I let the robe fall from my arms into a fluffy white lump on the floor. Fighting while naked should make me feel exposed and vulnerable, but instead I’m like some sort of badass lady warrior charging unencumbered into battle. “You mean like how you thought I was crazy until you realized I’m just stupid?”
“That’s not— Millicent, that’s not what I wrote. I would never say that. Don’t go putting words into my mouth.”
“Oh, like you did to Mrs. Nash and Elsie?” I’m so pissed off that the tower of clothes I’m compiling on the bed keeps toppling over in my fury and haste. My balled-up underwear falls onto the floor. I pick it up and toss it back onto the bed, where it promptly tumbles off again. “Goddammit,” I grumble and give a frustrated groan that’s more of a restrained scream.
Hollis picks up the underwear and gently sets them on top ofthe clothing pile. I know he’s trying to help, but the way the underwear heeds his command is infuriating. He is so calm, and my emotions are chaos incarnate. Tears of frustration and hurt spill over my cheeks before I’m even aware of their presence. I am naked, I am crying, and I amfurious.
“Stop helping me!” I yell. “I never asked you for help. I never asked you to pretend that you care about any of this, or about me.”
“I do care! How could you think I— Millicent, I meant every word I said earlier. If you read the rest of what I wrote, you’ll see that I—”
“The jig’s up, dude,” I say, putting on my underwear. Thankfully my legs go into each hole without issue; now is absolutely not a good time for almost falling over while getting dressed. “So you can stop pretending that I’m more than a source of information and a convenient lay.”
I hook my bra, then slip into my maxi dress. My dress is too long, and I have to tie the bottom so it doesn’t drag on the floor. It takes me three tries to knot it correctly, my brain unable to coordinate my actions and my emotions at the same time.
“Dammit, Mill, listen. You know that’s not what you are to me.” He takes my upper arms in his hands and stares into my eyes. It would be so romantic if I didn’t kind of want to headbutt him and then knee him in the groin. “In the last four days, you’ve dragged me down paths I haven’t been brave enough to explore for almost a decade. You make me feel like I can go anywhere as long as you’re there beside me, lighting the way.”
“How cliché,” I say. I shake my head,tsking. “Not your best work, Mr. Hollenbeck. But maybe you can come up with something better when you write this scene in your stupid book.” I slip out of his grasp and walk over to my suitcase. I don’t really needanything from it, but sifting through it gives me something to do and a way to avoid eye contact. “See this, this is the problem. I’m not your damn lantern. I didn’t exist to fix Josh, and I don’t exist to fix you. I didn’t stroll into your life to inspire your goddamn art or make you feel free or whatever bullshit you want to tell yourself.”
I spin to face him and throw my hands to my sides as another guttural scream escapes through my gritted teeth. “I am weird, Hollis. That is who I am. A weird person. And it has absolutely nothing to do with you. When I am alone, I am exactly the same. I don’t power down like some sort of toy robot, waiting until the next time you want to play with me. I am not the quirky girl whose sole purpose is to add whimsy to the tortured writer’s sad, dull life. I have my own shit going on, and in this story the tortured writer is the one who’s just along for the ride.”
“Really? You’re going to claim I’m treating you like a manic pixie dream girl?” Hollis puts his fingers to his temples, likeI’mgivinghima headache. “Jesus Christ, stop throwing all of your Josh Yaeger baggage at me, demanding I unpack a bunch of bullshit I didn’t pack in the first place.”
Damn, he’s right. I am doing that. I’m projecting so much of my past hurt onto him. Maybe because it’s easier to repeat something I already know I can survive than explore if this new pain might actually tear me apart. My voice comes out as a whisper. “Like I said before, I have somewhere to be. I really have to go or I’ll be late.”
Hollis grabs my wrist as I walk past. His hand is warm and strong, and it gently tugs me over to him like it did in a dark room at a bed-and-breakfast in South Carolina two nights ago. “Wait, Millicent. Please.”
His eyes plead with mine, and it triggers a countdown insideme. It’s ticking along, marking the seconds until I let myself forgive this betrayal and beg him to please love me.Don’t leave me, is what I will say.I don’t care if you’ve only been using me, as long as we can keep pretending it’s more.It’s what I feel in some shadowy corner of myself, and I hate it. I hate that my instinct is always to take less than I deserve. To let a man’s inability or unwillingness to fully accept and respect me transform into a shame albatross around my neck. How many times did I do that with Josh, not fully aware of the compromise I was making with my own pride? No more. I can’t do that ever again. Especially not with someone who’s become so important to me in such a short time.
The countdown is in the single digits now. I can feel my heart softening, making itself pliable, eased along by Hollis’s supplicating stare and comforting grip on my wrist. There is only one way I get out of this before it becomes too easy to stay: I’m going to have to hurt him back so he’ll want me gone.
All of those stupid fights with Josh prepared me for this moment.Go for the jugular. End it.
“Do you know what Josh said to me right before I came out of that restaurant crying that night? He said that if I was going to be fucking weird, I should at least be fucking weird and famous again so he wasn’t with me for nothing.” The words sting even more with the realization that I was so desperate to believe Hollis could want me with no ulterior motive that I fell for the exact same tricks—the feigned kindness and affection—all over again.
“That piece of shit didn’t deserve you,” Hollis says. “But I’m not him.”
“No. You’re not. Because at least when Josh got caught screwing me over, he did me the courtesy of not pretending to be a better man than he was.”
I can almost see the moment he clocks my repackaging of the words he told me he said to his father ten years ago. With a few more strategic sentences, I know I can tip that anger over into pain as easily as a metal spoon in an empty yogurt cup. And if it hurts me a little too, well... it’s just another drop in the ocean at this point.
“Yeah, I know,” I continue, “I shouldn’t be so surprised. Everything you do is selfish. You warned me of that from the very beginning—warned me repeatedly—and it’s my fault that I didn’t listen. I should have taken you at face value instead of letting myself believe there was something more under the surface. At least now I see that you are exactly who and what you’ve always claimed to be. You’re self-serving and callous. You’re your father’s son. You’re burnt toast with nothing under it except more burnt toast.”
Hollis’s nostrils flare as he attempts to regulate his breathing. His eyes burn into mine—blue-gray furious, brown also furious. It’s a relief to find our anger levels competing. I’m not alone now in my hurt. We’re both going to leave this place a bit destroyed, and that’s perversely reassuring. He releases my wrist, dropping it like it’s a piece of fruit he’s just realized is covered in fire ants.
“Are you coming back tonight?” he somehow manages to say with a jaw so tight that his top and bottom molars must be in danger of fusing together.
“I doubt it,” I say.
“Good. I’ll leave your suitcase at the front desk then.”
“That would be great, thanks.” I hesitate for the briefest moment when I reach for the doorknob. Partially because I’m checking my feet to make sure I’m wearing my sandals this time, but also because I know it’s still not too late to apologize and talk thisout. There might be a way we can move forward as friends at least if not as... whatever we were these last few days. Whatever Ithoughtwe were. But I need to meet Tammy. I don’t have time to sift through the wreckage for anything salvageable right now, and I’m not even 100 percent sure I want to anyway.
“Well, see you in the funny papers,” I say, not glancing back as I walk out the door and slam it behind me. I’m pretty sure that sentence has never been said with such rage before. It admittedly sounds pretty ridiculous, which is probably why it is not well regarded as a parting shot.
I’m halfway down the hall when I hear a door creak open behind me. I don’t turn, but I can feel Hollis’s approach. It’s a physical thing; the air becomes charged when he gets near me and all of my ions perk up.
“What do you want?” I say, whipping around. He’s so close behind me that the tail of my heavy, still-damp braid smacks him. Which,good.
