my readers, and I don’t associate with people who do.
I’m thankful for all of you, and I can’t wait to see you on tour for my new book, Shattered, which hits shelves SOON!
I wonder if it’s vaguely tacky to promote myself in a Notes-app non-apology but decide that I don’t care.
I type Love, Mars but delete it right before I hit post. For some reason, the move gives me a tiny buzz of vindication.
The ones who will care about this note are the same ones who spent the last few days dragging West and me through the mud.
I don’t have to love them right now. I just have to give them what they want.
Next, I email Whitney and tell her not to postpone the release or cancel my events. I swear that I’m mentally capable of handling the job and that my name won’t be associated with another scandal. I promise to keep my head down.
I’m too hollow to cry. My head and my chest and my limbs ache in a way that is unfamiliar and terrifying.
Losing West has never felt quite like this.
The days that follow are an endless stretch of gray wanting.
At first, they move too slow. Every hour feels like ten.
As my book tour gets closer, however, time plays tricks on me.
I blink, and the sun has moved halfway across the sky.
The first morning of the tour comes too quickly, and I’m scrambling to get out the door.
Just as I turn off the lights, I realize I have nothing to read on the plane, not even my Kindle, which I forgot at West’s.
I scan my bookshelf for whatever will distract me from my life, but I’m not in the mood for any of it.
I don’t want to read about people falling in love or casting spells or solving mysteries.
I drag my finger across spines, stalling on a little black book I’ve never even opened.
I put it in my bag with a heavy sigh. What could it hurt?
I can’t possibly be sadder than I already am.
I sleep on the flight to LA, where a car picks me up and drives me straight to the first bookstore, giving me plenty of time stuck in traffic to stew in my own nerves.
I write a dozen disaster scenarios in my head, each one ending in my utter humiliation because no one shows up, or they do and it’s a joke, or they film me saying the wrong thing, or, or, or.
The event is standing room only, with a line out the door.
The store sells out of stock. People cry.
(Not me.) I see fae ears and Fox T-shirts and a teenage girl with a tail.
It gives me some reassurance to know that the fandom is alive and well and that these books exist in a universe that in some ways has nothing to do with me.
A woman close to my mom’s age shows up with seventeen books for me to sign: foreign editions, movie tie-in covers, original hardcovers, and more.
This is exactly the moment I’ve been dreaming of since I wrote the first chapter of Shattered, my book about a magical world that’s lost its magic and the girl on a quest to restore it.
I was broken when I started, but writing this book brought me back to life.
It gave me a reason to get out of bed again.
I carved out writing spots all over the city.
I cried and complained with Daphne. I fell back in love with stories and characters and the feeling of writing something with zero expectations.
All that work and dreaming led to this moment. For years, this was my North Star; this success would make me happy again.
“You ready to go?” a voice asks.
“What?”
“We’re closing up the store.”
I blink back to reality. The bookstore is empty except for a handful of employees watching me warily.
A car drives me to the hotel. I’m too tired to keep my eyes open—until the second my head hits the pillow. I stare at the ceiling and wait for sunrise.
The next day, I do it again.
The day before the premiere, Daphne flies into LA and takes me dress shopping at the Grove.
“How do you want to look?” she asks as we sort through evening gowns in the dressing room at Nordstrom. “Dramatic? Whimsical?”
I push aside dresses with sequins and bows and pretty, iridescent fabric.
“Invisible.” The last thing I want is to be perceived.
My plan is to show up, watch the movie, check this off the to-do list, and move on to my next event.
Two signings in, and I’m already counting down the days until this tour is over.
Daphne turns to the sales associate. “We’ll try a little bit of everything. Color, silhouette, and style. She’s dressing for revenge.”
“Not true,” I say.
“Anything for you?” the sales associate asks Daphne.
“I’m all set. I made my dress.” She shows off pictures of the dress she designed, and the employee squeals in delight and asks if my dress should match. “I’m her plus-one, but she’s walking the red carpet alone. No need to match,” Daphne says brightly.
With instructions and my measurements in hand, the associate sets off, and Daphne slips her sandals off and tucks her feet up under her legs on one of the dressing room’s soft lounge chairs. “Have you heard from West yet?”
“He won’t call,” I say as I try on a black V-neck ball gown with spaghetti straps and a fitted bodice.
It fits like it was made for me; it doesn’t even need to be altered.
“And I don’t want him to,” I add as an afterthought.
Daphne audibly scoffs. “You don’t like it?
” I turn to see the low back in the mirror.
“The dress is stunning. Your statement was ridiculous.”
I make eye contact with her reflection in the mirror. “It’s over, Daph.”
“Except it’s never really over between you two.”
“You only think that because your view has been poisoned by mine.” I wasted hours of her life ranting about how much I hated him, and she saw right through it.
“Or maybe it’s because when we were all trapped in that Martha’s Vineyard house together, I saw the way you two looked at each other.
Or because I’ve read Torched and Drought.
Or because I heard the giddiness in your voice after you ran into him in Tucson.
Believe whatever you have to tell yourself, but you two still have unfinished business. ”
I sigh. “West and I both held on to the hope of ‘maybe, someday,’ but when someday finally arrived, it wasn’t the right time.”
“Why not?”
“We weren’t ready.”
“Except he was ready,” she says.
I don’t have an argument for that.
It’s almost midnight when I take Oasis out of my travel bag. I’m alone in a hotel room, and I can’t stop replaying my last conversation with West.
I’m done with first kisses. I can’t keep losing you.
The thought that West and I will never have another first kiss makes it impossible to sleep.
Daphne was right about West and me; even when there was nothing going on between us, there was always something going on between us.
That sliver of hope is what allowed me to spend nearly a decade building a life without him.
I chased every dream and chance of happiness, knowing that at the end of a horrible or wonderful day, I could fantasize about a future with West.
Faced with a world where I might never speak to him again, I’m scrambling to hold on to any piece of him that I can, which is why I’m finally brave enough to read his first novel.
I open the front cover, and a folded piece of paper falls onto my lap. I pick it up, assuming it’s a receipt from the bookstore, but it has torn edges and printed lines like it was ripped from a notebook. I unfold the pages and smooth it out on top of the hotel bed.
My jaw drops when I see West’s familiar handwriting. The words are smudged from his left hand dragging across wet ink. It’s dated eight years ago in December. Before Martha’s Vineyard, before the article.
Dear Mars,