Nausea overtakes me, and I feel like puking.
Remington—Chase—is the one who got me through Nanna’s illness and death. The person in whom I’d confided some of my darkest fears, the worries, and also the small, funny parts of my day.
I’d never known who he was, though I always suspected his world was more rarefied, more glamorous than mine, but I could never have imagined the truth.
I thought, at most, he might be some minor celebrity’s personal assistant.
My vision tilts just thinking of it. But it’s there on Chase’s face. The guilt of it. He swallows visibly.
“Now you know.” He lets out a shaky exhale. “What are you thinking?”
“How did this start? How’d you get my typewriter?” I ask raggedly.
He shakes his head. “Daisy sent it to me.”
My heart stops. “Daisy? She knows? She never said a word. I thought she was a friend,” I whisper at the betrayal. Has everyone been laughing at me? Am I the stupid girl who was fooled so easily? I feel my knees get weak as my perspective on my world realigns into something I don’t recognize.
“Hey, steady.” It takes two of his long steps to reach me, and he’s leading me to the couch. I’m too frozen to object. I sink into it. He kneels in front of me; his eyes are pleading. Chase leans over to touch my knee but then pulls away, as if thinking better of it.
“Tell me,” I demand, my brain clicking rustily into place.
“Daisy had no clue it was your typewriter. She always sent me little gifts, things to make my house a home. She sent me the Remington, said she found it in the window of an antique shop when she was walking around her new neighborhood and it reminded her of me. I found the letter in the typewriter and wrote to you. I never told her about it, or about becoming pen pals. I wanted to keep what we had just between us.”
“I didn’t tell her either, for the same reasons,” I admit quietly. “I told her I had a pen pal, but the story about the typewriter just seemed too personal. That was our story, not for anyone else.”
He gives a small half-smile. “I felt the same way.”
“But why did Daisy send you a typewriter, of all things?”
“I always loved to write. When I lived with Daisy, our next-door neighbor had a Remington. She was an older lady without kids. She felt bad for us. We spent a lot of time at her house. I would type the stories I made up and read them to Daisy at bedtime. I even illustrated them. Poorly.”
“So Daisy bought you a Remington like the one you used to use.”
He nods. “She wanted me to get back to telling stories, said that I was happiest when I wrote.”
“I remember,” I say, a memory niggling at me. “You told me your sister sent you gifts because she said your style was sad and boring. You were talking about Daisy.” All his past letters and the details are recalibrating in my mind. It’s disorienting.
“When I wrote to you as Remington, you may not have known every detail, but the essence was all true. I tried my best not to lie, Olivia. You know more about me than anyone in the world except possibly Daisy. I have a hard time trusting people. You have to believe that as much as you didn’t know about my life in Hollywood, you knew me better than anyone else. Remington is closer to who I really am than the movie star Chase James.”
I gaze at him with his pleading eyes, his face now so familiar. He’s become Chase to me, not just Chase James, movie star.
But he’s more. He’s also Remington.
And I suddenly see him for the first time, all the parts of him. My best friend and pen pal, the funny, sweet, vulnerable guy who comforted me when I most needed it. The letters were our personal diaries that only we got to read.
As I think back to what he wrote, I realize that he tried to tell me about himself. He told me about his emotions. About feeling overwhelmed. About panic attacks. About nights in different cities surrounded by people who didn’t know him. Though I hadn’t known the specifics, I had known his heart.
I examine my hands. “I just feel so stupid,” I say in a small voice. “Like I should have guessed.”
He threads our fingers together. Despite everything, his touch sends a frisson of excitement through me. He never fails to affect me, even when I’m spinning.
“Writing you was the only thing that kept me sane some days. The things I told you were real. When I said I hated coming back to dark hotel rooms, it was the truth.”
I snort. “I wasn’t exactly imagining suites at the Ritz.”
His strong jaw clenches. “I’m not trying to act like, poor me, ’cause that’s bullshit. I won’t pretend that it’s not better to have money than not. I know what it’s like to think you have no future, and I will always be grateful for the opportunities this life brought me. But what’s beneath the glamour and money is never knowing if someone is with you because of the fame or fortune, and not the person you are.”
“Is that what you’re worried about with me? That if I knew who you really were, I’d become one of those people who just cared that you were a movie star?”
He looks away. “Maybe,” he admits.
I suck in a breath, stung.
He swears. “When you didn’t know who I was, that was the only time in my life someone chose just me, not what I could do for them. When I was a foster kid, I was completely invisible. And then I got famous, and suddenly, everyone wanted me. It wasn’t you I didn’t trust. I couldn’t believe anyone could care for the real me.”
My eyes search his face, looking for evidence that he’s been playing me for the past month, letting me get to know him and care for him, and never telling me that we’d been writing each other for years. But all I see is aching regret and more insecurity than I ever thought possible. The ice of his betrayal that froze my heart begins to thaw.
Who would I have been if I hadn’t had Nanna to care for me after my mom died? He never had someone tell him that he was safe, that he was loved, that he was enough. And then to go from sleeping in the streets, unwanted by society, to a few years later having millions of eyes on his every move, adoring, desiring, fanatical. The fact that he got through all that without spiraling out of control is a testament to his strength and character.
I can see why he valued being anonymous. It doesn’t excuse the lies, but I can understand a little better why he feared telling me.
“Do you hate me?” he asks in a ragged rasp.
The glacier melts down further. All I want is to reassure him.
I’m weak.
“I don’t hate you,” I whisper. I’m confused, confounded, hurt, angry, but there’s no hate. “I just wish you trusted me more earlier.”
“I never meant for it to go this far. I came to San Francisco to make sure you were okay. When you ghosted me—”
“But I didn’t!” I interrupt.
“You disappeared and didn’t answer my calls or texts. I was worried. I didn’t know if you were hurt, lying in a hospital bed”—a frown cuts deep grooves into his otherwise perfect complexion—“or worse.”
I flinch. “I kind of was. In a hospital, I mean.”
His head whips up. “What do you mean, you were in the hospital?”
“I was fine,” I soothe. “It wasn’t a big deal. But my phone was damaged when I kinda got run over by a bike messenger in the street. I hit my head, blacked out for a minute, and my phone was smashed in the road. I realized I didn’t have your number written anywhere else.”
“You were hurt, and I had no idea.” He looks stricken. “You didn’t tell me.”
“Well, to be fair, I had no idea when I met Chase James that he might be interested in my little concussion story. I’m fine. I just spent a few nights in the hospital. It was my phone that had the most collateral damage, though maybe I should thank that bike messenger and the car. It brought you looking for me.” At that admission, I hold my breath.
“Does that mean you forgive me?”
I can’t cave this easily. I just can’t.
“You saw I was okay after the first café visit. Why’d you come back?” I ask.