The Ex Talk(89)

“Good news,” I tell him, surprising myself with how steady my voice is. “You still have a job.”

He drops the pair of socks he’s holding and turns to face me. His cheeks are pink and his shoulders are stiff and he somehow looks so small, like he’s folded himself into the suitcase alongside his button-down shirts and travel-size shampoo.

Last night, I thought I was in love with him.

Today, maybe the worst thing about all of this is that I still am.

“Shay,” he says. “I am so fucking sorry. I—”

“I talked to Kent,” I say, because as badly as I want an explanation, I have to catch him up on the meeting he missed because he fled the stage after embarrassing me in front of hundreds of people. Thousands on social media. “He was responsible for the tweets. Turns out, the board wanted to take the show off the air, and Kent was worried about us getting poached by a distributor. So he fucked us over. But like I said, you’re still more than welcome to stay on board as a researcher, while Ruthie and I get to fight over a part-time producer job.”

Dominic’s mouth drops open. “I can’t even—what?”

I head over to my own half-unzipped suitcase on the half-made bed we slept in last night and start throwing things into it haphazardly. I’m too jumbled, too furious to keep anything organized. “That’s not even the worst part. I don’t care about the fucking show.” Tears are stinging the backs of my eyes. “All I cared about was feeling like I wasn’t alone up there while the audience destroyed us. And you could barely say a single word!”

“I’m so sorry,” he repeats, still looking stricken, losing another inch of his height. As though if he can make himself small enough, he’ll earn my forgiveness. But the apology feels flat, empty. “I really thought I was going to be okay. We had everything planned out, and you were being so great, and then—and then it went off the rails. And I didn’t have a script. I didn’t disagree with anything you were saying. You know that. I froze up. I wanted to say something, but I just—I couldn’t. I couldn’t even breathe up there once the accusations started.”

“Neither could I!” I shout. “You humiliated me. Last night, we—” I break off, pushing up my glasses and pressing my fingers into my eyes to keep the tears from dripping down my face. “We said we were trying a real relationship. I know you’re kind of new at this, but guess what, partners don’t abandon each other like this.”

The truth is this, though: Beneath the rage, I might be able to forgive him. Eventually. He is not his stage fright, and the more space I have from PodCon, the more I’d be able to see that. I’d need time to lick my wounds, but maybe we could get back a piece of what we had. We were so good together before today. I was so certain we would last.

“I could go back, talk to Kent . . .”

“You’re going to take that job?” I ask. “You actually want to keep working for that piece of shit?”

And he just looks at me, like not taking the job is something that would never have crossed his mind.

It’s a look that shatters any hope of reconciliation. This was why I didn’t want to get too deep. I love too much, too soon, and the other person can’t reciprocate. They always let me down. They just keep finding new ways of doing it, those innovative assholes.

“I—I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe? I can’t think clearly right now.”

“No, no, you should keep it. You’re the real journalist, right? Go talk to your buddy Kent. Real stand-up guy, that one. He’s always preferred you to me, anyway.”

“Fuck.” He rakes a hand through his hair, drags it down his face. His hair is the kind of mess I’d have loved to slide my hands into yesterday. “Fuck, Shay, I just want to make it up to you. Please tell me how to do that.”

“Sure. Why don’t you go run onstage and tell everyone you were part of this too, that I wasn’t the only fucking idiot up there?” When he’s silent, I shake my head. “The worst part is,” I continue as I hurl a toothbrush into my suitcase, unsure if it’s his or mine. “I thought I was falling for you. But I guess that was my stupid heart making me cling once again to someone who isn’t worth it.”

I watch his face, some masochistic part of me searching for an indication he felt the same way. There’s a flicker of emotion, but I’m pretty sure it’s just sadness. Not love.

“I don’t know what to say.” He sags onto the bed between our suitcases.

“Seems to be a common theme with you.” I try to zip up my suitcase, but I’ve arranged everything so awkwardly that it won’t close. “Maybe this was what you wanted all along. You were the one who was so uncertain about the show in the beginning. Now you don’t have to do it anymore.”

“I might have felt that way at first,” he admits, “but I loved doing the show. I loved doing the show with you.”

“Even if that’s true, the show was a bad decision from the beginning.” Another shove of my suitcase. Come on, come on, just fucking zip. You have one job. “All of it was a lie. Including us.”

“You can’t mean that. That we weren’t real. Here, let me help—”

“I’ve got it,” I say through gritted teeth, heaving all my weight on the suitcase to force the zipper closed, my breath rushing out of me once it’s done.