Page 60 of The Charm Offensive
He stares out at the muddy road winding up to the castle. “That’s just it. I feel like I’ve been shoved into different boxes with different labels my whole life. I don’t know if I want more boxes.”
He can feel Parisa nod against him. “That’s fair, and look, for me, sexuality is fluid, but I want you to know, you’re allowed to have whatever feelings you have toward Dev, even if they don’t fit into some fairy-tale idea of what relationships are supposed to be. You’re allowed to want the romance parts without the sex parts. Or the sex parts without the romance parts. All of those feelings are valid. You’re deserving of a relationship in whatever form you want it.”
He holds his breath like he’s trying to hold Parisa’s unquestioning acceptance, her unwavering love, inside his chest for a little longer. “That means a lot to me, but…” He puffs out his cheeks and just says it: “What if I maybedowant both parts with Dev?”
“Oh.”
“But Dev doesn’t want either part with me.”
“Seems highly improbable.”
He tells Parisa everything—about practice dates and practice kisses, about the script and realizing what he felt at three in the morning, about the Bourbon Stain Incident and tequila shots and Lady Gaga. “And now he’s pretending to have the flu to avoid me because he doesn’t feel the same way.”
“How doyoufeel?”
“What?”
“You said Dev doesn’t feel the same way. So how doyoufeel?”
He wants to slowly back away from that question like it’s a bomb about to go off in his hands. “I feelso much,” he hears himself say, running toward the bomb, opening himself up entirely to the injury of it. “I think about himconstantly. I always want to be talking to him, or touching him, or looking at him, and I want him to look at me in a way I’ve never wanted anyone to look at me before. That doesn’t… make sense.”
“Yes, it does,” she says, her words a quiet invitation for him to keep talking.
“I can’t explain it, but when I’m kissing Dev, I’m not in my head about it. I don’t feel the pressure to make it work. It justworks. And I don’t have to force myself to feel anything. I feeleverything.”
He stops himself and cuts his eyes to Parisa on the bench beside him. She’s making her soft, gooey face, and she reaches up to brush his hair off his forehead. He continues. “And I’ve got these eight women, who are actually all kind of spectacular, but I just don’t want to kiss any of them. And I signed a contract that requires me to propose to one of them at the end of this. And I’m stuck here on this show with Dev for another four weeks, and he doesn’t want me.” His voice cracks at the end, and he tries to disguise it as a cough.
Parisa doesn’t buy it. “And you asked him that? Directly? You asked Dev if he wants you, and he said no? Like, to your beautiful face?”
“Well, not exactly…”
“Has it occurred to you that Dev also had to sign a contract to work on this show, and that his legally precludes kissing you?”
“Uh…”
“Thatkissing youis probably going to get him fired from a job he loves so much?”
“I mean, I considered—”
“And don’t you think there is a good chance Dev’s current depression was triggered by the fact that he likes you, too, and that it’s literally his job to help you fall in love with someone else?”
“Dev doesn’t have depression,” he corrects.
“Take it from someone who has been in a committed relationship with Lexapro and cognitive behavioral therapy since she was eighteen,” Parisa says, “your handler is in the midst of a major depressive episode.”
Charlie shakes his head. She’s wrong. Dev doesn’t struggle with his mental health. Dev isDev. He’s always happy, always smiling, always thinking about other people. He usually thrives on set, fluttering around to everyone, helping and chatting and feedingoff the energy of it all. He’s the most charming person Charlie’s ever met. That’s not the description of a depressed person.
And yeah, maybe he loves Leland Barlow because he sings about mental illness, and maybe sometimes he gets sad—like after his fight with Ryan, or outside the club in New Orleans—but that’s not the same thing as being depressed. Just because he hasn’t been his usual Fun Dev self lately…
Charlie remembers what Dev said in the town car, about Ryan only ever wanting Fun Dev, and it hits him. “Oh, shit. Dev struggles with depression.”
Parisa claps him on the back. “Knew you’d get there eventually.”
He’s not entirely sure what you’re supposed to do when you discover your sort-of friend who you also like to kiss might have clinical depression, but he figures he could start by talking to Dev. Except when he and Parisa get back to set, Dev is nowhere to be found. Ryan informs him that Dev’s gone home sick with Jules. Charlie has to wait until they’re done filming for the day.
When they get back to the hotel, he goes straight to Dev’s room, where the “Do Not Disturb” sign hangs on the doorknob. Jules answers, looking her usual combination of annoyed and exhausted, with a twinge of sadness tucked away in the corners of her eyes. “He won’t talk to me about what’s wrong.”
“Let me try.”
