“What are you doing?” Iris asked.
Stevie tapped on the screen. The home screen came to life and Stevie’s eyes scanned Iris’s icons.
“What the hell are you doing?” Iris asked.
Stevie turned the iPad to reveal a drawing of Iris and Stevie standing by Bright River the night of the summer fair. Iris had already added color to this illustration, and they were bathed in silvery starlight. In the drawing, Iris’s hands were in Stevie’s hair, Stevie’s arms around her waist, and their mouths were a centimeter from touching.
That moment right before they kissed.
Right before they fell into each other for real, all of their lessons and fake dating and Stevie’s wooing falling away, leaving nothing but them.
Iris’s heart galloped against her ribs. “How . . . how did you know about my drawings?”
“I saw them the day you kicked me out after Stella’s,” Stevie said.
“Stevie, I—”
“It doesn’t matter, Iris. What matters is that you drew them. And you drew them like this.” She flipped to another drawing, and another and another—Iris and Stevie dancing in the grocery store, Iris and Stevie laughing at boozy mini-golf, Iris and Stevie tangled together in bed. “You drew us, Iris. Because you love me. You fucking love me and you have for a long time.”
Iris closed her eyes, shook her head as she took the iPad from Stevie and stared down at the image on the screen. “I . . .”
But she didn’t know how to finish that sentence, because Stevie was right. And it was so obvious in every single one of these illustrations, how gone she was on this woman, how wrapped up.
How in love.
She shook her head, ready to protest a bit more, but suddenly, Stevie’s hands were on her face, cupping her cheeks and tilting her head up to meet her eyes. Iris’s heart swelled into her throat, tears flying down her cheeks.
“Come with me,” Stevie whispered against her mouth.
Iris froze. “What?”
“Come with me, Iris. To New York. Come with me. Live with me. I love you, okay? I am wildly, stupidly in love with you. Yes, I messed up. Yes, I chose me, but I choose you too. That’s what love is, right? I want both, and I know you do too. We can figure this out, we can. Just say yes.”
Iris squeezed her eyes shut, but Stevie didn’t back away. She didn’t take it back. She just kept whispering, “Come with me,” while her thumbs swiped Iris’s tears away.
And fuck, Iris wanted to say yes. She wanted it so badly, her fingers tingled, her heart beat as though jolted with a shot of electricity. She could see it—her and Stevie on the streets of New York, holding hands in Central Park, Stevie glowing on stage with Iris in the front row with a bouquet of yellow tulips for her star, kissing in their bed, their apartment, their own private universe, the city sounds like music on the street below.
It was a beautiful vision. A dream. But that’s all it was. Because even as Iris wanted to say yes, that old fear crept up her throat like a poison, that armor around her heart tightening its locks, bringing with it the understanding that, eventually, Stevie would change her mind. Or she’d push to get married or have babies or some other thing Iris simply didn’t want. And then she’d look at Iris like Grant had, like Jillian had, like she wasn’t . . .
Enough.
And Iris couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t bear for Stevie, her Stevie, to ever look at her like that. She couldn’t give everything away—her entire life in Bright Falls, her friends, her family—for a person who would eventually see Iris for exactly who she was.
“Look,” Stevie said, taking the iPad out of Iris’s hands and flipping through Iris’s illustrations again. “Let’s make a new drawing. You and me, right now, in New York.”
“Stevie,” Iris said.
Stevie shook her head, fingers trembling as she flipped through drawing after drawing. “We can do it, okay? How do I get to a blank page?”
“Stevie,” Iris said again.
“No, Iris.” She kept flipping. “Just think about it, okay? We can—”
She stopped, her mouth open, gaze reflecting the screen.
Iris closed her eyes, knowing exactly what drawing Stevie had finally landed on, the one Iris had just sketched this morning—Stevie, arms outstretched in the middle of Times Square, a lovely smile on her face.
Alone.
Stevie blinked down at the black-and-white drawing. It was good, if Iris did say so herself, capturing all of Stevie’s strength and fear and determination.
Slowly, Iris pulled the iPad from her hands, slipped it back into her bag. Stevie let her, a shocked expression on her face.
“I can’t,” Iris said simply, and left it at that. She opened Stevie’s door, stepped through it.
“You know,” Stevie said as Iris’s feet hit the hallway.
Iris froze, but she didn’t turn around.
“Ever since we met, I thought I was the one who was scared,” Stevie said, her voice low and quiet. Steady. “I’m the one who needed confidence. I needed to take a chance. I needed to be brave. But really, all this time, it was you. You’re the real coward, Iris. Aren’t you?”
Iris’s chin trembled, the truth of Stevie’s words closing around her like a second skin.
But she couldn’t do this again—this moment, after only six weeks together, was already enough to crush her lungs. What would six months do to her?
Six years?
So she didn’t answer. She didn’t say anything at all. Instead, she simply walked away, leaving the woman she loved crying in her doorway.
Just like the coward they both knew she was.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
STEVIE SAT ON the couch in her and Adri’s old apartment.
There were touches of Vanessa everywhere—new potted plants to join Adri’s ferns on the balcony, aqua-and coral-colored pillows strewn throughout the living space, vibrant art by Latin American artists on the newly painted mustard-colored walls. The place looked homier than it ever had with Stevie as half its decorator, Stevie who favored neutral colors and brain-calming gray walls.
The apartment was crowded tonight, full of friends and actors from the Empress, even a few actors from other local plays in which Stevie had acted. Everyone was here for her goodbye party, but she felt oddly disconnected from the whole event. Still, she smiled as people squeezed her shoulder, told her congratulations, stopped her to chat about New York as she moved through the room, looking for a redhead she knew she wouldn’t see.
It had been two weeks since she and Iris had broken up, since she’d emailed Dr. Calloway with trembling fingers and accepted the role of Rosalind in As You Like It. Two weeks since that simple message had turned her entire life upside down.
Even though rehearsals didn’t start until January, Dr. Calloway had mentioned that she’d love to have Stevie’s input on auditions—along with the couple of other principals Thayer had already cast, actors whose well-known names Stevie couldn’t even fully comprehend right now—which started in mid-September.
Details fell into place easily—so easily, Stevie barely felt like she was a part of it all, struggled to remember this was actually happening to her. Thayer had arranged an apartment for Stevie, a tiny, one-bedroom flat in Williamsburg that Thayer’s wife’s family owned and never used. She told Stevie to leave her car behind, bought her an annual MetroCard on the theater’s dime, and even sent her the link to a New York subway app so she could prepare herself to navigate the city.