“I’m not trying to be elusive, Harper.” My voice gets quiet. “I haven’t let myself think about it. It hurts me too much.”
Her head tilts. “That should probably tell you something.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you didn’t care, it wouldn’t hurt so bad.”
I fall silent, considering that.
“What does this mean when it comes to you and Grayson? Does he know?” She shakes herself. “Oh, what am I saying, of course he doesn’t know.Ididn’t even know… But do you think he’ll find out? Do you think he’ll freak? Do you—”
“Harper!”
“What?”
“You’re doing it again.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” I lean back in the booth, resting against the leather. “Let’s just stick to one catastrophe at a time, shall we?”
“Fair enough.” She looks at my unused chopsticks. “You aren’t eating.”
Resignedly, I pick up the utensils and pluck a piece of sushi from the platter. It’s nearly in my mouth when the smell of raw fish hits my nostrils — tuna, cold and slimy, glazed with some kind of wasabi mayonnaise. A few months ago, I would’ve swooned over each bite. Now, I feel bile rising quickly to the back of my throat. It’s all I can do not to hurl right on the table.
“Excuse me— I have to—Bathroom.”
I shove to my feet, hands clutched over my mouth, and race to the back of the restaurant. Harper’s startled calls of concern follow me all the way to the women’s room. I rush inside the first free stall I see and throw the door shut behind me. I barely make it over the bowl before the dry heaves begin.
There’s not much to come up — remnants of this morning’s granola bar and a few sips of bright green appletini splash into the toilet. When my stomach is empty, the nausea subsides almost as quickly as it arose. I wipe my mouth with toilet tissue, flush twice, and walk to the bank of sinks. My reflection in the mirror looks sweaty and shaken as I swish water in my mouth to clear the awful aftertaste. I wipe at my damp, pale forehead with a paper towel and press a hand against my abdomen.
Not a fan of sushi, are you, you tiny dictator?
The thought comes unbidden. I barely have time to steel myself against the alarming implications that I’mtalking to my damn stomach like a crazy person, because the door swings inward and Harper strides into the bathroom.
“Honey, are you okay?” Her eyes are narrowed in suspicion.
“That appletini didn’t agree with me. Too much syrup, maybe,” I murmur, avoiding her eyes as I wash my hands. “I’ll be fine in a minute.”
“But we’ve had them before, you’ve never had that kind of reaction…”
I focus on the running water. “What’s with the third degree?”
“I don’t know, it’s just strange. I’ve seen you eat burritos from seriously sketchy food trucks. I once watched you use thefive second rulewith a churro you dropped on the Santa Monica Pier. You’re not exactly a weak-stomached kind of girl.”
“Your point being…”
She shrugs. “Are you sure there’s nothing—”
A stall door behind us swings open and a teenage girl walks out. Washing her hands at the sink beside mine, I see her peering from the corner of one eye with a curious expression on her face, likely trying to figure out where she recognizes me from.
“Are you sure it wasn’t the sushi?” Harper pesters. “Because it seemed like—”
“Harper.” I cut her a deadly look that saysdrop it or die. I’m not about to discuss my sudden tendency to swoon in front of some Twitter-obsessed teen who’ll tweet about it to TMZ faster than you can spell the wordsaccidental pregnancy.
In the mirror, I watch as recognition lights up the girl’s eyes. She turns to me, a question forming on her lips.
“Hey! Aren’t you that actress from—”