Page 93 of If the Stars Align

“I’ve been so afraid to tell you this,” she begins. “While you and I were together, I promise you, I never had feelings foranyoneelse?—”

“Jeremy,” I say right away. Because that name has been seared into my mind since the day she first mentioned him to me. I knew back then exactly how this would end.

She sniffles. “I’msosorry.”

I dial into Dex Oliver—and crank it up a notch. Severalnotches, actually. “Sunny, you havenothingto feel sorry about. I understand. Our lives are not…compatible.” I have to pause to swallow the bile in my throat. “And you and Jeremy…you make sense.”

She’s crying.

“Does he make you happy?” I ask, trying to control my breath. “Because all I want is for you to be happy.”

It’s true.

“Yes,” she says in between heaving sobs. “I’m happy.”

“You sound happy,” I tease.

She laughs. And cries. Then she gets quiet again. “This is really hard for me, Dex. You’ll always mean so much to me…and I don’t want to hurt you. But I know that news travels fast around Beachwood, so I wanted to tell you myself”—she sniffs—“before you heard it from anyone else. Um…Jeremy proposed to me last night. And I said yes.”

I mute the phone.

“Fuck!” I yell so loudly, it echoes in the vast emptiness of this stupid fucking palace I live in all alone.

Then I unmute. “Sunny, I’m so happy for you,” I tell her. “That’s great news.”

She’s quiet for a beat. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

We exchange a few more pleasantries about work and family before we hang up.

Then I throw my $200 Hermès coffee cup across the room and watch it shatter into as many pieces as my heart.

Eventually, I clean the mess of splattered coffee and broken glass off the floor, then force myself to drink a protein shake—even though I feel like I’m going to be sick. I lace up my sneakers and go for a ten-mile run to ward off what I knowverywell is coming. There’s no escaping Ollie, after all. The best I can do is postpone the inevitable.

When I get back home, I lift weights for an hour.

Then I swim laps in my Olympic-sized pool until I’m so exhausted I feel faint.

But I can’t stop moving, and Idefinitelycan’t take a nap because if I do, I’ll wake up sweating and panting and?—

I don’t even want to think about it.

So I choke down another protein shake and go to fucking Home Depot to buy paint, and brushes, and rollers for no other reason than I need something to keep my hands busy so they don’t start shaking. I spend hours repainting my bedroom and, if I’m being honest, it looks like complete shit. I’ve never painted a room before, and it shows.

But I’m done now. I’m lying still on my bed, in my quiet room, and all I can hear is the storm brewing inside me.

I can’t be alone tonight.

So I meet some actor friends at a celebrity hot spot—a place to see and be seen.

I do this because it means there will be eyes everywhere, watching me, and I’ll have no choice but to put on a show.

Dex Oliver will save me. He always does.

And so far, he’s doing a damn fine job. I’m eating and drinking. Cracking jokes and laughing. There are a dozen of us sittingaround a long table in the corner of a crowded restaurant, and my audience is on the edge of their seats. I’m telling them about the elaborate prank my costars pulled during my first week on the set ofPassions. I’m just getting to the part that involves a hungry orangutan and an obscene amount of bananas delivered to my dressing room, when I look up and see a familiar face eyeing me from the bar.

Could it be?

Her cheeks flush, and she waves at me.