She sat down on her bed, not sure what to do. Usually, after they left the library, Beau would pull her across the hall to the TV room, and then she would go up to her room and get more writing done, and then she would go back downstairs and hang out with Beau. They’d eat dinner, watch TV, curl up together on the couch, and end up back in his room. Now she wasn’t sure what to do.
She opened her laptop and tried to work on her book, but she was too distracted. What happened when you had a fight with your boyfriend when you were living together? Was that even a fight? Was Beau even her boyfriend?
She wanted to cry, but she wasn’t even sure what she was crying about. The look on Beau’s face when he’d spat those words out at her in the library, the emptiness she felt about the idea of not having dinner with him tonight, the longing she felt for him right now—not the Beau who had left like that in the library, but the Beau who had woken up and kissed her this morning before she’d left his room.
She should have known these past two weeks were too good to be true. She had known, actually. Everything had been so good between them, so idyllic, with beaches and picnics and swimming and surfing and reading to each other in bed. She’d known it couldn’t last.
She wanted to text Priya, ask for her advice, but since she hadn’t told Priya about any of this, there would be a lot of catching her up first, and Izzy didn’t have the energy for that. See, that’s why she should have told Priya all this last week, in anticipation of something like this happening.
She went to the bathroom to wash her face. That always helped reset her mood. Then she sat back down at her computer. If she was going to feel all these emotions—this frustration, these pent-up tears, this sadness—she might as well use it. She opened her manuscript.
As she wrote, her frustration mounted, and her sadness turned to anger. See, this was better. She—and her main character—should get angry instead of so sad. What had sadness ever done for her? Nothing.
When she finally looked up, she realized the sun was already setting. She and Beau usually ate dinner by now; no wonder she was hungry. But she was so mad at him that she wanted to wait to eat until after he was safely out of the kitchen.
No. That was silly. She wasn’t going to sit in her room and hide from him.
She got up and went downstairs.
The kitchen was empty when she walked in, and she felt a mixture of relief and disappointment. She opened the refrigerator door to see what Michaela had left for them tonight. She hadn’t done this in a long time, she realized. Beau was always in charge of getting their dinner ready.
“Hey.”
She turned around, and he was standing there, leaning against the kitchen door.
“Hi.” She took a salad bowl out of the refrigerator and set it on the counter.
“I wasn’t sure if you were coming down,” he said. He took a few steps into the kitchen.
That was really all he was going to say?
“Oh, are you done with your break?” she said.
Beau winced. Okay, yes, she’d sounded kind of bitchy—okay, very bitchy—when she’d said that, but what did he expect?
“I’m really sorry about earlier in the library,” he said. “I should have led with that. But, Izzy, I’m trying here. This is all hard for me, you know that. Yes, of course, what you said today made perfect sense. But it was hard for me to hear, hard to realize I have to do it, to reveal to the whole world more of the hard parts of myself if I want to make this book any good. And I hate that I still miss my dad, despite everything. I started to get mad at you in there, and I realized I had to stop and take a breath. So instead of lashing out at you, instead of saying something I knew I would regret, I told you I had to take a break. Please don’t be mad at me for that?”
Oh.
She should have realized that’s what he was doing. He’d basically told her, but she’d been so freaked out by their first fight after they’d become…whatever what they were…that she hadn’t bothered to think about it from his point of view.
She uncrossed her arms. “I’m sorry, too. You did the right thing. I should have thought about it more from your side.”
He let out a sigh. “No, it’s okay. I came back to the library to apologize, but by then you’d left, and you’d forgotten your phone there, so I couldn’t text you. And I couldn’t come up to your room, so—”
“You can come up to my room,” she said.
He shook his head. “I promised I wouldn’t.”
She’d almost forgotten that he’d said at the very beginning that he wouldn’t come upstairs.
“Yes, but it’s different now,” she said. “I’m saying that you can.”
He took over dinner assembly—a Caesar salad, with chicken and fresh croutons—while Izzy pulled out the dishes. She felt bad for getting carried away, getting so mad at Beau for something she should have understood.
Had she apologized well enough? Probably not. She should have explained better how she felt, how what he said made sense to her, why she’d overreacted so much.
But to do that, she’d have to explain how she felt about him, and she wasn’t sure if she knew how to put those feelings into words. Or if she was ready to.
They went into the TV room with the food, Beau carrying almost everything, as usual. She’d tried once, but he could easily carry more than twice as much as she could, so she’d given up and let him do it. He was silent as he put the food down on the table.
When he sat down, she made herself turn to him. “Are you mad at me?”
He looked surprised. “No. Why would I be mad at you?”
“Well, I wasn’t…I was kind of mean, in there. I should have given you the benefit of the doubt. I shouldn’t have—”
Beau shook his head. “Yeah, but I’m not sure if I deserve the benefit of the doubt. I was a real asshole, the last time we went through this.”
Izzy shrugged. “Yeah, but that was before.”
He gave her a very sweet smile. “Yeah. That was before.” He put his arm around her and pulled her close. They hadn’t touched since she’d left his room first thing that morning. She’d missed this. “And no. I’m not mad at you.”
She put her hand on his cheek. “Good.” She looked up at him. “It’s okay that you still miss your dad. He was still your dad—you’re still grieving him. And you never got to be mad at him in person; you’re grieving that, too.” She turned his face to hers and kissed him. “And you do deserve the benefit of the doubt.”
He smiled down at her. “Thank you. For all of that.”
She wanted to say more, but for right now, it felt like enough to curl up on the couch with him, to eat dinner and watch their show and just be together.
The next morning, just after nine, an email popped up in Izzy’s personal account.
Hi, Isabelle—
I hope all is well with you; it was great to run into you in February. A position of assistant editor here at Maurice just came open, and I immediately thought of you. I’m not sure if you’re looking to leave TAOAT, but I thought I’d reach out just in case. We’d like this process to be relatively accelerated, so please let me know if you’re interested as soon as you can. I’d love to bring you in for an interview next week, if that’s possible.
Thanks so much,
Josephine Henry
Izzy stared at her phone for a full minute. Was she imagining this? She took a screenshot of the email and texted it to Priya.
IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING???
Priya texted back seconds later.
YES YES YAYYY YESSSSSS
Izzy typed her response in a flurry.
Hi, Josephine—
Thanks so much for reaching out! I’m definitely interested in an assistant editor position at Maurice! Please let me know what else you need from me, and what the next steps are.
Best regards,
Isabelle
No, too many exclamation points. She took them out.
Wait, now it seemed too stilted. Almost unfriendly.
She sent it to Priya.
HELP ME DRAFT THIS REPLY PLEASE THERE WERE TWO EXCLAMATION POINTS BUT I TOOK THEM OUT AND NOW IT SEEMS WRONG, ALSO IS “BEST REGARDS” TOO COLD???
Oh, and should it be “Hi, Josephine,” or just “Josephine”???
Priya texted back right away.
No exclamation points, hi, best regards is fine. I know I know the periods all look wrong but she doesn’t have any exclamation points so do what she did
Izzy went to press send but stopped herself. Josephine’s first email had mentioned an interview next week.
An interview in New York next week.
She would have to leave California.
Izzy left the email in her drafts and went to go find Beau.
Luckily, he was in the first place she looked: the kitchen. Unfortunately, Michaela was there, too. Not that she usually minded Michaela being around, but right now she needed to see Beau alone.
She poured herself more coffee and tried to catch Beau’s eye, to get him to realize by, like, ESP or something that she had to talk to him. But he wasn’t looking at her.