Isn't She Lovely (Redemption 0.5)(53)

No more. I want my dignity back. I want my life back.

I gesture toward a smaller pile of clothes on the desk chair in the corner of the room. “That is for the trip. I just haven’t put it in my bag yet.”

He gestures toward the piles on the bed. “Then what’s this?”

I lift a shoulder. “Figured while I was packing for the trip, I may as well start packing for good.”

Ethan freezes in the process of inspecting my bras. (Guess he isn’t so immune after all.) “What do you mean, packing for good?”

“Come on, smart guy, you’ve got this,” I say, keeping my tone light. I shouldn’t be glad that he sounds upset, but I am getting a little rush because he’s clearly not happy to get rid of me.

“Fall semester doesn’t start for two weeks,” he says.

“You’re on fire today with the observations,” I say, going to the closet and pulling out the huge duffel bag I purchased a couple of days ago. I have about four times as many clothes as when I moved in, thanks to Ethan’s shopping spree, and he insisted that I keep them. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do with all of them, unless I decide to take on a career as a life-sized Barbie, but I’m not ready to part with them either.

Ethan’s all up in my face, taking the bag out of my hand and holding it out of reach. “I never said you had to move out as soon as the party was over,” he says. “Stay until the end of the summer.”

“Thanks for the offer, but my housing crisis has come to a close,” I say with a timid smile. “Since I work in the dean’s office during the school year, they’ll let me move into the dorms early for no additional charge as long as I take on a couple of work shifts.”

“You’re leaving this to move into the dorms early?”

I feel my temper starting to spike at the condescension in his tone. “You want me to stay? As what, your whore?”

His face goes furious. “It’s not like that and you know it.”

“Yeah? What’s it like, Ethan? What is this?”

His mouth twists in frustration, but instead of responding, he tosses the bag behind him like a petulant child, crossing his arms as I stomp over to retrieve it.

“When were you going to tell me?” he asks, his voice calmer but no less cold.

I throw my hands up in exasperation, abandoning all pretense of packing. “I thought I just did.”

“Only because I asked.”

“I don’t report to you, Ethan!” I say, fed up with his childish reaction. “You can pull the control-freak routine with your next girlfriend, but don’t you dare try it on me.”

His eyes meet mine. “You’re not my girlfriend.”

Exactly. I close my eyes briefly. “You know what I meant.”

Ethan rubs a hand across the back of his neck, and I hate that I’m starting to adore that frequent gesture. “What about our screenplay?”

“We’ll get it done. We don’t have to turn it in for a couple of weeks, and we have most of the major scenes laid out.”

I haven’t told him, but I added the whole making-out-on-the-couch episode to the scene list—omitting, of course, the abrupt ending. In our movie, the heroine wouldn’t be damaged goods who doesn’t know whether or not she’s ever had sex. In the movie, Tyler and Kayla would consummate. Professor Holbrook had said he’d wanted conflict. And sex would definitely add conflict.

I still don’t know whether I’m relieved or disappointed that that particular plot development won’t be based on a true story.

“What about the ending?” he asks.

“Still open-ended,” I say more calmly, bending down to grab the bag and hoisting it onto the bed. “I thought maybe we could get some inspiration from this trip. Maybe have a big blowup with the ex-girlfriend or something.”

He smiles at that. “You want me to get into a public fight with Olivia for the sake of a two-credit class?”

“Well, we’ve got to have something good for our denouement.”

“You act like I’m supposed to know what that means.”

“The climax. The explosive ending,” I explain. “I know up until now we’ve been loosely basing it on our own experiences, but that won’t work for the final scenes. We can’t just have Tyler and Kayla go quietly into the night.”

“As you plan to do,” he says.

“As do you,” I say, giving him a look out of the corner of my eye.

“Yeah, well,” he says, rubbing his neck again, “I suspect you’ll do it better. You hating the sunshine and all. Creeping in the night is just your style.”

He’s trying to make me smile, but I find I’m not up to it. In fact, I don’t like that description of me at all, and that scares the crap out of me. I’d better not be losing my edge after a few short weeks of wearing high heels and short skirts.

I feel his eyes boring into my back as I turn to load a pile of black shirts into the bag, and I will him to acknowledge what neither of us has mentioned: the fact we’ve now kissed twice for reasons that have nothing to do with pretending.

I want him to tell me that the movie’s becoming true. That Pygmalion is falling in love with the girl he created.

But he doesn’t.