The Dead Romantics (12)

“Is this an open mic or something?” I asked.

Rose took another sip of the Dickinson. “Sorta.”

“Sorta . . . ?”

Before Rose could reply, the woman in the brown shawl leaned in toward the microphone and said, “Thank you all for staying with us through our break. Now, for our next reading, I’d like to welcome Sophia Jenkins,” she said in a soft voice that reminded me of a patient kindergarten teacher.

People snapped as she relinquished the mic and a brown-skinned woman with short gray hair came up to the microphone and took out a journal.

“It’s a poetry reading?” I whispered to Rose.

“A reading of anything, really,” my best friend replied with a half shrug. “I figured you needed some inspiration. Writing’s lonely, I hear. It’s nice to listen to other people’s words.”

The woman’s short story was about a fish in the ocean who dreamed of being a siren, or maybe she was a siren who thought she was a fish. It was beautiful, and simple, and the entire bar had quieted to listen.

When she was done, everyone snapped politely.

I didn’t realize I needed that until this moment. Just quiet art, spoken to quiet people to appreciate. No secrets. No exchange. No expectations. “You’re a really good friend, Rose Wu.”

She grinned. “You’re right, and any good friend would tell you to go up next.”

“What?”

“I said what I said.”

I hesitated, but it didn’t sound like a terrible idea, when all day writing had felt like pulling teeth. The artisanal Dickinson helped. I could go up there. I could read something that I jotted down on my phone a while back. I could put a little bit of creativity into the world that seemed to want to suck it from your very marrow.

I could go up there and be someone—anyone—other than Florence Day tonight.

Because Florence Day would be curled up on the couch with a bowl of mac and cheese, her laptop balanced precariously on a pillow on her lap, trying desperately to write a story she didn’t believe in. Because storybook love only existed for a lucky few—like my parents. They were the exception to the rule, not the rule itself. It was rare, and it was fleeting. Love was a high for a moment that left you hollow when it left, and you spent the rest of your life chasing that feeling. A false memory, too good to be true, and I’d been fooling myself for far too long, believing in Grand Romantic Gestures and Happily Ever Afters.

Those weren’t written for me. I wasn’t the exception.

I was the rule.

And I guess I finally understood the kinds of lies I told people with my witty prose and promise of a happy ending. I promised them that they were the exception. And every time I looked at that blinking cursor in my Word document, trying to unite Amelia and Jackson, all I could see was my reflection on the screen.

The reflection of a liar.

But for one night—one moment—I didn’t want to be that girl I saw in the reflection of my computer screen. I wanted to go back. To pretend that there was true love waiting for me somewhere out in the world. That souls separated by space and time could come crashing together with the force of a single kiss. That the impossible was not quite out of reach. Not for me.

That there was love, true and fierce and loyal, in a world where like called to like . . . and I was no longer the rule.

Where I was the exception.

As if the universe answered, I stood when the emcee called for another volunteer, another person to bare their heart. And so did someone else. Someone near the front of the bar, where the tables were so tightly packed the tweed suits blended together.

I froze.

“Oh, my!” the emcee cooed. “What a treat. Which one of you’d like to go first?”

The man in question turned to see who else had volunteered. Our eyes met. I knew then that it was him.

I could recognize him anywhere.

Even after a hundred years, after I’d scrubbed my brain of everything he was, I would know him.

Platinum-blond hair and a loose-cut V-neck and tight jeans and a birthmark just below his left ear in the shape of a crescent moon that I had kissed so many times my lips hurt just thinking about all of the nights I rubbed them raw, trying to forget about it. About him.

It was the universe telling me that I couldn’t forget. That if love was true, then love was a lie. That I had been happy once, happy then, but not happy forever. Because that wasn’t my story. That even my stories weren’t mine.

Perhaps they never were.





5





Dead Serious


THE FIRST TIME I met Lee Marlow, I was at a party with Rose and Natalie, our other roommate, who had since moved to South Korea. The party consisted of a lot of publishing people, though it wasn’t a mixer. There were authors, editors, quite a few assistants, and agents. It was for some milestone, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember what. They all blended together after a while, party after party, book launch after book launch, swanky bars after rooftop restaurants after extravagant apartments in Midtown.

I had grabbed Rose by the upper arm and brought her close. “Oh my god, four o’clock. Red Vans. I told you I could’ve worn my Converses.”

“But those Louboutins make your ass look amazing,” she replied.

“I can’t feel my feet, Rose,” I complained, envying the guy in the red Vans. Then he turned around and my breath caught in my throat. “Oh.”