Page 89 of All of You

That was what had me curled on my side, feeling like my insides were rotting, when Amanda came in to start my touch up for the evening schedule. I’d been busy from six that morning until two hours ago. I’d come back to the room, eaten a few bites of baked chicken, and curled up here on this pristine white bed.

“Whit?” Amanda’s voice sounded in the silent room.

I could tell she was worried. This wasn’t me.

“Right here.” My voice came out rusty from an early morning, a long day, little sleep.

“I see you there,” she said, and sat gently on the side of the bed I faced so her hips came into view first. I looked up at her, and she said, “What’s going on, hun?”

I started to wave her off, tell her I was exhausted, just worn out, it wasn’t a big deal, but that look on her face told me she knew. She knew, and she was here, and even if she was someone I paid to put makeup on my face, she was probably the closest thing I had to a friend right now.

“He’s gone,” I said, more like sobbed, since now that I’d said it, it was true, and I couldn’t pretend we’d just argued, or that I thought he’d see me again and let me explain when I got home.

Amanda covered my hand with hers and clamped down her jaw. She was supremely empathetic, and she’d be crying with me any minute. I didn’t cry often—it wasn’t a public sport. I’d been raised to avoid any shows of emotion, and maybe part of my British heritage had shared its stiff upper lip approach with me.

But this wasn’t one of those moments. It wasn’t a time where I could skirt around it and talk myself into waiting until I was alone, until I wasn’t wearing a centimeter of mascara that would run despite it being waterproof and ruin my false lashes. I couldn’t keep pretending that Ben was only a friend, or that what’d happened on Sunday hadn’t been the end.

I couldn’t pretend that I wasn’t in love with him anymore.

“I knew he’d be upset about the song,” I started, but my voice broke, and I turned my face into the bed to weep.

I felt Amanda move, and when the bed depressed again, she was shoving a tissue in my hand. I blew my nose, pursed my lips to help lock down the tears so I could tell her, suddenly feeling a desperate need for someone to understand.

“He can’t be that upset about it. He’s a good guy,” she said now that I’d calmed and the sound of my crying wasn’t filling the room.

“He is. He is.” I was crying again, fat tears slipping down my cheeks as I sat up. “He’s the best guy. And he wouldn’t be upset if it was just that. He thinks I did it for show. He thinks I’ve been manipulating him this whole time.”

I pressed my fingers into my eyes, trying to staunch the flow, until I realized I wasn’t going to stop—no point in it now.

“Why would he think that?” Amanda asked, ducking her head to catch my eye.

“Because I did it in front of everyone, it seemed like it was trying to grab a headline, or make it seem like this big, cosmic love story.”

Amanda set a warm hand on one of my knees curled up in front of me. “But isn’t it?”

Her gentle voice undid me. I tried to hold in the sob, but it slipped past my lips. I rested my head on my knees and felt Amanda’s hand smooth over my hair. When I’d composed myself again, I took a deep breath before raising my head and looking back into her face.

“It might have been.”

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Ben

I’d strategically ducked every attempt Thatcher and Flint had made at cornering me after seeing the look in their eyes—confusion, a little pity, concern.

I didn’t want it. I wanted to move ahead, keep going, get to the next week and the week after that so I wouldn’t feel so hollowed out. Time would help.

My therapist had listened. He’d let me get it all out. He’d asked me only two questions. Do you think she cares for you? And Do you care for her? For some reason, his refusal to be outraged on my behalf, even though that was patently not his purview, had infuriated me.

In some ways, it was a relief to feel something other than the sad, resigned feeling since I’d boarded the plane. Of course I had hurt, I had some anger, I had disbelief, but mostly, I felt like what had happened was what was always going to happen because being with Whit had been too good to be true.

But Dr. Cartan’s two questions had stuck needles between my ribs, and I felt irritable the rest of the week with them running around in my head.

Did I think she cared for me? Sure. Probably some part of her. I did think we were friends, whatever else happened.

Great.

But where that also took me was that she clearly hadn’t cared for me enough. Not enough to avoid a spectacle, not enough to tell me the truth, not enough to love me back.

---