Chapter II #2
“Anyway,” Reid is saying, “my uncle helped us out sometimes, but my mom was too proud to let him fully fund my tuition. It was easier for everyone if I went to a state school. And UCSD has a solid screenwriting program, which is pretty hard to find.”
“So what are you going to do when you’re home? In LA, I mean.”
“Hug my mom.”
“And then what?”
I notice it again—his hesitation. I’m starting to sense that he’s an overthinker like me. According to my parents, this is also part of what makes me an artist: that I possess an excess of empathy but maintain a clinical, observational distance from all that emotion.
I see myself in him, which means I can tell he’s holding back. I am desperate to get closer to his core, to unearth what it is that’s causing a crease to form between his brows.
But also—I’m starting to feel protective of him. You can do it, I want to say to him, just like I often want to tell myself. You can say the hard thing.
He sighs. “I don’t really have a plan. This is kind of embarrassing, but at the beginning of the summer, like in my first week of working at the firm, I was making a hundred copies of a case I could barely understand, and what I did understand of it was so crushingly dull that I could actually feel a part of my soul dying.
There was no art in it. I hadn’t had a creative thought in weeks.
I realized I was miserable. I missed writing.
I missed who I was when I was writing. So I decided to do something sort of risky. ”
He looks over at me, like he’s making sure I’m still with him.
In the distance, I hear the twinkle of a glass breaking, a muffled cackle, and something too fast and violent playing on the sound system—Minor Threat or Circle Jerks, one of the older hardcore bands.
I can’t explain it, but I already know that this will be one of those moments I’ll feel nostalgic for in years or decades to come—that this is one of those instants from which the rest of my life will unfurl.
I nod at him, coaxing him along.
On a breath, he says, “I sent the screenplay I’d submitted as my thesis to Jake Bellingham.”
I find it ridiculously sweet that he considers mailing a screenplay to a stranger “risky.” Especially because I have never heard that name in my life.
When I don’t respond, he cocks his head. “He wrote Forgive Me?”
I know this one, of course—the movie about the lapsed Catholic priest who descends into a sex addiction. It swept the Oscars a couple years ago.
“He writes scripts that read like novels. His characters are super complex, and it’s like every word they say has a second, deeper meaning beneath it.
He’s the kind of artist who depresses me a little, because I know I’ll never be that good, but it’s also exciting—he’s making the format feel so much more expansive.
” He runs a hand over his face and sighs.
“So, yeah. I sent him the script with a cover letter that was probably way too fawning. I told myself I wasn’t expecting an answer, but now it’s been over two months, which probably means an answer is never coming.
I’m disappointed, and I feel stupid for being disappointed. ”
“So you really are a rebel.”
“And I used the office machine to make a copy.”
“You belong in jail.”
He laughs. The strap of my dress has fallen halfway down my shoulder, revealing the swath of skin between my breast and my arm that I’ve always secretly found elegant.
That I’ve always wanted someone else to admire.
I feel Reid’s eyes drift right to that spot, and then, as he remembers himself, quickly shift back up to meet my face.
I am suddenly aware, unselfconsciously, that I am being perceived by this man in exactly the way that I’ve yearned to be: unburdened, charismatic, like I, too, might have a second, deeper meaning.
I want to tell him that he can keep looking; that I want him to.
That, somehow, I feel safer within the cradle of his gaze than outside of it.
He doesn’t need to leave the door open for me.
I don’t want anyone else to find me here.
“I’m worried about what time it is.” I realize I’m whispering, that suddenly this moment feels so fragile. “But I don’t want you to leave the party.”
“I don’t really want to leave either. But I’m free tomorrow night. And the night after that. And—I don’t want to be presumptuous here—but also the night after that.”
“But you won’t be here next week.”
He leans back on his hands, tilting his head to seek out the invisible stars above. “No, I won’t be here next week. I’ll be back in LA then.”
A pit opens up in my stomach. It is absurd, really, how much dread I feel at the prospect of a person I barely know not sitting next to me a few days from now.
But the boundaries of time also create a sense of safety, and I resolve to treat this as a test: How deeply can I allow myself to feel?
How much can I release myself, to really transform into the person I think I can become—the one I feel like I am when in his gaze?
If I fail, if my shell refuses to crack, if I’m halting and unsure and overthinking, then there will be no repercussions—no potential humiliation, no lingering awkwardness.
Reid will simply disappear from my life, securely tucked away on the opposite coast, and I’ll never risk seeing him again.
But then, I can’t quite acknowledge that those are also the repercussions if I succeed.
Reid turns to look at me again. The little rambling garden below us is spangled in fairy lights, and it’s like each tiny bulb has unlatched and floated up here to glitter in his eyes.
You’re done for, I think, counting every tiny flash. I don’t even want to hide from his prolonged eye contact—that’s how much I like this guy.
He slowly raises his hand, and his knuckles graze my cheek. I lean into his touch, desperate for more and prepared to plunge headfirst into the challenge I’ve laid out for myself.
So I lean in and kiss him. When our lips meet, there’s less a spark than a current, like a circuit being completed. His fingers reach for the hair at the nape of my neck that’s frizzing with the humidity, and I thrill in that private scent of him, clean and musky at once.
But the sound of my name breaks the spell: It’s Nisha, yelling for me from the bedroom. Cat’s voice, yelling for Reid, follows.
Panic crosses Reid’s features. We get up and climb back into the room.
I see Nisha’s face first, glistening with tears. Before I can ask her what’s wrong, Cat grabs Reid and me both by the arms.
“He’s here,” Cat says. Her tone is hushed and reverent. “Jeff Buckley is fucking here.”