CHAPTER 59 (2)
“Shit, A, you’re making a show!” “Apparently.” My grin stretches across my tired face. “So, you did it, and NT wasn’t even involved,” she muses. Before I can argue, she heads for the kitchen and pours shots of bourbon. “Cheers.” We toss them back, and the warmth burns down my throat. I think of Miranda’s reaction when I called her on the way home, how ecstatic she’d been despite the late hour. I debated whether to tell her tonight or tomorrow, but hearing her reaction, I was glad I didn’t wait. “You tell Timothy yet?” ’s gaze over the shot glass is full of meaning. I shake my head. “He deserves to know—it’s his story too,” Andie goes on. I pour us both another shot and pass her one. “I feel like I pulled it from the air.” We toast and toss this one back too. “Come on.” Andie sets her shot glass on the counter and leans a hip against it, her lips twisting. “A girl who thought her heart was stolen and that’s why she couldn’t feel goes on a journey with the help of a boy who shows her what it means to live and learns she had it all along.” I’m shaking my head before she finishes. “The female lead is nothing like me. She doesn’t have a heart. She doesn’t think she’s missing anything until someone points that out. I’ve never had that problem. I feel way too much.” “Obviously. But you’re not her. Timothy is.” I wash the shot glasses and cast a look over my shoulder. She tips her chin down, staring at me as if I’m being deliberately slow. My hands still in the sink, bubbles filling the basin. “You’re the other lead,” she goes on. “The boy who shows her what it means to live, and love, and take chances.” I turn off the faucet and watch the water drain out. The shiny dish soap glints on the surface as the bubbles spiral around and around, finally slipping down the drain. I set the glasses on the drying rack. When I face my roommate, I brace a still-wet hand on the counter. “That’s not true.” But my chest squeezes. The next breath is harder than the last. It’s our story. Mine and Timothy’s. Not all of it of course, but the core. I cross to the couch and perch on the arm. Andie’s face fills with empathy as she follows. “He’d be proud. You should send it to him.” “How long have you known?” “Since you started telling me about it a year ago. Does he know you love him?” I shove off the couch and pace the width of our apartment. “Yes.” I pause by the window. “But Timothy has always chosen freedom, to do his own thing and rely on himself. New York isn’t what he wants. And I want this show, Andie. Not only for me, but also for everyone involved. For everyone who’ll get to see it if we keep going.” “You want it enough to let Timothy go? Not that I want to lose you and Jacob to LA”—her lips curve in a sad smile—“but you could write.” I return to the counter for the shot glasses and pour half a glass more for each of us. “We always stayed true to our dreams, for better or worse, and I love that about us. But a career isn’t made or broken in one perfect moment. It’s hundreds of choices over thousands of days. What if love is the same, Andie?” I think of the ups and downs with my family, my dad. “Maybe we were meant to be apart for a couple of years, and that decision wasn’t wrong, it was just one more choice that helped us grow and learn and become more of who were supposed to be. Maybe we have more choices ahead of us, starting right now, and nothing in the world can keep us apart if I find ways to choose him.” The ideas start coming in a rush, all at once. “If I can find the right person to play the female lead, I can finish the show without having to be in it.” Her eyes widen. “You’d give up playing the lead for Timothy.” A surge of energy takes me over, and I know in an instant what I’m thinking is right. “I wouldn’t be giving up something I want. I’d be choosing something I don’t want to live without.” He’s my best friend, the only man I’ve ever loved. The only man I will love. Taking up a Broadway stage might have been my dream, but I have another dream that matters every bit as much. Us.
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