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Hudson opens his mouth to protest, then closes it and nods. “All right. The last thing I want is to make things harder for you.”
“I’m fine. I’ll see you Monday, work buddy,” I tell him with a little punch on his arm.
“See you Monday.”
I start toward the house, but he stops me with his voice. “Allie, wait. Let’s not end things like this.”
Turning to him, I say, “It’s the only possible ending. I’ve already gone through all the possible scenarios in my mind and they all end exactly like this, only much, much worse.”
He was right when he said I wouldn’t remember the nice comments, not that there are many of them. I will remember the nasty ones forever, because they feel like they’ve been branded into my soul. It’s two a.m. and I’m lying in bed still scrolling, even though I should’ve been asleep hours ago. Even though I should be working. Even though it’s going to do me absolutely no good to read about how I should never wear anything without sleeves until I spend at least a year hitting the gym to tone these sausage arms. It’s definitely not good for my self-esteem to read about what a mismatch Hudson and I are or how I should be the poster girl for ‘skinny fat,’ or how he’s really scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as dates go. Oh, and here’s another one: CuteGirl24 has posted to Hudson that she’s right here in L.A. waiting for him to come back and that she literally has no gag reflex, so that’s lovely.
I finally force myself to shut off my phone and put it on the charger. I close my burning eyes, wishing I had never agreed to go out with Hudson. Wishing I’d never met him. And certainly wishing I’d taken his advice about not reading what the trolls have to say. It’s hard to believe that only a few hours ago, the world was full of possibilities. I was filled the excitement of the start of something new and wonderful. Only it wasn’t. And it can never be. And believing that it could be anything more than something professional makes me the stupidest person to ever walk the Earth.
23
The Fallout
Hudson
“So, you and Allie, hey?” Gersh asks.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Then you shouldn’t be making out with her in front of hundreds of people with smart phones,” he says.
It’s Sunday morning and I am just realizing I should not have picked up the phone when I saw his name. “Yeah, already figured that out, but thanks.”
“Seriously, dude, you might as well have just taken her up on stage and went for it right there.”
Plunking myself on the couch, I say, “Yup. Got it. Big mistake. Filled with regret. Don’t need you to make it worse.”
“You literally pay me to give you advice, which is what I’m doing.”
“Oh, so you’re talking to me as Gershwyn my manager right now?”
“Of course.”
“Because it sounded like you’re talking to me as Gersh, my big brother who wants to break my balls over an already-shit situation,” I tell him.
“Maybe it’s a bit of both. It’s hard to separate one from the other.”
“Okay, well, how about you switch to being a supportive big brother who tries to make his sibling feel better about hurting an innocent woman?” My gut tightens even more than it already was. “Seriously, she was totally blindsided. And have you looked at what people are saying about her?”
“Yeah, I saw the whole ‘send her to space and leave her there’ hashtag,” he answers. “Pretty shitty. Maybe she won’t see it.”
“She’ll see it. She’s the most curious person I’ve met. No way she just went to bed and forgot all about it last night,” I answer.
“You like this girl.”
“Of course I like her. She’s … there’s nothing not to like,” I answer, not wanting to start listing the thousand things I like about Allie to my brother who will definitely use it against me later—specifically to embarrass me if he ever meets her.
“So, if you like her and she likes you, who cares? Just go about your business starting a relationship with her and see where it goes.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’s a doctor, Gersh. A literal rocket scientist. I think. Maybe being an astrophysicist isn’t the same thing, and the fact that I don’t know the answer to that means she and I aren’t going to wind up together,” I tell him, knowing it’s true. “She could spend the next year slowly explaining what she does to me like I’m a five-year-old and I still won’t fully understand it.”
