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“Holy fuck, Charlie” is all I can say. I try to massage my stomach, but the pain is like a fisherman’s hook in my guts. I still have to teach a class in a few hours, so my body needs to chill now.

He shrugs. “Maybe Oakley won’t get into any festivals anyway?”

Maeve keeps herbal tea in her desk somewhere. I scoot over, start rifling through. Peppermint, chamomile, I’ll even try fucking essential oils to get through this lecture. No tea, but she does have a little bottle of lavender. I squeeze some out and dab it on my face.

“You okay, Sulls?” Charlie asks.

The lavender isn’t working. My heart’s still racing, and the pain is intensifying. Fuck, I haven’t had a full-blown panic attack since—

“I’ll be right back,” I say.

It’s feels like Oakley in Flames keeps doing the exact opposite of what I want.

So watch it get into every spring festival.

CHAPTER TWENTY

If there’s one thing having a publicist has taught me, it’s that the average attention span is six seconds. The more optimistic, Rosalie-advice-flavored spin is that people are made to adapt to uncomfortable situations by turning them into our new normal.

I, like most people, have adjusted to the new normal in which I’m a raging fucking dumbass and haven’t told Maeve that my directorial debut could be picked up by a festival, forcing me to leave her in the dust during possibly the most important semester of her teaching career. Possibly. If Oakley gets in anywhere. Which it won’t. But it’s still a possibility. Even as my name falls faster and faster on the IMDb STARmeter and Oakley in Flames dies with me, the prospect still simmers in the back of my mind. Not to mention Trish’s Oscars idea…

I taught the Cats lecture with my body in full collapse post–panic attack mode, yet I somehow convinced Maeve and the students I was fine. I skipped end-of-the-semester celebratory drinks with Maeve and Ty by claiming to have food poisoning, just like I used to do with ill-timed press events.

The flare-up died by the next morning, as they tend to. But the worrying thoughts set in by the afternoon.

December passes in a surprisingly uniform pattern:

Maeve and I hang out. Maeve talks about academia or studying at Berkeley and asks me about what courses I taught at Oxford and King’s College. Sometimes we discuss movies, music, family, or politics. We have really good sex.

I remember that I still haven’t told Maeve about potentially causing her to lose a huge grant and the career-making prestige of it.

The cramps come back.

I take dairy, spice, red meat, alcohol, caffeine, and heavy fiber out of my diet, concurrent to 3.

I deliberately refuse to go to public places with Maeve. I tell her it’s because of tabloids, and she seems to accept that.