By the Book (Meant to Be #2)(55)

He folded his hands together. She could see his nails biting into his skin.

“A little over a year ago, I was going through some of his papers. Partly because it had been almost a year since he’d died, and it was time to clean out the house, and partly to do some research for the book. I found the boxes full of drafts of all the screenplays he’d written. I started to flip through them, just, you know, to see how his work had changed from draft to draft. And that’s when I realized that my mom had done the bulk of the writing of them. All of them.”

She looked up at him, but he was still staring at his hands.

“How did you—”

“Her handwriting,” he said. “It was all over them. He would draft something, and on the sides, or the back—often both—she’d make extensive, lengthy, huge changes. Not just little edits, but entire scenes, story lines, character motivations. And then I’d flip to the next draft, and there it would all be, neatly typed up, with his name on the title page. It was like that for everything. I have no idea why he kept them all, other than he had such a big ego he never thought anyone would know that the handwriting wasn’t his. But I knew. I went through them all, in one long, terrible night, read them all, just to see, to make sure, to confirm that it was all true. That one that won the Oscar, God, that one was basically completely hers. And he didn’t even fucking thank her. And then I said…”

No wonder he felt so terrible.

No wonder this book was so hard for him to write. She thought back to how when she’d first gotten here, she’d demanded he tell her what his struggles had been with the book, and winced. Of course he couldn’t have told her any of this then.

He got up again, opened the tin on the counter, took out two lemon bars, and put them on plates. He came back to the table and pushed one across the table to her.

“Iz—Isabelle, I can’t describe to you how I felt that night. That night, and most days since then. I guess…if I’m really going to write this book, I guess I’m going to have to describe it, at some point, but as you saw, I’ve done my best to avoid doing that.” He laughed, but she didn’t think he really found any of this funny. “I hated myself. So much. I still do, I guess. At first, I thought there was no way I could write a book, knowing what I know now. Knowing who he is, and who I am. The same kind of monster he was.”

“Beau, you’re not—”

He held up a hand to stop her. “And then I decided I did want to write this book. That I wanted to tell the world what kind of person my dad really was. And what kind of person my mom really is. Admit how wrong I was, about everything. I thought I could do it. But it’s really…” He swallowed. “It’s really hard. It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be.”

He stared down at the lemon bar on the table. Izzy didn’t know what to say to him, but she wanted to say something, to do something so he knew she saw what he was going through, that she appreciated him telling her. That she cared.

She slid her hand across the table and put it on top of his. He looked at her and smiled, just a little bit. He turned his hand over and squeezed hers, and then let go.

He got up again, looked at the table, and then sat back down.

“That was the night—or rather, the morning—I left LA and came here. I had to get out of there. I packed a weekend bag, of just whatever I could throw into it, and drove straight here. I meant to just stay for a weekend, and well, that was well over a year ago.”

She had a lot of questions she wanted to ask him, but one main one.

“What did your mom say, when you talked to her?”

He turned away, but then, with clear effort, turned back to her.

“I didn’t…I haven’t talked to her.”

She started to say something, but he shook his head.

“I know. There’s nothing you can say to me that I haven’t already thought, trust me. I was going to call her, right away. I read all that stuff late at night, I drove here at the crack of dawn, I was going to call her later that day, apologize, talk to her about it all. But what was I going to say to her? What could I say to her? ‘Sorry for what I said at the funeral?’ That sounds so…inadequate.” He sighed. “I felt—I feel—so guilty about believing him, abandoning her. About what I said to her. I just wish I could tell him how mad I am at him. For doing this to her, and to me. But I can’t. But I also can’t blame him, forever, for what an asshole I am.”

He looked out the window, and she just waited. Finally, he turned back to her.

“Every day I meant to call her, and every day I told myself I’d do it the next day. Once I hired Michaela, and we started making plans for a foundation, to do some good with the money I inherited from him, I told myself I’d call her when that was done.”

A foundation. That’s what Michaela was doing here. That made sense now.

He went on. “Then, after you got here, I decided I’d call her once I had a draft. Maybe I’m just procrastinating. I mean, I know I am. It’s just…I don’t know how to do this.”

She looked up at him. “Are you, um—I know we’ve talked about this stuff a little, but…have you thought about therapy?”

He looked away from her. “I had someone in LA who I went to, on and off for years. After that car accident, and then the divorce, and stuff. I keep thinking about calling him, but it felt…easier not to.”