I chewed the insides of my cheeks and flickered a tiny smile his way.
“I…I honestly started to feel not so great. Major period cramps.” I smirked with a little exhale. “I have a very sensitive reproductive system, and I was trying to spare you the details.”
If you want to end a conversation with a male, the word “period” usually gets the job done. While Asher was completely above average in so many ways, he was also an average male when it came to discussing women bleeding out of their vaginas.
“Okay,” he said with a tiny smile, nodding and putting it to bed.
“Ash, I’m in this. You, me, the circus, the flashy lightbulbs, outrunning shitheads holding cameras—all of it. Yeah, I’m not super pumped that my every public move might be caught on camera. But hey, I plan on being more famous than you one day, so I may as well get used to this.”
His smile cracked wide, and he tugged me toward his body so my bare feet stood between his shoes.
“Oh, well, I’m glad I could be of assistance,” he said, his nose touching mine.
I grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him onto my lips, a silent reassurance that he had nothing to worry about, that I was all-in on all of Asher Reyes. But there was a mounting voice inside my head, a question that got louder and louder even as I kissed him harder and harder: if I was all-in on Asher, then why was I afraid to show him all my cards?
Even after all the extensive work I had done during therapy the last few years, there was still a thread of shame stitched around a moment where I carried no culpability. I hoped one day I’d be able to untangle it in front of the person I loved. Maybe it would come out in sobs, the way the truth about Asher’s brother’s death came out in guttural cries. I got it now. Asher holding on to that horrible truth wasn’t about me, any more than me holding on to this horrible truth was about Asher. My deflection was about my pain, and my need to release it to the universe when I was ready.
But sometimes, the universe gets its claws on you and shakes the truth from your bones before you’re ready.
45
THIRTY
“TONIGHT…TONIGHT when I blew out the candles, my birthday wish was for us to end up together.”
Garrett and I sat side by side in this tiny Nolita bar on my thirtieth birthday, as the maybe horrible truth fell out of me, and I couldn’t put it back in. He studied me like he was dropped inside a play without knowing any of the lines. My lips stayed parted in the air—stunned by their own handiwork. There was a familiar white-hot adrenaline coursing through my body, the kind of bravery I only felt when I sang under a spotlight. Which is why I kept going, even as all rationale screamed, STOP SAYING WORDS, MAGGIE.
“If we’re not married in five years, promise me you’ll show up at my door and marry me,” I heard myself say.
“You…you want me to marry you?” he asked slowly, as if he needed to say the sentence aloud to understand it.
I shook my head. “Scratch that.”
“You don’t want me to marry you?”
“I do. But I’ll show up at your door—you’re horrible with timing.”
Garrett opened his mouth, but no words followed. His brows pressed together for a long moment as my breathing became more rapid. I couldn’t feel my fingers, and there was a ringing in my ears.
Did I just spring a marriage pact on Garrett Scholl?
I knew I was in a bad place, but I didn’t know I was in a reckless one. I bent my neck forward with my hand around my throat, fighting the wave of humiliation rising up from my stomach. I turned toward the bar, staring hard at the freshly washed glasses as if they were a time machine. Garrett reached his hand down to my seat, twisting my barstool toward him and bringing us face-to-face. My heart thumped as his eyes scanned every line on my face. And then, he leaned forward, the heat of his mouth against mine.
“Why do we have to wait until we’re thirty-five?” he whispered against my lips.
I hadn’t seen Garrett since he got back from San Francisco. Two weeks ago, the idea of seeing him after ten months apart consumed me wholly. But then—Cole Wyan happened to me. But here I was, my lips just inches from Garrett Scholl’s mouth, a fantasy come to life.
“Maggie, all I’ve been able to think about the last few months is…us…this right here.” His thumb moved along my chin, like a question waiting to be answered.
His eyes didn’t leave mine, and there wasn’t a hint of playfulness anywhere in his jaw. I felt warmth envelop me. Here it was. Right person. Right time. All I wanted to do was lean into his lips and start the rest of our lives together, right fucking now, but his hand—his hand was on my thigh.
His hand.
My thigh.
My breathing quickened and I clenched my eyes shut, my chest growing hot, my mind boomeranging back to two weeks ago, when Cole Wyan’s hand had been right there, right on the soft spot of my skin. His hand gliding up my body. An intruder in my home.
“Maggie?” I heard Garrett ask. I felt his hand leave my thigh.
“I should—I should go,” I said quickly, eyes still shut, body frozen.
“Did I do something?”
I swallowed hard and blinked my eyes on Garrett’s hurt face. His hand was on my arm, his eyes were wide, searching for an answer.
“Garrett, I’m not in a good place right now—not for this.”
He scrunched up his face.
“Okay. But…then why did you say what you said? That you wanted us to end up together?” he asked, baffled, maybe even a little stung.
I searched for words amid the sound of my heart pounding in my ears.
“I meant what I asked you. I meant it. I just—I can’t be with anyone right now.”
I edged my body off the stool, but my legs were numb, and I felt my chest dropping to the floor. Garrett caught my side with one strong arm, quickly steadying my body against his. He put his hand around my waist, looking at me, panicked. I’d never seen him look at someone like this before. I darted from his view, focusing on my shaking hands.
“Let’s get you home, okay?” he asked quietly.
I felt tears in my throat as I nodded.
I was in pieces, with no instructions on how to glue myself back together. My hopes, my dreams, my body—broken. Three weeks ago, Garrett saying he wanted to start a life with me would have gone down as some of the greatest seconds of my life. And today, my body and my mind wouldn’t let me go anywhere near bliss. My happiness was frozen behind a moment of terror.
Garrett took me home instantly, made sure I got under the covers, and left me Advil and water by my bedside. He watched me for a long moment, and right before he left, I could see his expression out of the corner of my eyes. He was bathed in confusion.
I stared at the ceiling, limbs shaking until the sun rose. And I did it again the next day. And the next.
46
THIRTY-FIVE
FOR AN ENTIRE WEEK AFTER my encounter with Cole at Carbone, I crushed a Xanax between my teeth every night, quieting my racing mind. It had been a full seven days, and Cole hadn’t touched my future or called Asher to warn him that I had a mean right hook.
I exhaled, letting the sun bathe my freckled shoulders as I walked up West Thirtieth Street. It was time to let that encounter go, and starting today, I would carve my own path—or that was what I was saying to the sky, during my morning mantra. I told myself I had merely seen a ghost at Carbone—one that no longer posed a threat. I adjusted Asher’s aviators over my eyes—large frames that didn’t fit my narrow bone structure, but dulled the paparazzi camera flashes. His shades also hid the fact that I refused to apply makeup before an aggressive amount of caffeine was coursing through my blood. The glasses quieted the online trolls who expected all celebrity girlfriends to roll out of bed with contoured faces.