How to End a Love Story(26)

“Stop flirting. It’s too wholesome,” Nicole says.

Helen flushes. “We aren’t,” she says. She addresses Grant, more directly. “We weren’t.”

The laughter in his eyes fades, and he ducks his head to stoke the fire. “Don’t take things so seriously. I flirt with everyone.”

Helen isn’t sure, but she feels like she’s just undone something that was on the brink of mending.



“It’s her sister, isn’t it?” Tom asks him as they clean up after dinner.

“Hm?” Grant asks. He’s washing the dishes. It’s his favorite chore—mindless, repetitive cleaning.

“That story you told, when we were in the Edendale room a few years ago. About that accident that happened when you were in high school,” Tom says. “The girl who died. She was Helen’s sister, wasn’t she?”

Grant stops scrubbing, his ears ringing. “How did you know?”

“I googled Helen,” Tom says. “She’s mentioned her sister in a few old interviews.”

Grant starts scrubbing at a stubborn, congealed bit of ketchup on the plate. They should have soaked it sooner.

“Pretty fucking wild situation, huh?” Tom adds, when Grant doesn’t say anything.

“Yep,” Grant says.

“Are you . . . okay?” Tom asks. “I can’t imagine . . . I mean, if you ever need to talk to someone . . .”

“Thanks, man,” Grant says, trying to keep his tone friendly and normal.

“Yeah, of course.” Tom glances around the kitchen. It’s damn near pristine. “Look at us, a pair of domestics.”

Grant wipes his hands. It’s late for how early he wants to get on the road tomorrow—almost midnight.

“Night, then,” Tom says. “Night, Helen.”

Grant turns and sees Helen standing under the kitchen light in flannel pajamas.

“I came to get some water,” she says as Tom heads off.

Grant nods. He grabs the Brita filter from the fridge, half expecting her ever-present refrain of “I can do it myself.” But she just waits for him to pour it into an empty mason jar and takes it from him with downcast eyes.

“Night,” he says, and moves to go past her.

“Hey,” she says, and he stops. “I’m sorry about . . . about earlier.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” he says brusquely.

“I don’t want things to be awful between us all the time,” she says suddenly.

He stops, surprised.

“It’s not . . . it’s not fair. To you, to the show, to . . . anyone. I’m just . . . I’m just so tired,” she says, sounding small. “I wish I knew how to make things easier.”

“Tom knows about our history,” Grant says. It suddenly feels important that she knows this, that he’s not keeping it from her. “Years ago, I . . . I talked about stuff, in my past, when we were working in another room together. And he googled you.”

Helen laughs shortly. “Right. So that means Eve knows. Which means between the four of us, half the room knows.”

He can’t tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

“I’m sorry it’s been hard for you,” he says. “A lot of that’s probably my fault.”

“Don’t give yourself so much credit. I’m in a new city, on a new coast, in a new job. Which I only took because . . . because I can’t seem to do my actual job anymore,” she says in a rush. “I’ve been working on the Ivy Papers for seven years, and I want to do something new, but every time I sit down, nothing real comes out, and I never wanted to be one of those authors who doesn’t know how to let go and move on from their first series, but I can feel it happening—the only ideas I have are set in the same world, but they’re worse ideas, they’re smaller and lazier and—and I just thought . . . maybe, if I work on this as a TV show, I’ll finally be able to . . . close the chapter.”

She shakes her head and drinks her water.

“For what it’s worth,” he says slowly, waiting for her to look at him because he wants her to know he means it. “This job, it’s not easy. You’re handling the stress better than I ever did in my first writers room. And even if you never write another word and this show falls apart and never makes it to air . . . you’ll still be the most impressive person I know.”

“Thanks,” she says, looking at the floor.

“I mean it. Not just because of everything you’ve accomplished so far, though that’s impressive too. But because I have a fraction of an idea of how shit your senior year of high school was. And to go through all that and be as . . . tenacious as you are, as strong as you are—that’s fucking big impressive, Helen. I know I’m the wrong person to say all this, and mine is the last opinion you care about, but I think you should know, I . . . I admire the shit out of you. As a person.”

Helen wipes her cheeks. “I never know what to do when people comfort me,” she says softly. “I think I must be broken because it always makes me want to . . . to . . .”

She takes a short gasp and he realizes she’s crying.

“Fuck,” he says, and reaches out before he knows what he’s doing. He presses her into his chest, tucks her under his chin, and rubs her back slowly. “Sorry.”