Scandalized(70)

Take a drink every time we come across a fresh, absurd headline; the recent favorite is “Feeding Him Doughnuts While She Feeds Fellow Women to the Wolves.”

Take a drink every time a new meme is created by Alec’s fangirls trashing my body in the beach photos.

Take a drink anytime a news article says, “The optics aren’t good.”



“Billy,” I say, with as much control as I can manage, “these tweets accusing me of helping a criminal make zero sense! I’m the one who exposed the Jupiter crimes! Firing me is absolute bullshit.”

“I get it, George.”

“I mean it. I was researching this story before I ran into Alec in Seattle.”

“I know.”

“And you know he didn’t even do this!”

Billy sighs. “I know.”

I make a mental note to add a rule to the game: take a drink every time Billy gives me a resigned “I know” and still does not go to bat for me.

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out better, George. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“I’ll drop off my credentials in the lobby,” I say, and hang up.



* * *



Eden understands that there is no way in hell I can sleep in my own bed tonight, not when I haven’t yet washed my sheets since Alec slept here, not with his swim trunks slung over my shower door and his toothbrush in the cup next to mine, and not with him ignoring all my calls and texts. Once I’m home from dropping off my LA Times office keys and credentials, I give up trying to get ahold of him and toss the cursed Batphone onto my bed, focusing instead on packing a small weekend bag. My plan: head to my parents’ place, crawl into my old bed, sleep for a week.

My best friend watches silently. We’re now out of words. Our last exchange was a simple “This fucking sucks,” repeated a few times with increasing emphasis until we fell quiet again. But as I’m zipping up my bag, Eden bolts upright when the Batphone starts to vibrate on the bed, tossing it to me.

I let out a scream, fumbling it like a hot potato.

“Alec!” I yell, answering. “Holy shit! This day! Where are—?”

“I’m headed back,” he cuts in calmly, and wind whips through the line.

“Back?” I repeat, pausing my pacing between my bed and closet. “Back to the hotel?”

“To London.”

Just hearing his voice triggers relief and it floods me with warmth. “Okay. That makes sense. Oh my God it’s so good to hear your v—”

“I wanted to let you know,” he says with quiet finality.

Confused, I carefully enunciate. “Thank you. Yeah. I—Alec, look—”

“And I want to make sure you’re clear that my permission to print my account is rescinded.”

“Your—?” I break off, frozen in shock. He has no way of knowing I’ve been fired, but I’m not going to add to his turmoil by telling him. Especially when he sounds like a fucking robot. “Of course. We wouldn’t add anything without your permission.”

He’s quiet in response—meaningfully quiet—and I meet Eden’s eyes. She’s staring at me like she wants to bore a hole in my skull and read what’s happening there. “Listen,” I say gently, “I’m sorry I changed the story and pulled your part of it. I hope you know my intention was to protect you. You and Sunny. You and me.”

“We understand.”

“We?” I scan my mind for something better to say, some words that will pull him out of this quiet damage-control monotone and remind him that I’m here and I’m his, and even though this is genuinely shit, we can figure out a plan together.

But Alec speaks first. “Please take care, Gigi.”

Blank inside, I stare at the wall. “I… wait. Alec? That’s it?”

The other end of the line is oddly flat.

He fucking hung up.

Pulling the phone away from my ear, I stare at my home screen, a photo I took of him playing Mario Kart, his tongue sticking out, trapped between his perfect, grinning teeth. Inside I am glowing—I mean, I am positively incandescent—with rage. “Is he fucking serious?”

“What just happened?”

I’m trying to relax my jaw so that I can get more words out than the string of curses that want to rip free, but I can’t. I just shake my head again. “Holy shit.”

“Georgie, what?”

“He’s going back to London,” I say.

“Okay?” She’s trying to keep me from blowing a fuse. “That makes sense, right? He probably wants to get his team and family together.”

“He told me he was rescinding his permission to print his account and to—and I quote—‘please take care,’ and then he hung up.”

“He just hung up?”

I look at her and nod.

Eden lets out a low, violent “No he fucking did not.”

“He sure did.”

She stands. “Be right back, I need to put all of my West Midlands shirts in the trash.”

“That is not what we’re doing here,” I say to her, struggling to pull my composure together. “We are going to give him more grace than he deserves.” But then I look at my Batphone one more time, turn it off, walk into my bathroom, and drop it in the trash.