Page 86

“We can’t resolve this. Telling her what was going through my head while I was lying to her doesn’t matter. The effect is what it is.”

I expect Charlie to bat the spike right back at me. But he doesn’t. He just lies there, eyes on Eustace as he frowns, brings his face back to neutral, and then frowns again. “You’re self-sabotaging.”

I snort. “And that means what exactly?”

I shouldn’t be acting this bitchy to him. He’s done nothing wrong, has supported me through so much. We’re supposed to be such deep friends, yet he couldn’t even rely on me enough to be honest with me about Star Trek. And that’s probably my fault too, for not making him feel safe, not letting him know I would shoulder his worries. I’ve failed him just like I failed Maeve.

He reaches over. I bristle on instinct, but he’s going to Eustace, not me. My ears go hot as he strokes my dog’s soft back. “You’re the reason I might have a job. You’ve successfully directed a film, juggled dozens of projects, and gotten a PhD. Your first film got into, and I cannot emphasize this enough, fucking Cannes. You can see how Emily is fucking up this relationship, right?”

I can see it in the facts, from comparing and contrasting Emily’s and Maeve’s reactions like a student. But that doesn’t mean I can escape the drowning feeling at the thought of talking to Maeve again. “It doesn’t change how it makes me feel.”

“That’s what therapy is for. Go pick yourself back up and figure out how to be a good girlfriend. I know that’s the real you. Not this.”

I’m not like Charlie. I’m not good like Charlie. Charlie never let anyone down, Charlie didn’t prioritize his anxiety over the livelihood of someone he loved. Charlie didn’t roll over and say that his mistake was an inherent character flaw rather than owning up to it. Charlie hasn’t spent years cycling through one-night stands like disposable razors because emotion was too difficult. So I believe in Charlie more than I’ve ever believed in myself. I believe he deserves his Star Trek job back.

I don’t believe I deserve Maeve back. Not right now.

“Can we talk about the demon?” I ask.

Charlie sighs deeply, his body pressing against mine. “Yeah. Dude, you need an exorcist. Or at least to get featured on one of those celebrity haunting shows.”

And maybe the laughter releases something in me, or maybe Charlie’s words made more of an impression than I was willing to believe, but I realize something.

I can do more than I’m doing.

For the first time in years, when Rosalie asks me about my week during our session nearly two weeks after Maeve’s and my break, I don’t know where to start. Her concern is palpable—I notice it in her subtle facial movements. The way her lips are slightly downturned, the tiny line between her brows. And I know why; I fucking walked into the office in sweats and a hoodie and am currently curled on her couch in the fetal position. I know I have to tell her what happened, or she’ll spend the whole session badgering me.

“Oakley in Flames got into Cannes, and Maeve and I are on a break,” I say. Just to get it out. Just so maybe Rosalie can pick the most important topic.

And her bug-eyed expression tells me all I need to know: I’ve brought some serious shit into her office. She’s maybe given me that look, like, twice, in a decade of dealing with my bullshit.

“That sounds overwhelming,” she says. “Do you have any idea what you’d like to focus on for the session?”

Fuck. Well, so much for the Rosalie Guide Me plan. As if I even know what I want out of this session. I can’t be a better person while my brain’s like this. “I want to feel happy again.”

The words surprise me as much as they do Rosalie. It’s like a wake-up shot at a juice bar, my heart is suddenly beating really fast, my blood is buzzing. Happy.

“What does that look like for you?” Rosalie asks, recrossing her legs and regaining her signature composure.

“What do you mean?”

Rosalie chews on her inner cheek for a moment. “What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word happiness?”

The answers ping-pong through my brain. Spending time with Maeve. Seeing the positive reactions to Charlie’s letter. Celebrating Oz and Lily’s birthday. Coming out publicly. Having Luna listen to me as I rambled on about kitsch in a Burger King at 2:00 a.m. The twins’ birth.

“I’m not— It’s so weird,” I say. “Nothing is career-related.”

“How does that make you feel?”

“I’m…” I rub my forearms. “I guess that surprises me. Because I—I don’t know. I think I was happy when I won the Oscar, when I worked with Mason on Goodbye, Richard!, when Oakley in Flames got into Cannes. I mean, those things should make me happy, shouldn’t they?”

“In theory, yes, but that doesn’t mean on-paper accomplishments really brought you joy. Maybe you respond more to a different type of happiness.”

As she says it, though, I find myself fixating on a specific memory. Mason and I, after I came out, did a sort of what we called Goodbye, Richard! redux press series. The movie had gotten an extended release in theaters, and Mason basically said now that I was out, we could be completely open about what the movie was really about. We must’ve gone on half a dozen late-night shows, done smaller interviews, even BuzzFeed-style Q&A’s. I remember feeling euphoric throughout the entire process. Like every inhibition and anxious thought I usually had when I do press was just gone. I was just joking around with Mason and talking about queer cinema and representation and artistry as if the two of us were alone. The audiences energized me rather than stole from me.

“I remember this one interview with Mason in particular,” I say, not even bothering to give Rosalie the context. “Writers Interview Actors. They just put me and Mason in a room together and said to just ask each other whatever. We knew each other so well that at first we were just idiots and asked each other what we were making for dinner that night and our Tupac death theories. But as the interview went on, we started talking about queer representation and what stories meant to us and what it means to tell a liberation story through violence and it just— I felt like I had a moment where I knew everything had been worth it, that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. That I was the real me.”

Rosalie exhales slowly. “And you feel like you haven’t had that since?”