Page 11 of Just Friends Forever
“You have no idea how good it is to see you,” she whispers into my shoulder.
My throat feels strangely thick, and I clear away the emotional clutter there. I knew I had missed friendship with Stevie, but the weight of it presses on me in a new way now, like I’m just realizing how deprived I’ve been. “Is that why you’re burying your face in my shoulder? If you missed seeing me, I’d assume you’d want to actuallyseeme.”
She laughs and pulls away, and her eyes are glistening even though she’s smiling.
“Sorry, I’m a mess,” she says, pushing her loose messy bun back onto the top of her head. “Come on in.” She gestures for me to follow her, and we walk down the hallway toward the kitchen.
The apartment matches the building front—minimalistic, sharp blacks and whites, with little pops of color here and there. Everything is in such pristine condition that I’m afraid of touching anything and leaving my dingy fingerprints.
She leads the way to a white leather couch and sits on one side. I sit on the opposite side to leave plenty of space for her husband. Gone are the days when we sat on the loveseat in my college apartment because I couldn’t afford an actual couch. There are miles of soft leather between us now.
“Is Curtis around?” I ask.
She shoots a glance at me as she curls her legs beneath her. “Um, no. He’s not.” She fiddles with her wedding ring—the ring that made headlines when he proposed. It’s a massive sapphire encircled with a hundred and thirty-six tiny diamonds.
“Oh.” I think back on the way she looked at the camera in the penthouse foyer, and suddenly I’m worried this was a bad idea andshe’sworried what he’ll think. The last thing I want is to cause problems for her. “I thought you were in Maui.”
She shakes her head and laughs softly, looking down. “I wish.”
I don’t respond because I’m not sure how to read her right now. I’m rusty, but not so rusty I don’t recognize something’s… off.
“We’re divorced, Troy.”
My jaw drops like the ball on Times Square, and she looks up at me, still fiddling with her ring.
“As of about half an hour ago.” She clenches her teeth and smiles pathetically. “Surprise.”
I close my mouth and stare at her, trying to understand if this is some twisted joke she’s playing on me. It wouldn’t be the first time one of us messed with the other.
“News will break in the morning,” she says.
“But… but…” I don’t even know what to say. My head feels as clear as when I woke up from getting my wisdom teeth out. Technically, I have no memory of that, but since Austin was kind enough to record a video of my mom driving me home, I know I spent at least eight minutes confessing my love for Stevie while I was hopped up on drugs.
I lean forward with my elbows on my knees, my brain trying to catch up with what she’s saying. “So, you filed for divorce?”
She shakes her head. “He did. Eight months ago. But today it was finalized.”
“But the pictures and the news stories,” I say, still in denial.
“A mixture of old shots and AI.” She says it so coolly, like it’s no big deal that the last eight months of her life in the public record are a sham.
“And nobody caught on? I thought divorce filings were public record.”
She smiles, and the wryness hits me right in the chest. “They are. But someone has to know to look for it, and Curtis’s PR team has made sure the public suspected nothing.”
“Yeah, they did,” I say softly.
She chuckles. “They’re good at their jobs, and the stakes were high for Curtis. I couldn’t even talk about any of it until today. Until thirty minutes ago. They didn’t want the publicity to overshadow Curtis’s movie.”
I search her face. She’s dead serious. She’s been in the middle of a divorce foreight months, and she hasn’t been able to talk about it. I don’t even know what to say. Or feel. Or, more importantly, howshemust be feeling.
“So you’ve just been, what? Here?”
“For the last few months, yeah. You’re pretty much the first human I’ve interacted with in person in that long besides my cleaning lady.” She laughs. “You probably put that together from my wide-eyed wonder, though.”
It definitely sheds new light on the way she looked at me and hugged me when I arrived.
“Anyway, before that, I was at a cabin in Montana, and before that, I was still with Curtis. But notwithhim, with him.” She turns her head away and looks out the window. “Just following him around to keep the media happy. We were already separated for all intents and purposes.” She looks back at me and lifts her shoulders. “That’s the glamorous life I’ve been living.”
