“Twenty-one years ago?” Asher asked.
“Yes and no,” I said.
Amos bunched up his eyebrows and leaned in.
“You lost me,” Amos said.
“They’re the cutest,” Raini said, with puppy dog eyes staring at us both. “Do you guys know they fell in love when they were fourteen? Fourteen.”
Raini loved this story. I told it to her one morning over tea, and she couldn’t stop idealizing it. I wanted to tell her to stop—to darken her sunshine just so that she wouldn’t go looking for this kind of rare fireworks, because, again, I was still a little stung from He Who Shall Not Be Named. But I didn’t. I let her bathe in my love story, because even after experiencing heartbreak, I believed coming out the other side was worth celebrating.
Raini beamed at us, her body close to the maybe-boyfriend seated next to her, the guy she couldn’t get enough of, Joshua Carlyle. He was a nice enough Ken-doll actor whose fame had recently exploded in his early twenties, but Josh could play sixteen, and so he had been cast in every young-adult movie that Netflix spit out over the last two years. Sure, he was a vulnerable actor whose sad eyes made your insides hurt, but I was certain that he had to know where Netflix buried their bodies. Josh was good, but not five-movies-and-two-TV-shows good. He was also a man-child, with his eyes glued to his overactive Instagram account. Raini pursed her lips and put her hand over Josh’s cell phone. He looked up and smiled brightly, tucking his phone away as she pulled him close to her chest and nodded at Asher and myself, as if showing her boyfriend what she wanted out of their relationship. She wanted him to look at her the way Asher looked at me—like I hung the moon. My body lit up and my cheeks reddened, realizing how fucking lucky I was. It wasn’t every day that a man looked at a woman this way.
“Well, you just made the studio’s PR team very, very happy,” Amos said.
Asher tugged his eyes off me and took a sip of his wine with an eye roll.
“That’s not what this is,” Asher said.
“Just, please plan the messy breakup for after the movie comes out,” said Amos.
Asher turned to me, eyes unwavering on mine. “I don’t plan on a breakup of any kind,” he said, following the statement with a wide grin. I couldn’t speak, I just let the words comfort and warm every inch of my body.
“Jesus Christ, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile in public before,” Amos said as Asher’s gaze stayed locked on mine. “You usually save the smiles for the camera.” Amos turned to me, alarmed. “What have you done to him?”
I shrugged, because this was always how we were.
“Alright, enough already. Stop interrogating my girlfriend,” Asher said, putting his arm around me, as if to shield me from their stares.
The word “girlfriend” shot through me. I hadn’t heard someone refer to me as their girlfriend since I was…seventeen. Drew Reddy and I hadn’t even put a label on his love for me. I had never been anyone else’s anything as an adult. I had dated different types of unstable men for months at a time. My relationships were tiny love bombs—men whose instability gave me a high level of anxiety. With the uncertainty came the sweeping fireworks. When I had their attention, I coveted it. When I wasn’t in their presence, I stared at my phone like it might eat me alive. These men were gorgeous, emotionally unavailable, unable to look at the future, and/or terrified of commitment—I had never gotten myself past the DTR finish line. So of course, the first kid to call me his girlfriend would be the first adult man to call me the same. Somehow, unwittingly, Asher Reyes had marked the stability territory, and I had been waiting all this time for him to come back around and be my rock.
Suddenly, Amos and Asher shifted out of their seats, effusively greeting a man who approached our table. I couldn’t see his face, his back was to me, but he used his hands aggressively as he spoke, with a loud Jersey accent. My chest thumped, faster and faster, and I bit down hard, tasting blood and metal in my mouth. Asher gestured in my direction, and the man turned toward me with a wide smile. He looked the same, like he’d rolled around inside a vintage shop, but an expensive one. My mouth parted in the air—my throat strangled with heat. A loud ringing blared in my ears, and my heart pounded inside my skull.
The paparazzi were camped outside Thompson Street, and I was the other half of their target. Tonight was a super-problematic time for PTSD to pop on by for a visit, but I didn’t blame her. I could feel every inch of my body wrapping itself up in distress, like a siren sound warning me to hide, to hold myself under the table, to exhale horrifying screams so that others could save me. Instead, I gripped one hand over the other with white-knuckled fists, letting my nails etch onto the backs of my hands—an attempt to feel physical pain, an attempt to keep my body upright and glued to my seat instead of folding into a panic attack.
“Maggie, this is Cole Wyan,” Asher said.
Cole smiled in my direction, and his eyes widened the moment he met my face. His expression shifted back to neutral just as quickly, and with a sickening smile, he extended his hand down to mine.
43
TWENTY-NINE
I STOOD UP ON THE stage at the Bowery Electric—making it to the stage of my dreams at twenty-nine. I was uncharacteristically nervous at first—but there was pressure on my shoulders—my chest thumping against having the largest crowd that had ever gathered simply for me. Just hours prior, Garrett had texted me that he couldn’t make it—there was a burgeoning medical supplies company in San Francisco that his dad wanted to acquire, and Garrett needed to stay there. I texted him back that it was fine, in lowercase, without an exclamation mark, which, if you’re listening （men）， means the opposite of fine.
Over nine months ago, we had parted with a long kiss before he left at five in the morning, neither of us knowing what our bodies wrapped around each other meant. We texted often, but neither mentioned that night. He had been in San Francisco longer than he was supposed to, working eighty-hour weeks, and he was due back in time for my show. I had put too much pressure on the idea of seeing him again, so even as my career was about to take flight, on this big booming stage there was a large ache in my heart.
The song I had written for Garrett, “Let’s Lie,” left my lips, fueled by a newfound bitterness in my veins. As I finished the song, the air got sucked out of my angry lungs. My wide eyes blinked back a famous face, a genius whose indie-folk lyrics had inspired many of my first songs. Cole Wyan. I owned all of his CDs. In high school, I downloaded his demos on LimeWire. This was the extent to which I worshipped Cole’s music and his melancholic indie-folk vibe: I risked being caught by the FBI to hear his rarities and B-sides. He was a vulnerable and prolific singer-songwriter, who also produced a handful of artists under his Power Groove label—many of them female artists who I admired.
He carried himself with a Venice Beach vibe: I might look like I don’t embrace personal hygiene and I shop at Goodwill, but if you look closer, you’ll see I’m wearing a $500 beanie. He had a cherubic face with a wild mop of sandy-blond hair, with gold and leather bracelets hugging his tattooed wrists.
Cole grinned up at my glittery, wide eyes like he was Moses and I was the Promised Land. Finally, right place, right time—chest pounding, perfect out-of-this-galaxy vocals, yearning lyrics, someone important watching. It had only taken me twenty-nine years.