The Break(88)

“Look, I’m sorry,” I say, trying to loosen a little, to bend into this situation, to see it from his side.

He lifts an eyebrow. “About what exactly?”

“That this didn’t work,” I say.

“It’s not that I’m upset that this didn’t just not work on its own,” he says, and he has this stupid smirk on his face like I should know what he’s talking about.

“I don’t know what that means,” I say.

“You weren’t honest with me from the beginning,” he says. “You used me.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, trying to stall, but he’s freaking me out—it’s the terminology he’s using: because he’s not wrong; there were times when I was using him for all kinds of things—access to places I never would have gotten into by myself, an entry into a world I wanted deeply to be a part of, a distraction from that rush of feelings for Gabe all those months ago. But mostly I was using him as a friend in a city where I had barely anyone.

He’s staring at me, and his face is turning smug, which gives me a knot in my stomach. I look away, my eyes finding the pool table, the impossibly shiny balls stacked inside the triangle. The green fabric on top of the table looks well loved even though I’ve never seen anyone come down here. “I said I was sorry,” I say softly. I can’t meet his gaze. The alcohol is making me buzzy and tired; I just want to go home.

He reaches into his bag, and for a second I’m scared he’s going to take out a gun or a knife. I know that sounds completely insane, but I hate what’s between us right now, the hard edge fizzing in the cold air. There’s so much hurt and embarrassment coming from him, and guilt from me, and all of it is like a storm getting angrier by the second.



“I found this,” Harrison says, and he’s holding out the journal I keep stashed way back inside my desk at work. The brown leather cover matches his gloves.

“What are you doing with that?” I ask. “You snooped in my desk?” I reach out my hand to try to take it, but he snaps it away.

“Yes, I snooped,” he says. “God, you sound like you’re five.”

“You’re the one who stole a journal from a desk drawer like we’re in elementary school,” I retort. “You can hardly talk. Give it back,” I say. But he doesn’t. Instead, he opens it. And right there in front of us is the page where I wrote about what I felt for Gabe that first night at the Playwrights Horizons reading. And even worse, on the next page I wrote that one of the ways I would distract myself was by going out with Harrison to forget I felt like that about someone who was married. And then, because I’m not much of a journal writer, there aren’t many other entries—I remember I wrote down a few things going on with work or with Sean, but nowhere in that journal do I start to talk about how I stopped feeling that way about Gabe or how I started to have real feelings for Harrison. “Look,” I say. “I only wrote that because I felt really bad for thinking a married person was extremely attractive. But it’s not like I acted on it or did anything wrong other than have a fleeting crush.”

“And then date me like some kind of consolation prize,” Harrison says.

“No, it’s not like that,” I say.

“It’s funny,” he says. “I can’t tell you how many ways I’ve lost to this guy before.”

“To Gabe?” I ask. I’ve only seen Harrison take pride in Gabe, to tote him around like a treasured pet. Plus he makes 15 percent of everything Gabe makes, which is a lot, so I didn’t exactly think Harrison was harboring any ill feelings toward him.

“Yes,” he says, laughing. It’s so eerie, him laughing like that, like all of this is funny when it’s clearly not funny at all to him. It makes me feel sick. And it’s getting harder to breathe in here; there’s a thin layer of dust on nearly everything in the billiards room: on the old books stacked on a shelf, a random globe, a pointer stick like they’d have in an old classroom.

“Well, let me rephrase that,” Harrison says. “It’s not like I care about his big ego and all the ways he gets to be the star and the writer and director and all those things. I don’t mind being behind the scenes, the agent behind the Great Gabe O’Sullivan.” He takes a breath here—he’s working up to everything like he wants to make sure I understand. He stares me dead in the eyes. “Rowan was mine first,” he says, and he lets it hang in the air, lets me really hear it. “She was there one night waiting at the bar, looking indescribably perfect, and we looked at each other. And I swear there would have been something between us if it hadn’t been for Gabe and his”—he lets out a barking laugh and goes on—“his vortex of sex appeal. I mean, come on, June, that’s what got you going that night at the reading, right? The man’s sheer sex appeal?”

It sends a shudder down my spine. I don’t want to be having this conversation, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Something so sharp rips between us that I’m worried he’ll stop me if I try to go; he’ll make me hear what he’s saying whether I want to or not. “It’s what got Rowan,” Harrison says. “And worse, it’s what kept her. She’s in love with him. And I’ve had to watch it up close for years.”