Page 78 of This Time It's Real
He gestures to his back. “You heard me. I’ve carried plenty of girls on my back before while shooting. It’ll be easy.”
As if I need the reminder that big, romantic gestures mean nothing to him. That whatever he’s said or done around me, he’s done with other girls too: actresses, idols, models. That such close proximity iseasyfor him, when it feels like life-or-death for me.
“I think you’re overestimating your strength,” I tell him stiffly.
“I doubt it.”
“You’re also underestimating my weight.”
“Come on, Eliza.” He rolls his eyes. “You’re, like, five foot one at the most.”
“It’s five footthree,” I grumble.
He holds up his hands, using one of them to shield his head from the downpour. “Look, would you rather stand out here bickering in the rain over your height—which definitely isn’t five foot three, by the way—or go somewhere warm and dry?”
Which is how I end up getting a piggyback ride home from Caz Song, the rain pelting our skin every step of the way, water sloshing at his feet, the clouded sky churning violently overhead. My arms wrapped around his neck. Everything looks darker, more saturated: the passing trees a rich brown, pink blossoms just starting to sprout. The compound is empty now save for us.
It feels like we’re the last two people left in the world.
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you, you know,” Caz says some minutes later as we round a bend in the lane. His grip on my legs remains firm, but I can hear the strain in his breathing, the slight falter in his footsteps. I do my best to stay very still.
“About what?” I ask.
“Last Friday . . .”
And suddenly my heart is pounding louder than the rain. “You’re right, we should talk about the—the public response,” I tell him, panicking. “Have you heard anything from your manager? Because I was looking at some of the comments, and there’s still a significant segment online who need more convincing, and I feel like the upcoming interview would be a great opportunity—”
“You must know that’s not what I care about.”
Cold creeps into my veins. My teeth chatter. “What—what do you care about, then?”
“You,” he says quietly. “I want you, Eliza.”
The words hang in the misty gray air, and I’m glad he can’t see my face.You already have me, I’m tempted to tell him.More than I was ever planning to give.
“I—”
“But not as part of a secret arrangement,” he continues, talking faster, like he has to get this off his chest and he’s not sure if he’ll have the chance to do so again. “Not for show. Not for ‘a strategic, mutually beneficial and romantically oriented alliance to help further our respective careers’—”
“You—you memorized that?”
“Of course I did. Even though I still feel like we could’ve used a better name.” Without missing a beat, he goes on. “I don’t want to act like we met while you were apartment hunting and hit it off, when the first time wereallymet, you were sitting two seats in front of me in English class and the teacher was reading out one of your essays and I just thought—I’ve never known anyone who can write like that before. I don’t want to constantly keep my guard up around you when you’re the only one who’s ever made me feel like I can just be . . . honest. Myself. Like I matter even when all the cameras are off.
“I don’t want to wait for an excuse to kiss you only when there’s a literal crisis going on and when half our school is standing around to watch. I don’t want our whole relationship to be built around a lie. And I know that’s asking for a lot, because you have your readers and their expectations and there’s already enough scrutiny but . . . I just want—” He sucks in a breath, and he might have once claimed to never beg anyone for anything, but his voice is painfully close to pleading when he says, “I want this to be real.”
My heart seizes.
How many times have I dreamed of him saying something like this? A hundred. A thousand. But it was only that—adream.I am totally, utterly unprepared for this speech in real life.
“What . . . about the essay?” I hear myself ask. There’s water in my eyes, on my tongue. It tastes like salt. “People are already saying it’s a publicity stunt—we’ve just spent all our energy trying to convince them it’s not. If we—If I go out there and say thewhole storyis made up—”
“We can figure that out,” he promises. God, he always makes these things sound so easy.
If only.
“I just—I don’t understand why you’re telling me this,” I blurt out. “Why now? Since when did you even—”
And he actually laughs, though there’s no humor in it. “Well, you haven’t exactly made it easy for me.”
