Page 110 of Wish You Were Her

There had been an awkward silence. A beat of regret from both of them.

“I’m so sorry, Jonah. I made a mess of everything. I acted foolishly. I have… complex feelings about how I’ve not been there for Allegra and I projected a lot of it onto you. And pushed away my best employee.”

The neurotypical critic who liked to live in Jonah’s neurodivergent head and tell him how he should act whispered to let it go, but Jonah wanted an answer.

“It wasn’t only about me liking Allegra. It started before she came to Lake Pristine. What did I do? You were my mentor and you started treating me like a traveling salesman you couldn’t wait to get out of the shop.”

“Yes. I know. It’s… it’s complicated, Jonah.”

“Okay, but you were the only person privy to those complications, George. I was in the dark. It’s pretty uncomplicated when you’re the one being treated badly. It’s incredibly simple when you’re on the receiving end.”

“I pushed you away because… because your life is going to be so much bigger than Lake Pristine and I didn’t want to be responsible for holding you back.”

And George hung up.

Jonah stood in the street, unmoving, for five whole minutes as he processed George’s words.

And perhaps the words had not hurt him because, ultimately, he knew they were true.

Chapter Thirty-One

The bedroom they shared was cozy, warm and dimly lit—just how two autistics on the verge of becoming lovers liked it. Allegra climbed into his lap and he held her for thirty minutes without either of them speaking. Every electrified nerve that was tried each day by the neurotypical world started to quiet. Their jaws unclenched. The masks loosened and floated away, cast to the floor with the rest of their clothing.

“I have something important to tell you tomorrow,” Jonah said as the night ticked over into early morning.

Allegra had seen him glancing over his emails as she had brushed her teeth. She felt the secret like a stone, and regretted leaving him in the dark. It had gone on long enough now that she was almost too afraid to tell him the truth. Whatever important matter he had to discuss with her, it couldn’t be as revealing as the truth of who was really writing to him in those emails.

Allegra pressed her check against his neck. “Tell me now.”

“Can’t. Has to be in public. Just before the movie starts tomorrow.”

“Why?”

“I’ll be able to keep it together. Can’t do it now. Want to say everything, just right.”

“Is it something bad?”

“No.”

She thought about her secret. She couldn’t predict what he would do. When she tried to rehearse the scene in her mind, it disintegrated into mist every time she got to her confession. She was petrified he would be angry.

Or that she would lose him.

“How did your interview go, Jonah?”

“I got the job.”

She pulled her head back a little to stare at him. “What? Jonah! That’s amazing!”

“It is.”

“Have you told my dad?”

“Yes.”

“I bet he was happy for you. He’s proud of you underneath it all, I know he is.”

“He fired me, you know.”