Page 87 of Unromance

The innocent look on Sadie’s face was almost too convincing.

“You always resented me for how hard I was working. Even now, you can’t not rib me for it.”

Sadie’s jaw went slack. “That’s what you think? That I was mad because youworked hard?”

Sawyer raised her brows like,Didn’t you?

Sadie laughed humorlessly. “Sawyer, your passion was what I loved about you. Writing was your whole life, and I wanted to be a part of that life, but you wouldn’t let me. I understood hiding your writing from your family, but from me? Do you know how many times I found out things about your career from your fucking Twitter?” Sadie took a deep breath. “Sorry, did not expect that to still get me heated after all this time.” She brought her hand to her chest in a fist. “It’s not that you worked hard. It’s like you got your dream and forgot how to live.”

Sawyer stared at her like she was seeing her for the first time, suddenly seeing all of their arguments, the stony silences every time Sawyer hit a new milestone or canceled plans, through a new lens. And hadn’t Lily said something similar? She was so worried that if she juggled too much, she’d drop the ball again. She’d made her whole life about this one thing, but that’s not really living. It wasn’t just her writing that had been stuck.Shehad been stuck. When she first made the deal with Mason, she thought his knight in shining armor romanticism would free her from her tower of unending writer’s block. Now, she realized the dragon trapping her there was… herself.

“I—” She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, Sadie. I guess—I don’t know. Just, I’m sorry.”

Sadie shook her head, her gaze landing on the book-shaped lump under Sawyer’s coat. “I never understood how you could write shit so fucking beautiful that it moved me to tears, and yet you couldn’t tell me how you felt.”

Sawyer sucked in a breath like she’d been punched. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the tears leaked out anyway. “I’m sorry. I really am. If it makes you feel better, I’m still shit at it. And now I can’t even write the beautiful shit.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better at all, actually,” Sadie said sadly.

“Would it have changed anything,” she asked the ceiling, “if, even after things imploded, I showed back up? Wanted to try?” She pressed her lips together to keep her chin from wobbling.

Sadie studied her through narrowed eyes. “I’m not the one you really want to be asking that question to, am I?”

Sawyer gave her a watery smile. “No.”

Leaning forward, Sadie braced her forearms against the kitchen counter. “Then go rewrite your ending.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

(UN)ROMANCE– Trying to ruin romantic clichés only to become them. (And that’s okay, actually.)

There was a large envelope waiting for her when she returned home.

Her heart leapt into her throat when she saw Mason’s messy scrawl on the envelope. Then it bottomed out. Was this it? Was he returning her things?

She placed her rescued copy ofAlmost Loversgingerly on the kitchen table, like it may shatter. Which, considering it was held together with tape and a prayer, it might. With shaking hands, she undid the seal on the envelope, turning it upside down. A dozen or so postcards fell out. Tucking one leg beneath her, she sank into the nearest chair, pulling the closest card toward her.

It was a screenshot fromWhen Harry Met Sally, only the caption read “Sawyer, I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”

Another one, from10 Things I Hate About You, with Heath Ledger running across the bleachers. At the bottom was her name and the opening lines to Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.”

The next one, fromPride & Prejudice(2005). “If your feelings are still what they were last we spoke, tell me so at once. My affectionsand wishes have not changed, but one word from you will silence me forever. If, however, your feelings have changed, I will have to tell you: you have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love—I love—I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on.”

On and on it went, snapshots of some of the most iconic grand gestures, all with her name on them. When she got to the end, she was sad it was over, peering inside the envelope for more. To her delight, she found a card.

Sawyer,

I know I have a lot to apologize for, but you deserve better than for me to do it via letter. Please don’t mistake my silence as anything other than my wish to give you the space you asked for. I think about you constantly, and if you ever doubt my feelings for you, know that you have ruined romance for me in the best way, in that you have become the very definition of it for me. I don’t have the words to describe it, so I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed some of my favorites. Whenever you’re ready, I’m ready. I don’t want to leave things like this. Say the word, and I’ll race across town at midnight, or make a fool of myself singing Frankie Valli with a high school brass band and get arrested by campus police, or hell, I’ll even go to IKEA with you to get you your nightstand. Whichever you prefer—choose your own grand gesture adventure. I want to spend the rest of my life proving to you that happily ever after is real, and worth fighting for.

Yours,

Mason

She traced the wordyours, recalling the way it had sounded falling from his lips on New Year’s Eve. They hadn’t ruined the New Year’s Eve kiss, and she was glad for it. They hadn’t ruined anything at all, but rereading his letter, she thought she understood what he meant. She was ruined for anyone else but him. No one else would do.

She wanted to race out of her apartment to his, but it was late, and it couldn’t be that easy, could it? She knew the answer to that. No. It wouldn’t be easy. She was going to have to let him in, all the way in, and it was going to require work. A lot of work, long-distance work, but itwouldn’tbe work if it was Mason. Her sweet hopeless romantic of a man deserved a grand gesture for the books.

She sank to the ground in front of her bookshelf. Tugging free her dictionary, she flipped through the e’s until she found “elevator.” There, pressed between the pages, was a scrap of restaurant printer paper. “Rule #1: No feelings. Rule #2: No sex.” The bottom of the paper was torn where Sawyer had written her phone number and given it to Mason. There was a second piece of paper, one she’d torn from a notebook.

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