Alex scratches at his jaw, still not meeting my eyes. “I stood there in that town house, inwardly fuming, staring at the spot where I made love to you on the floor, with his wife in the next room hating me loudly, and realized. I could put up with that type of behavior when it was only me Robert was undoing. Not when it was everyone else.” He shakes his head, eyes on the floor. “I told him I wanted no part in any of it.”
My thoughts are stumbling over themselves, rapid-fire, begging for attention at the front of my brain, but I am present enough to recognize that Robert wouldn’t have liked that response. “How did he take it?” I ask.
Alex frowns. “He was frustrated. But funny enough, I think part of him understood. Maybe he even respected me for it.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “Robert’s never lied to me about who he is, or what his priorities are. But I made it clear it him—and to myself, finally, after all this time—that mine aren’t the same.” His eyes flash to me. “He knows I’m going to come clean. He’s preparing for it.”
“No.” I shake my head, spiraling at the prospect of Alex in trouble. “That’s not … No.”
“I can handle the legal consequences,” he rasps. “I did what I did.”
For a few long seconds he says nothing, and I know in my bones we could stay like this for hours. Remembering each other. He doesn’t make any move to touch me. But his gaze lingers. “You really are so beautiful,” he murmurs. “Whip-smart. Funny. Inspiring. And the way you quietly care about people is just … completely unbound.” His eyes dip down to the papers in my hand, his mother’s name in bold under the titles at the top. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed what you’re holding.”
“I—I just found them—”
“You don’t have to explain right now,” he says. “I think I already know.” Alex slips a hand into his coat pocket and withdraws two pieces of paper. They’re folded up tight, wrinkled at the corners, creased with fraying edges. “I’ll trade you.” He presses them into my hands, taking the articles in his. “Read the letter first. I wrote it on the plane. And then this. Gus wrote it with my help, and with Tracy Garcia’s help, too. I told him he couldn’t publish it anywhere until you read it first.”
Alex steps back. His caramel eyes are warm. They devour me like he is starving for the sight. “I know it doesn’t make up for missing seeing you off. But maybe it’ll help you understand why I needed time.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Casey,
I’m on my way to you right now. I’m locked out of iCloud because memorizing passwords is impossible, and for the same reason I haven’t memorized your number, so I decided to write you this letter instead. Even though you might not read it, which would be within your right since I let you board a plane without saying goodbye.
The first time I ever saw you in that elevator, I knew something was wrong. Your face was split up with nerves and I could tell your heart was in knots. I cracked a joke because I wanted to make you laugh, but I didn’t manage that until that late September day on the balcony. That was the first laugh you let me keep.
Here’s the thing. When you told me you loved me too, I wasn’t sure I deserved it. I couldn’t escape the feeling that I had no right to even be with you until I could somehow win him over too. Because why would someone as perfect as you love me when I couldn’t get my own father to? There’s a lot I’m only starting to understand about it, but I made a myth of him, and the myth wasn’t real. I know that now because you are the realest thing I’ve ever felt, touched, known, and I’m not settling for less anymore.
Maybe I’m too late, and maybe that’s what I deserve, but I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t come straight to you （seriously, thank fuck for GroupMe and fancy friends） so I could tell you this. You are my dream girl. The subscribers can find another one.
I love you beyond belief,
Alex.
* * *
BITE THE HAND GOES META
（And This Time We Really Mean It）
A Satirical Short Story by Gus Moskowitz, Deputy Director
Here at Bite the Hand, I trust my in-house staff, contributors, photographers, and social media team to represent this brand the same way I trust my barista to know the ratios of a good cortado: intrinsically. I trust the people who built this platform to live out its mission every day. Even when it’s uncomfortable. Even when it’s awkward. And especially, especially when it’s the right thing to do.
So, in the spirit of that trust, I’d like to tell you a story about a king who passed along his crown in exchange for the bigger, shinier kingdom next door. It’s going to be uncomfortable, maybe a little awkward. You might make inferences.
Anyway. Here we go.
* * *
Gus’s story is good, but then again, no one’s ever accused him of not being a good writer. My favorite part is when the king’s usurping little brother decides he’d rather be fed grapes on the coast than rule over anything. The story is chock-full of Easter eggs, witty clues, and subtle jabs. It is an exposé, and it is a work of fiction. It is damning, and it is innocent. It is pure genius.
I push open the front doors of the hotel, eyes searching the sidewalk for Alex as a brisk wind hits my tearstained face. After the past month, I’m going to have to double up on my retinol concentration.
“Alex?” My breath frosts into the air.
“Hey.”
I turn and he’s there against the wall, one hand in his pocket, the other holding his mom’s articles, pink eared with wind in his hair. He looks calmer now. All the urgency is gone from his eyes. A man at rest.
I hold up the story first because talking about the letter right now will only make me start to cry again. “This will create a shitstorm.”
Alex walks forward, shrugging. “It already has. I turned over my entire email exchange with Robert to Tracy Garcia before I came here. Plus, multiple board members called for a vote of no confidence in Dougie after Tracy broke the news to them.”
I balk. “That was fast.”
Alex nods. “A matter of hours,” he says. “I wish you could have seen the fallout. Obviously, the deal with Strauss is off.” He’s right in front of me now, hot breath ghosting over my cheeks. The cloudy sky has started to spit noncommittal slush. But warmth still blooms in the center of my chest, sliding through my veins and into my fingers, all the way to the tips of my ears.
“What will happen to you?” I ask.
“I definitely need to be fired,” Alex says softly, staring at my lips. “I’m shocked it hasn’t happened yet, but then again, I am in a foreign country with no functioning cell phone.”
I laugh, then abruptly stop when I realize: “The SEC is going to find you culpable of something,” I say. “Hopefully just compensatory damages.”
“Sounds like a good use for the trust fund.”
“What about BTH? All your hard work?”
“The work’s already been done,” Alex says. “That launch will happen under a new CEO. I’m certain of it.”
Slushy rain is turning his cheeks wet, but Alex looks unbothered.