The Dead Romantics (53)

Ben wasn’t around, so I took my laptop out of my room and went down to the bar again, and ordered myself another rum and Coke. I slid onto my barstool and opened my laptop.

Deleted the paragraph I’d written. Cracked my knuckles.

And stared at the blank Word document.

I didn’t know how to form the words for what I wanted to write. I didn’t know how to take all the jumbled feelings in my head and put them onto paper. There weren’t words big enough or strong enough or warm enough to encompass Dad. He was untranslatable.

I was sure someone like Ben, who had words for everything—and always seemed to have the right ones—wouldn’t have had this sort of problem. I bet his brain was as neat and orderly as his desk had been, and his thoughts as ironed as his shirts.

Writing Dad’s obit was a different kind of failure than writing Ann’s books.

One had too many words I wanted to say, and one didn’t have any at all.

I moved my mouse over to File > Open Recent, and scrolled down to the first one. Ann_Nichols_4. I never titled the books until I was almost done, and most of the time the titles came directly from the text itself.

The document opened to where I left off.

A year ago.

I remembered, so viscerally, the beginning of the end. When I had looked on his laptop, convincing myself that I did trust him, but I wanted to know what his book was about. I remembered that he’d gone out for laundry and left his laptop open to the Word document. I remembered setting down my laptop—opened to this very scene—and crawling across the couch to where he had just sat a few minutes before. The space heater hummed softly.

And as I read, my world began to break apart, piece by piece, like a puzzle coming unglued. When he came back to the apartment, his laundry in tow, he froze in the foyer. I didn’t look up from his computer.

“When the Dead Sing,” I read, and finally turned my gaze up to him, refusing to believe what I read. “Babe—is this . . . is it about me?”

“No, of course not,” he said dismissively, dumping the laundry on the ground. He came over, took his laptop from my lap, and closed it. “Your stories gave me inspiration. You’re my muse,” he added, and kissed me swiftly on the lips.

As if it would shut me up.

As if it would make everything good again.

Spoiler alert: It didn’t.

How could I write about two characters, Amelia and Jackson, reconciling, trusting each other again when—when I myself couldn’t? One moment I had every grand romantic gesture right at my fingertips, I had faith these two characters would come back together, and I could sow them a happily ever after. But then it felt like the story had been ripped apart at the seams. I didn’t feel them anymore. I didn’t know who they were, this woman who always knew what she wanted, and this world-weary musician with a heart of gold. I didn’t know the kind of love they had, or if they even believed in it.

I knew I didn’t.

Hesitantly, testily, I placed my fingers on the keyboard, feeling the rigid bumps on the F and J keys. It was like stepping back into old, worn shoes that had gone stiff without a partner to dance with.

I took a deep breath.

The only way out was through—

Wait.

I took a big gulp of my drink, and then settled my fingers back into position.

Now I was ready.

“You can do this, Florence,” I muttered, and sank into the scene.


Amelia didn’t want to hear his confessions. About the lies he wove about a life he didn’t live. She knew why he left. Why he abandoned her. The facts stuck to her skin like her wet clothes in the rain. He had lied to her—omitted the story that was most stitched into his life as though, if she learned about it, she’d look at him differently.

Well, he was right in that regard. She did learn about his ex-wife, and she did see him differently. “Were you ever going to tell me?” she asked. “About her?”

He hesitated, rubbing nervously at the scar on his hand that she thought was from one of his wild party nights, but had been from the accident. “I didn’t think you’d understand.”

“Did you give me the choice?”

“I—”

“No, you just made it for me.”

“Amelia, I—” Suddenly, Jackson went pale and dropped dead from all his lies—



“Nope.” I deleted the last sentence.


Suddenly, Jackson went pale and dropped dead from all of his lies.

Amelia didn’t want to hear his explanations. “You lied. You wanted to. Why should I trust you now? Why do I still love you?”

“Because the heart wants what it wants.”

“Then my heart’s a motherfucking joke if it wants you.”



“That doesn’t help, Florence.” I sighed, and deleted it again.

I stared at the cursor, but all I could hear was my fight with Lee, our voices growing louder and louder until we were screaming at each other—and I wondered if it was me.

If I had just overreacted. And why couldn’t I get over him? Why did it still hurt?

Why was I so weak?


“Because the heart wants what it wants.”

“Then my heart’s a motherfucking joke if it wants you.”

She gave him a sad, defeated look. “But why you?”