What’s the point in putting anything on the calendar at all when a guy could get called at a football game because his dad’s brains have unexpectedly exploded all over the carpet in the study? And not only that, his brother’s lying in a hospital bed, not talking or responding to anyone, after driving himself off a fucking bridge? When a guy could sit in his big, empty house in the dark, right after the cleaning crew’s finished scraping his dad’s brains off the ceiling, and fight tooth and nail to convince himself that marching into his father’s bathroom and taking every fucking pill in the medicine cabinet is a terrible idea rather than the best fucking idea he’s ever had?
I swallow hard, keeping my emotions at bay, and take another long sip of my whiskey.
Kat wanted to hear those three little words tonight—I know she did. But those are words I simply can’t deliver to her. Not yet, anyway. If only she’d give me more time. If only she’d understand. I said those loaded words to Emma and look what happened—the relief of saying them for the first time lulled me into saying other things, too—things I shouldn’t have said—and only a month after I’d first said the magic words, Emma was long gone.I love you,I told her.Please don’t leave me. Please.
But she left.
I bought myself a fucking Lamborghini after Emma left me—so what am I gonna buy myself this time when the girl doing the leaving is my fantasy sprung to life? A jumbo jet?
Fuck me.
I look down at the glass of whiskey in my hand and, suddenly, a rage wells up inside me like a fucking tsunami. Fuckovercoming. Fuck this shit.
Fuck me.
Without a conscious thought in my head, I hurl my glass against the wall, shattering it into a million tiny pieces and spraying glass and whiskey all over the white fluffy bed.
My chest is heaving. My eyes are stinging. I rub them and force down my emotion. Fuck you, Adele, you fucking bitch. No, I won’t find someone like Kat. I’ll never find someone like her again as long as I fucking live. I’ll be alone and lonely and fucked up and worthless—just like I’ve always been. Just like I’ll always be.
Forever.
41
KAT
Whitney’s sitting in her private jet, a scarf wrapped demurely around her head, looking out the airplane window at Kevin standing out on the tarmac, his arm in a sling.
Why is Kevin’s arm in a sling? Because he took a bullet for Whitney.Because he loves her.And she loves him, too. But the horrible tragedy is that, despite their love, even though he took a freaking bullet for her, they simply can’t be together. And they both know it. Because they’re from different worlds, after all. And life isn’t always fair, motherfucker. But the injustice of it all only makes their love more intense—harder to give up.
Whitney yells to the pilot to stop.
The jet engines abruptly stop and the airplane-steps come down. Whitney runs out of the private plane to Kevin and throws her arms around him. They kiss passionately.
And the most gigantic ugly cry ever released in the history of ugly cries leaves my mouth. “Josh!” I sob, throwing my head back onto the throw pillow on my couch. “Jooooossssshhhhhh!”
Oh, I talked such a good game in front of the karaoke bar, didn’t I? “From here on out,” I said, “we’re gonna do things Josh-Faraday-style. The future doesn’t exist. There are no expectations, no commitments.”
But I was full of shit.
I love him. With all my heart and soul. I don’t want anyone but him.
I know he’s ‘crazy about me.’ And that he’s done a million amazing things for me, just like Richard did for Julia inPretty Woman.Yes, just like Julia, I’ve been showered with gifts and moneyand offers to help me in countless ways—and, I suppose, for most women, all of that would be more than enough. But I’m not most women. I’m just like Julia—I want it all. I want a commitment. I want true love. I want a knight in shining armor on a white horse. Goddammit, I want more thanflorebblaaaaah.And I simply can’t pretend I don’t.
I clutch my stomach and put the pint of Ben & Jerry’s I’ve been scarfing down onto the coffee table. I’m so worked up about all this, I feel physically ill. Queasy. And my nipples are sore, too, by the way, which is really weird. I know Josh pinched my nipples pretty hard yesterday when he fucked me in the bathroom at The Pine Box, but did he really pinch themthathard? Jeez. They still hurt.
Whitney’s glowing face appears onscreen in close-up, her teeth a spectacular shade of computer-paper-white, her mocha skin flawless.
She begins singing The Song—the most famous song in the world.
Oh, God, she’s an angel. My beautiful Whitney.
And I’m a sobbing mess.Again.
This song was written for Josh and me and no one else. I love him and he doesn’t love me back. He’s crazy about me, sure—addicted to me. But he can’t promise me tomorrow, he says. Which is a telltale sign he’s not in love with me. Because when you love someone, you’re willing to promise forever, even though you intellectually know you can’t make that promise. You don’tnotpromise forever to the one you love simply because we’re objectively mortal—you promise it, regardless, and hope forever turns out to be more than fifty-two days.
No one knows what life might bring or what might happen two months from now, I get that, but the point is that when you’re in love, you’re stupid enough to think you can promise forever. You wanna believe it so badly, you’re willing to tell that little white lie. And if you’re not willing to tell it, well then, that’s the surest way to know you’re not really in love, after all.
Whitney’s done singing.
