Page 45 of Here for a Good Time
“Not bad, city boy,” Antonio tells him.
“So this ex of yours, was that your worst breakup?” Leila asks Zwe.
“No,” he says. “My worst breakup was a girl in high school who, it turned out, was dating me because she had a crush on my brother and kept coming over to the house because she wanted to hang out with him. What about you? What wasyourworst breakup?”
“Oh my, let me count the ways.” She swallows a chunk of water apple, and begins counting on her fingers. “There was the guy who left me because I wasn’tadventurousenough after I refused to sail the open sea with him for a year. There was the one who dumpedme mid-flight at the start of our Iceland holiday. Oh, and I took the last one to a family wedding where he broke into the bride’s hotel room before the ceremony and stole all the jewelry that she and the bridesmaids were supposed to wear.”
“No!” I gasp.
“Yep,” Leila says dryly. “They were all my cousins, too. The bridesmaids, I mean. My family has now ordered me to run background checks on all future partners before bringing them to any big event, and you know what, I don’t blame them.”
“Did you ever find him?” Zwe asks.
Leila nods. “Oh, of course. Nobody gets away with pissing off the Chen cousins. But anyway, that’s my baggage. How about you, Poe?”
“Me?” I stammer, not expecting to be tagged into this conversation.
“What’s your worst breakup?”
I intuitively look over at Zwe, who gives me a half smile, one that says,You can lie if you want. I won’t tell.
“I was actually… engaged.” I say each syllable slowly, hesitantly, like I don’t quite believe I’m talking about it in the past tense. A teeny, tiny part of me still kind of can’t. Not because I’m still in love with him, but because now I absolutely can’t fathom a life where we were going to spend our future together. “And then he… broke up with me. He got tired of me for notgetting a real job,” I say. I force myself to look up and make eye contact at that last part. Even now, I can hear Vik’s voice in my head saying that exact phrase, his frustration cloaking every word. “I spent over two years working on my first book, but it got rejected by every publisher we submitted it to. When it came time to send out my second book, things weren’t looking much better. When Vik and I first got together, he wassosupportive, thought it wassocool that I was an author. But I didn’t want to get a corporate job because I knew that would eat into my writing time, so instead I worked shifts at Zwe’s parents’ bookstore. And Vik, that was his name, by the way,” I clarify, “would get increasingly agitated, pointing out that we were never going to be able to afford a wedding, let alone a house this way.”
My vision blurs as I stare at the flames, the yellow and orange coalescing into a new, bright, unnamed, untamed color.
At first he’d suggested I pick up more shifts at the bookstore. Then it was sending me random job postings that vaguely related to writing, like technical writing for a software startup or content writing at an agency. But it wasn’t like we werestruggling; we just couldn’t afford to go on holidays with his friends or his parents, at least not without him paying for the majority of the trip.
We have to prioritize our future together,he’d said. But I didn’t see why I had to choose, why our future together couldn’t have both usandmy writing. I knew I would’ve been miserable in a corporate job, and more importantly, if I didn’t give my books my all, then I knew, Iknew,I would’ve spent my whole life regretting it. Part of me knew he was being sensible, but another part of me also kept wondering why, as my partner, his support for me drastically waned over time. Why, if he was as proud of me and believed in me as much as he claimed to, he couldn’t be okay with sacrificing a ski trip to Japan with his brothers so I could give my dream my best shot.
When my agent and I decided to shelve my second book, that had been the breaking point.
I can’t build a future with someone who wants to pursue a hobby her whole life,he’d said.
When I realize I’m struggling to breathe, I reach into the frontzip of my bag for a tissue. They all divert their eyes when I blow my nose and dab at my eyes. “That relationship really screwed me up, in case you can’t tell,” I laugh. “Joke’s on him though, because guess who has a Netflix movie deal now?”
“What a shitty human being,” Leila scoffs.
Antonio shakes his head. “Yeah, Ms. Poe, what a fucking loser,” he says, lips curled. He seems genuinely pissed off, which warms my heart.
“Thanks, guys. Oh, thebestpart—” I sniffle, throwing Zwe a knowing smirk. Zwe rolls his eyes in disgust. “—is that when the book I eventually published made theNew York Timesbestseller list, he texted me out of nowhere ‘I was always rooting for you.’”
“Oh no, that’s not thebestpart,” Zwe interrupts. “The best part is that when the movie deal got announced, including that it would be Tyler Tun’s directorial debut, he texted Poe to ask if he could get two tickets to the premiere for him and his niece.”
“Okay, fine, maybethatwas the best part,” I say.
Leila’s mouth drops open. “What did you respond?”
“Nothing. Blocked him.”
“I told her to send a selfie with her and Tyler andthenblock him, but she wasn’t petty enough for it,” Zwe tells her.
Leila nods at him. “I would’ve totally done that. But also wait, you have a selfie with Tyler Tun?”
“Yeah,” I say, feeling like I’m name-dropping, but also how do you casually say you’re friends with a Hollywood megastar like Tyler Tunwithoutname-dropping? “He’sreallynice.”
“He just got married, right?”
“Yep,” I say. “I met his wife, Khin. She’s a journalist, andsocool, probably actually cooler than him. You didn’t hear this from me, but when we talked, she was saying that Tyler’s been itchingto start working again, so maybe if this movie goes well, he might be doing more? Dunno. But I’m getting sidetracked.” I turn to Antonio. “You’re the only one left. What’syourworst breakup?”
