Wish You Were Her(88)

“And you don’t want to go public?”

Allegra hesitated. “I don’t know. Telling people that you’re autistic doesn’t magically transform an intolerant person into an understanding one.”

“Preaching to the choir.”

“Well, even the choir needs to rehearse.”

He laughed at that.

“I don’t know,” she said, listening to the beat of his heart as she spoke. “I think a big part of me just wants to blurt it out. Then never talk about it again until I want to.”

“You should be able to do that.”

“Not in my business.”

“Allegra, you’re grown. You’re in charge of you. No one can get you into trouble anymore, you don’t answer to anyone.”

Allegra absorbed the words, which were spoken so casually. Another ode to the strange period of transition between childhood and adulthood. She was still playing by the old rules sometimes.

“Maybe,” she spoke softly. “If I felt really safe. If I felt like I had something more to lose than my career, I would say. Just to be proud for once, instead of careful.”

When he didn’t say anything, she looked into his face. He smiled sadly at her.

“You’re so beautiful.”

Every time he told her that, it was gold paint between the cracks of the vase. “You say that a lot.”

“You need to hear it.”

“Yes,” she said, surprising herself. “You wouldn’t believe how many people like to tell women they follow what they think of their looks. ‘Oh, if you just fixed your nose.’ ‘Have you gained weight, Allegra? Is it for a role?’ ‘Your hair looks dry right now.’ It’s constant. I can’t hear my own voice sometimes, just everyone else’s. It’s why I like hearing yours.”

His fingers massaged her temples and she closed her eyes in bliss.

“People don’t know,” she breathed. “Having a disability … everything I did was wrong. When I was young, I mean. I would fail at things that seemed to come naturally to other people. The exasperation, the eye-rolling, the ‘you’re just not getting this, are you?’ It was inescapable. I always felt like an alien. Nothing I do comes naturally. I just wanted to be like other girls. I wanted to be like everyone else. I would lie awake and pray for it.”

So when the boy she liked called her beautiful, it felt like antivenom to the snake bite that was the world calling her imperfect. Jonah saw through everything.

“You’re not an alien to me, Allegra,” he said, almost too quietly for her to hear. “I want to write everything down. Everything about you. Everything you’ve ever said.”

A writer. His emails.

This unleashed in her an idea. The sketched outline of a plan for tomorrow. And as her mind wandered, Jonah kissed her and held her until she fell into the kind of sleep you can only reach when you’re completely at home in your mind and body.



* * *



Jonah allowed February, Allegra’s stylist, to suit him and boot him. He liked how he appeared in the tuxedo. As a tall, broad-shouldered person, shopping for clothes was never a favorite pastime. Yet he enjoyed how he looked in his reflection. As she doused him in Tom Ford, he wondered if he was finally starting to look the part.

The part of someone who could stand next to Allegra and belong there.

He was putting on cufflinks when she emerged from the bedroom. Jasper and Grace had already been dressed and were dancing in the living room of the suite, while Allegra changed and filmed content with Clark in the bedroom. He took in her golden gown and her sparkling eyes and the smile that she now seemed to reserve for him and he felt his breath leave his body.

“You—you look … Allegra, you’re just—”

“Yes, she’s stunning, but she’s also late!” Natalie called from the front door of the hotel suite and Jonah inwardly wished everyone else could just vanish for a frozen moment in time, leaving him alone with Allegra.

“Thanks,” she told him softly, squeezing his elbow as she passed him. “You look really hot.”

He caught her by the waist and pressed a kiss into her hairline, not caring a bit about everyone seeing them. The whole world had taken a look at one of the most private and precious moments of his life, but he didn’t want that humiliation to stop him from showing Allegra how he felt about her.

He held her hand in the car, perfectly content to gaze out of the window while the three girls sang along to Cyndi Lauper and filmed themselves in the back of the limo. They shared a look before stepping out into the city square where the red carpet for the premiere was laid. Jonah blinked and winced at the size of the crowd and gripped Allegra’s hand as they were ushered out of the car and toward the guest entrance to the carpet. Jonah watched as the mask slipped effortlessly onto Allegra’s face as she greeted the associate at the gate.

“Just the VIP on the carpet and one guest,” the man said, shouting over the din of the crowd. Jonah could tell the exact moment that Allegra was spotted on the large screen erected nearer the actual movie house, as the crowd began to rumble and a few young women shrieked her name at a startling pitch and decibel.

“I’ll take Jonah,” Allegra said.

Jonah stared at her in astonishment. “Not … not your publicist?”