How to End a Love Story(105)

So here’s the ending I’ll try to write instead:

The kind of ending where I don’t have to leave you behind even as I move forward, because you’re always a part of me—even if that part feels like a hole in my heart. (Loving can hurt, and I want to do it anyway.)

The kind of ending where someone else sees the best and worst of me and loves me back. We’d be happy together, we’d be sad together, we’d be everything together. And when it’s all over and we’ve reached another ending, my ashes would be scattered over the tree that grows from his body because till death do us part wouldn’t be enough, because I’d need more than one brief eternity with him.

I’ve always found endings harder than beginnings, goodbyes harder than hellos. When I was a kid, I had this idea—a hope, really—that life and death were two sides of the same door, and that when you died, there would be a long hallway in the afterlife where you would walk past the doors of all the lives you’d lived before. My theory was that in that hallway, you’d be able to remember every single life you’d ever lived, and if you concentrated all your effort on it, you could take a single intention or lesson with you, before opening the next door and starting your next life.

I don’t know if we’ll ever see each other again. I don’t have much faith in heaven or an afterlife these days. But I’ve been wrong about many things in this life so maybe I’m wrong about that too. I don’t think anyone living can know, and I’m not in a rush to find out.

Still—I hope this is the kind of story where there’s an epilogue. One day I’ll turn the last page, and suddenly—there you’ll be. And I’ll walk up to another chance to get everything right, this time.

I’d start by telling you, “I love you.”

I’ll keep hoping for the both of us.

Helen





Helen hits export on the document and attaches it in an email to her agent before she can think better of it.

To: Chelsea Pierce

Subject: I’ve been writing

could be something, could be nothing. wanted to write it anyway.





Helen pauses, then clicks forward email.

To: Grant Shepard

I don’t want to surprise you later, so I’m sending you the manuscript I’m working on now. The last chapter is relevant. If there’s anything you’d like me to take out, I’m happy to have a conversation.

Will be in town through the rest of the week, if that’s helpful to know.

Yours,

Helen





Thirty-Three




Grant stares at the text on his screen and wonders if this is some kind of fucked-up reading-comprehension quiz he’s hallucinated into existence from sheer pent-up yearning.

Yours,

Helen.





Thirty-Four




It’s one a.m., and the phone is ringing. Helen flicks on the light.

“Hi, Miss Zhang, this is the front desk—”

“It’s one a.m.,” she mumbles.

“Yes, there’s a, um, a very insistent gentleman here to see you. I wanted to check—”

Helen sits up. “Who?”



The elevator doors open on the eighth floor and Grant looks up, his heart pounding.

Room 805. It’s down the longest hallway in the world, in a fancy historic Hollywood hotel that smells like you can’t afford this. Every step he takes seems to be punctuated by the plush green carpet telling him to give up, give up, give up, and his heartbeat sounds like his own last frayed and battered thread of hope answering, no, no, no.

The door with the metal plaque 805 is in sight, he hopes this isn’t a mistake, and suddenly it’s in front of him, now or never, and he knocks.



She opens the door, and it’s Grant.

There’s a feral glint in his eyes and he’s wearing the disheveled remains of a sharp black suit, his tie lost to the ages. His jaw is clenched and his hands grip the door frame—he has the look of a looming, Byronic hero approaching the edge of a cliff he doesn’t expect to return from.

“Helen,” he says, in a low, predatory voice.

“Grant,” she says, and swallows a lump in her throat. “I’ve missed you.”

He nods shortly, and his eyes sweep over every detail of her—she’s suddenly very aware of her messy, post-premiere hair and the gray waffle-knit hotel bathrobe she’s wearing.

“I read your manuscript,” he says. “From start to finish. All I want to know is what you meant by this.”

Grant holds up his phone and it’s her own email burning brightly back at her on the screen. Her eyes flicker over it, then fall in disappointment. Oh. The legal disclaimer part.

“I meant I wanted to send it to you early, in case—”

“No,” he interrupts, and her hands itch with nervous wanting. It’s been so long since she’s been close enough to touch him. “Not that part. Lower. Read that back.”

He taps the relevant part of the screen.

“Out loud, if you don’t mind,” Grant adds softly.

Helen’s heart trips over two short words. She chances a look up at him then—his gaze is shuttered and she has the sudden, humiliating thought, maybe he came for some kind of vengeful purpose, to give her a taste of her own medicine before telling her never to contact him again.