I grabbed my phone off the coffee table. I could feel my spine rebuilding itself, I could feel the heartbreak of a man taking hold of my career turn into white-hot fury. Sometimes, clinging to anger isn’t the poisonous venom people make it out to be.
“Who are you calling?” Asher asked.
“Raini.”
“Raini?”
I nodded, and as I went to dial her number, I froze. I slowly looked up at Asher, my face softening as I locked eyes with him.
“Thank you,” I said.
“What for?”
“For—for showing mercy when you didn’t need to. For being here for me. I…I really love you,” I said, my lips staying open in the awe of it all.
And I did. I loved him fully.
His eyes didn’t leave mine. “I don’t think I ever stopped loving you,” he said, super casually.
“Well that’s cool,” I said through a teary smile.
A soft grin found his chiseled face. I exhaled again, grateful to be able to give all of my heart to the person who could give me all of his—to the person who I could share a lifetime of hopes and dreams with.
52
SEVENTEEN
MY NAKED LIMBS WERE FOLDED between Asher’s as we lay on the dock over the sleepy lake, with just a large terry cloth towel covering our bodies. My finger traced the tiny white scar on his chin, slowly, as if I were memorizing his lifeless body before the cops took him away. I let my fingers go to the tattoo on his biceps, raw and wrapped in a clear bandage. There was wild romance in the air. There was death in the air, too. Goodbyes can be complicated.
It was our final night at camp, the night before we were about to go home and then head to separate coasts for colleges.
“Remember that promise we made?” I whispered, burying my face in the curve of his neck, breathing in salt, musk, and sunblock.
“Of course.”
He held me tighter, arms around my back, my breasts on his damp torso.
“Promise me,” I said.
“Mags, I don’t want to live in a world where I would have lost you,” he said.
“Just promise me. If we’re thirty-five…” I trailed off, choking back the reality that I was begging him to save me from a lonely future. Wanting security from another person was pitiful. I was pitiful.
“Hey”—Asher took my chin in his fingers and lifted my face up to his—“I promise. Heck, I’ll show up at your door with a ring.”
“You better,” I said.
I couldn’t tell if he was joking, but I sure as hell wasn’t.
“But you better not lose me, you hear?” Asher said.
His eyes opened wider, waiting for my answer. I tried to hold every line on his body—as much as my hands and arms would allow. His chin was quivering, already unhinged with the thought of losing me. His eyes filled with threatening tears as he waited for me to speak. It was magnanimous.
Fuck pity. I pitied everyone else.
“I won’t. I promise.”
“We’ll make this work. Right?” he asked, but it wasn’t even a question.
“We’ve made this work for three years. We’ll make it work for forever.”
He exhaled into a gentle smile, and I kissed him, tears streaming down my cheeks, salt on my lips, and he kissed me back harder, holding me tight as our bodies moved with and against each other in the moonlight.
53
THIRTY-FIVE
SUMMER PHONED ME TO LET me know Garrett had called off the engagement. There was a part of me that believed it was easier knowing he was with someone else, but honestly, I was too in love to let it ruin me. I was, and I mean this wholly, proud of Garrett for choosing himself. I wanted desperately to say it to his face, but I also knew that loving him came with boundaries, ones I had set so that I could be my happiest self.
And I was.
Two weeks later, with the movie’s production underway, I sat across from Shelly in her chaotic, colorful office in West Midtown. Summer sat next to me, grinning like a shark. Shelly finished reading the piles of paper in front of her and set them down as she whistled into the air.
“Who knows about this?” Shelly asked.
“The other three names on those pages”—I pointed to Summer—“my unpaid PR rep, my boyfriend, and Raini Perish.”
Shelly smiled.
“Well, let’s not keep it that way. Unpaid PR rep, I assume you have a contact at New York mag?”
Summer squinted her eyes, so offended by the question that she refused to dignify it with a response.
Shelly narrowed her eyes back at me. “Before this breaks, your first phone call is to Fin Bex,” she said.
“He has my number,” I said with a sly smile.
“Christ, I’m going to be dealing with your ego forever, aren’t I?” Shelly rolled her eyes at me, and then directed her attention at Summer. “Okay, PR hotshot, let’s get New York mag on the line.”
Stone-faced, Summer saluted Shelly, and then she dialed her contact at New York magazine.
I didn’t want to hurt Cole Wyan quietly. I wanted to do it loudly, publicly—I wanted to take a baseball bat to his reputation. Shitty men can try to tear our souls apart, but where there is one victim of a man abusing his power, there is almost always more. And when us women find each other, when we lock arms, we have enough collective strength to rise up with fists. And we did.
Over the last couple weeks, I had spent hours on the phone with Raini’s cousin, who had been abused and groomed by Cole Wyan. Raini’s cousin knew of another woman. And that woman knew of another. We had four victims, including myself—four well-documented cases of Cole Wyan using his power in the worst way possible. It was a slam-dunk case for his mainstream cancellation.
Weeks later, New York magazine published a tell-all article: four well-researched accounts of women whose careers were stifled by Cole Wyan. One of them was me.
I was on set the morning the story broke, watching Raini sing the first song I had written for the movie. She, quite simply, took our breath away. It was right then that I looked around, seeing not a dry eye on set—it was right then that I realized I was a part of something real and extraordinary. Something that wouldn’t slip through my fingers.
I walked out the stage doors, the sun setting on the backlot as I answered my phone.
“Hello.”
“Hi. I have Fin Bex and Shelly Pier for you.”
I waited, my heart pounding. I hadn’t talked to Fin since Cole had released my song, and I didn’t know what was coming on the other end of the line. Fin’s bouncy voice clicked through my phone’s receiver.
“So…turns out that guy’s a real piece of shit.”
I cleared my throat, almost smiling. “Yeah.”
“Shelly and I, we were just talking and thinking: You know what would be a real fuck-you to Cole Wyan?”
My eyes widened.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Recording so many songs that ‘Let’s Lie’ doesn’t even show up on your top songs on Spotify,” Shelly finished.
I exhaled, tears stinging my eyes, relief flooding through every inch of my bones.
“I’d like that, very much,” was all I could say.
“I think, however—and Shelly, correct me if I’m wrong—I think you should take a record deal and let me produce the record. Fuck the EP.”