Caroline pretends she didn’t hear my dig, but her eyes get sharp. “Well, Katie, it’s been a pleasure to meet you! From what Wy tells me, it sounds like it’ll be a fantastic film.”
Wy?
My nose scrunches in distaste at the nickname.
Wyatt is being very careful not to look at me as he reaches for the door handle.
“Love to stay and chat,” Caroline fibs easily. “But we have a lunch reservation atNirvanain a half hour.”
I might’ve corrected her for messing up my name if it hadn’t been intentional. Might’ve asked where they knew each other from, if it wasn’t taking all my energy to stand there exuding unfazed nonchalance instead of pulse-pounding nausea. Might’ve teased Wyatt about his newfound nickname, if I could muster up even an ounce of amusement about this hellish scenario.
I stand in silence and watch as he climbs into the passenger seat. Just before his door closes, he glances back at me. For the first time all day, his eyes are stripped of the careful barriers and cool distance. I see the hint of a smile on his lips.
“I’ll see you around, Firestone.”
I bite my lip so I won’t cry, but it’s useless. I feel my eyes flood with tears as I look at him. My heart is in my throat, thumping a mocking double-beat.
Thump-thump.
Too late.
Thump-thump.
Too late.
“Wyatt, I—”
His mouth opens to say something else, but the words are snatched away on the wind as Caroline floors the gas pedal and peels away from the curb, leaving me there alone, hands on my stomach, shaking like a leaf as silent tears track down my face.
Three
“She isn’t eventhat pretty. She just has good hair.”
- A girl stalking Facebook pictures of her new boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend.
I’m notsure how long I sit there, crumpled on the curb in the shining afternoon sunshine like a forgotten rag doll, before Harper finds me. Seconds, minutes, years — time has lost all meaning. My tears have dried, but I am utterly numb inside.
She takes one look at my face and drags me straight to my dressing room. I let her undress me like a small child, not fighting her as she wipes the thick-caked foundation from my face and hangs my costume back up in its zippered bag. I hear her speaking into her phone in hushed tones, asking Masters to bring the car around.
I stare at my hands, at the perfect glossy manicure I have come to loathe for its perfection, so at odds with the rest of me. I chide myself for thinking things would go back to normal if I could just see Wyatt. It was delusional to hope that merely by looking at him and talking to him and maybe making him laugh, things would return to the way they were. That he’d tilt his head and call mebabyand forgive me for being a human-shaped wrecking ball.
I never considered the fact that he has nointerestin forgiving me.
That, when I finally got up the nerve to try and fight, he would want no part in it.
That he’d already moved on to someone else. A sunshine girl, with a beaming smile and a bright yellow car, far better suited for him than I’ve ever been.
Carolineis age appropriate.
Carolineprobably doesn’t have two decades’ worth of damage and a tendency to self-destruct whenever times get tough.
Carolineis the kind of girl Wyatt belongs with.
He deserves someone stable.
He doesn’t need me screwing up his life anymore.
“Come on,” Harper says, heading for the door. “We have a few hours to get some food before you’re due at Sloan’s for the meeting.”