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“My point was more supposed to be that I’m not stuck. I was wrong about that. When you got here, I’d already started getting unstuck. First, it was just solving people’s problems in a simple way as an insurance adjuster. Then I was doing my TikTok, and that sent me into my obsession with fair terms for creators, and that led me to the list that Beanie and I made so I would get unstuck, which meant I went with her to Chicago to see you. Remember, one of the things on the list was ‘spend time outside Green Bay.’ And then because I’d donethat,when the reporter asked you about Ben, I was thinking about everythingyouwanted and how the whole world was conspiring to keep you from getting it, and howIdidn’t have that excuse. Not really.”
Wil stopped and made herself look at the drop-ceiling panels with their perforated dots. The words were coming out sure and fast, and it felt good to finally be able to say something that felt so completely, utterly obvious and true.
“I tried to keep myself out of the whole world after I lost my dad so I would never lose anything ever again—or that’s what one of my therapists said, talking about why I was in Green Bay. But it wasn’t exactly right, because Ididstart that TikTok. Over and over again, I kissed peopleone timeand let them go. I let myself feel everything I could possibly feel about them, and about myself, and about everything they needed and wanted, and then I let them go. Over and over. The thing is? I never got to do that with my dad, Katie.”
Katie put her hands on her heart, one on top of the other, and Wil noticed how fast she was breathing. How intently she listened.
“I never got to go to Michigan Law,” Wil said. “I didn’t have a chance to get halfway into some important appellate court clerkship and realize it was my dad’s dream, not my own, and then talk to him over Thanksgiving about it on the front porch swing with a blanket over us and have him hug me and tell me it was okay tohave my own dream. I missed out on that, that whole part of my life. I had to figure out a different way to have it. Does that make sense?”
Katie nodded. Wil could feel her pulse in the palms of her hands. Her heart pounding.
“And you missed out, too!” Wil said this with a quaver in her voice. “Not with my dad, but how you were supposed to get your start. All this perfection you can’t let go of because it’s kept you safe? It’sgoodthat you were safe. I’m so thankful for the decisions you and Diana made to keep you safe, but there’s always been something you wanted, Katie, and it wasn’t safety.Always.So my point is, I knew you. I’vealwaysknown you. And I let you go too soon. We already did that once. Right now, it’s too soon again. If you go back to LA right now and this ends, it will be too soon for whatever this is that’snotjust a bet, or kissing on TikTok, or flirting with feeling all those might-have-been feelings, but what and who we are now.”
Katie made a noise in her throat, somewhere between a sob and a laugh, smiling at Wil.
“And maybe we’ll say good-bye to each other anyway.” These words came out of Wil more slowly, with more solemnity. “Maybe we’ll let go of all of this anyway. Maybe there will be a whole bunch of news stories about how we broke up and someone takes a picture of me crying at a cafe and it’s circulated around the world. But even if that happens, you didn’tdoanything to me. I was the catalyst.Me.All you did was remind me how big I am, and now I want to remind you how bigyouare. Just you. The original you, the real you. Because if you have to be beyond reproach for the rest of your life, it’s going to kill you, Katie Price, and it’s just as unsafe as Ben.”
Katie had both of her hands against her cheeks, her blue eyes wide. “Wil.”
“Unless you don’t want me to.” Wil’s voice was hoarse. “By the way, I didn’t plan that speech.”
“I haven’t heard you make a speech like that since you got valedictorian, when you directly imaginary-addressed Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and told him that he was the worst coward who had been walking a tightrope over the true heart of America his entire career.”
Wil grinned. “That one got away from me, too. You know it has twenty thousand views on YouTube? I like to think that he’s seen it.”
Then Wil could breathe again. So she did that for a minute while they looked at each other, and the words Wil had just said settled down between them as one more thing that had happened, dividing the past from the present.
Then and now. Before and after. That kind of division didn’t actually make any kind of sense of how Wil felt about Katie Price.
It was like Wil had told her. She’d always known Katie.
Always.
The cats began to meander closer in the silence. Trois rubbed against Wil’s leg, and Wil kneeled down to pet the top of her head.
“Where’s the video?” Katie whispered. Then she cleared her throat. “Did you get the edited file I sent you?”
“I did. I wasn’t sure if it was still a good idea to post it. I didn’t want to step on the toes of whatever you and your people decide the message should be. So far, what the media’s decided to think about you and Noel being at my house is kind of intense, you know?”
“That’s because of Ben.”
In one viral video from an entertainment site, Ben had been getting out of his car, walking up to some coffee stand. He said he knew that Katie was “obsessed” with Wil-You-or-Won’t-You. The implication was that Katie had sought out Wil’s account in her hometown to prove she was still desirable and relevant—to push up her star, break up the cat lady stories, contribute to her enigma.
Ben had made that angle sound desperate.
His statement made it difficult for Wil to be sure Katie wanted the video posted. She wanted to know what Katiewanted. It didn’t matter if the video went up or never did, as long as Katie was calling the shots.
“Did Noel say it was okay?” Katie picked Sue up off the floor, where she had been shamelessly stretching out her entire body against Katie’s leg. She kissed Sue on the top of her head. “I had such a good talk with him. I really like him. I don’t want him hurt.”
“Noel signed a release form just a little bit ago that took into account everything new. He told me if you wanted to post it, then you should post it.” Wil gave Trois one last scratch and stood.
“Right now, either we’re in a throuple with Noel, I’m imminently going to be posted kissing you on TikTok in a desperate bid for publicity, or you took on the challenge of going where no one has gone since Ben because of your obvious erotic powers.”
“That last one, I thought, was pretty good.” Wil couldn’t stop trying to lighten the mood, even as her heart had been racing since she’d come through the door.
Katie rolled her eyes, smiling. She set Sue down on the floor. When she straightened, she stood opposite Wil, close. She put her hands on her hips and looked at Wil with all the power of an A-list celebrity tossing out directives to her team. “I want you to know that I’m making this decision for myself. Because, first, the video is good, and if I don’t release it, no one will ever see it. I can admit my ego is invested. And second, it’s true.”
Katie bit that bright red worried spot on her lip.