The Dead Romantics (16)

And maybe, yeah.

Maybe I was, but—

“What happens at the end? To your Florence in your book? Does some guy come in to save her, only to steal the one story that’s hers?”

His demeanor changed then. He was still charming, still looked at me like I was the center of the universe in which everything else orbited, but suddenly I was something that was no longer precious. “I can’t steal a story you’d never write, Florence.”

And that was it. I had been an utter fool. Whatever I felt was nothing, it was imagined.

Then he shut the door on me.

Literally.

He didn’t even try to explain or beg for me to come back. He simply left me on the sidewalk on a cold April evening with my one jumbo suitcase and two pots of devil’s ivy I’d stolen from the rooftop garden.

And all of his stories began to make sense if I thought of them the same way he thought about my stories.

Fictional.

I thought I knew Lee. He had studied at Yale, and left because he wanted to teach French to orphans in Benin. He only came back because his mother died of cancer, and he wanted to help his father grieve. He had a sister in a group home in Texas after she suffered a brain aneurysm on her wedding day, and he always donated to the ASPCA because he used to volunteer there in high school, and I ate all of it up like candy. I never questioned it.

Why would I? I trusted him.

I began to figure it out, though, after the night he left me in the rain. I put together his lies, piece by piece, until they finally began to add up. I mean, he didn’t even know the capital of Benin. (It’s Porto-Novo, by the way.)

Here was the truth: Lee Marlow flunked out of Yale. His parents lived in Florida, and his sister was married to a librarian in Seattle. He never chased a master’s at Oxford. He never interned at the Wall Street Journal.

And I was heartbroken.

Standing there on the sidewalk in the April rain, I did the only thing I could think of—I called Rose, and she had a roommate who was moving out. It did cross my mind to go home, of course it did, because with one big hug from my parents I would be okay again, but if I went back home, it meant that everyone who said I wouldn’t make it in New York, who expected me to return so they could whisper behind their hands about the girl who talked to ghosts, would be right. And that was a story I couldn’t face. Not yet.

So, I showed up on Rose’s doorstep that rainy Wednesday evening, and that was that.

I haven’t been able to write a romance since.





6





The Death Toll


I HADN’T SEEN him since that rainy April evening. I’d tried not to think about his blue eyes, or his artfully disheveled blond hair, or how his calloused fingers felt when they touched me— Suddenly, the bar seemed much too small. The walls were closing in. I couldn’t stay here. What was I doing? I was Florence Day, and Florence Day didn’t live her life like this. She didn’t share her stories—whether they were real or not—she didn’t wear tiny black dresses, and she didn’t drink artisanal drinks named after dead poets.

The universe reminded me of that.

Rose saw Lee Marlow a split second after I did, and I heard her whisper, “Shit. We can go if you want—Florence?”

“I—I need some fresh air.”

“I can go with you—”

“No.” I said it a bit too sharply, but I didn’t care. The people at neighboring tables were staring at us now, sipping on their dead poets like I was part of the dinner show. “I’m fine. He can—he can go first. I need to go to the bathroom.” It was a bad lie, and we both knew it, but she let me go anyway.

I tore my gaze away from Lee Marlow and made my way toward the back of the bar, where the bathrooms would be. The emcee welcomed Lee up to the microphone, and he introduced himself, and said he would be reading from—from— “When the Dead Sing. It’s a little book you might’ve heard buzz about. It’s coming out in a few months, so please be gentle with me,” he said modestly.

A few months? That soon? This past year, time seemed to slip through my fingers like sand. How could it be a year already and still my heart hurt this much? I could barely breathe. I didn’t watch where I was going. I just knew I needed to leave, and I needed to leave now— But the line to the women’s bathroom was ten people long. That was at least thirty minutes. And I felt the tears at the corners of my eyes burning. I couldn’t wait.

And I refused to break down where Lee could see me.

I wouldn’t.

Beyond the women’s bathroom was a glowing emergency exit sign, and I took it as a girl in a sparkly purple dress asked if I was okay. “No,” I mumbled truthfully, slipping past the line to the emergency exit, and burst out into the cold April air.

I had to breathe. I had to calm down. So I did. I filled my lungs up with so much frigid air, I felt they might burst, then I let it out again. And again. I tilted my head back and blinked the tears out of my eyes, hugging myself tightly so I wouldn’t rattle apart. Not here. Not anywhere.

Never again.

I hated that I cried when I was angry, or upset, or annoyed. I hated that I cried at the slightest flux of emotional nuance. I hated how helpless I felt. I hated how I wanted to both march up to him and give him a fistful of my thoughts and run as far away from him as I could.