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She looked at Wil’s curvy, muscular arms in the tank top and her artfully shaggy hair. She’d put something in it this morning in front of the mirror in the bathroom, pulling it and twisting it this way and that, and Katie had nearly tackled her to the floor in a sharp fit of lust and wanting and aggressive possessiveness.
“What did he say?” Katie finally asked. Out here, with the big sky and the trees and Wil’s strong body, she felt fully accountable to her own life.
“I was just thinking about that,” Wil said. “I haven’t been with you, or here, for even, like, a minute, so I can’t comment on what Ben said except to say what we already know. But that’s because I know the real story. No one else does. Also, I have just learned firsthand that holding on to helpful information in a bid to protect yourself or other people is something you do, and I have to ask, is thatworkingfor you, Katie?” Wil looked at her. Her eyelashes had gone pink in the golden sun.
Katie didn’t gasp, but it felt like all the air in her lungs disappeared from her body. “I thought so,” she said. Katie let go of Wil’s hand and stopped by a cairn of stones, some of which had been colorfully painted by other hikers. “Until I wanted more.”
“You want more, but how are you going tohavemore? Because I’m interviewing with Pepperdine after the New Year, and Ihave a good feeling about it. I’m empathetic to your predicament, since I did something similar, which was tell myself I was fine with what I had until I really, really wasn’t, and then have to change everything all at once instead of in more manageable increments.”
“Pepperdine is in Los Angeles,” Katie said.
“Yes. It is. But unless you want me, unless you wantus,wantthis,all of it and its mess—because it is going to be so messy, Katie—and you want it out in front of everyone, without holding back, I’ll only be one of your four million neighbors. Who used to know you. Way back then.”
No.
For a long moment, her hands balled into fists, Katie could only think of one angry syllable,no,justno,not again, not ever. No.
She’d already lost Wil once. She’d lost Wil’s bracelet. She’d lost her way. She would not beneighborswith Wil Greene. She’d burn down the whole world before she allowed that to happen.
But Wil was right. She had to make a choice, and it wasn’t about keeping Wil or giving her up, it was about whether Katie would ever, ever decide that she was allowed to have her life.
Now. She was allowed to have it now.
She wasn’t here to make room for other people to have the life she’d wanted but failed to earn. She wasn’t alive—her heart beating hard in her palms, her mouth full of cotton and her throat so thick, she couldn’t swallow over how scared she was—in order to make one safe choice after another until she died. Her life was not an apology. Her heart, her body, were not an apology for what had beentakenfrom her.
Wil had asked her if she was making or breaking things.
Yes.
She was making and breaking things. Or at least, in herheartshe was, but with her life, she hadn’t yet.
But she had everything she needed. And so she could.
For the first time, Katie felt it—a delicious kind of anticipation and eagerness and urgency of ideas that made her want to open her laptop and write anoriginalscreenplay, that made her want to fly to Mexico and have strong coffee with Marisol and talk all night long, that made her want to tell Honor Howell to go fuck herself if she couldn’t let go of her money so that Katie could make the greatest movie of all time. So that everyone in her studio could make the greatest movies of all time. So that she could break it all down and make it all back up again.
“Wil,” Katie started to say, grabbing her hand tight.
“Wil!”
“Katie!”
Wil looked at her. “That sounded a lot like Beanie.”
“And Diana,” Katie said. “But I am not done having my moment!”
They turned around and, yes, it was Beanie and Diana, a little pink-faced, wearing ugly Christmas sweaters that were much too hot for midday in Los Angeles.
“We’re here for Christmas,” Beanie panted. “I flew first class.”
“We wouldn’t have come after you on your hike, but there are a lot of people in your house, sweetheart,” Diana said. “April and Madelynn. And Honor Howell, with her dog. The cats are unhappy.”
“The babies,” Katie whispered. She turned and put her forehead against Wil’s. “I’m making and breaking. We will never be neighbors. More at eleven.”
Wil laughed and pulled her down the trail toward their mothers, who were already bustling toward the gate, and when they stepped into the house, yes.
There was April, beaming, sitting with Madelynn on a FaceTime call.
Diana was in the kitchen, pulling a pitcher out of Katie’s fridge,directing Beanie to retrieve glasses and a silver serving platter from the cupboard.