Page 113 of The Golden Scoop

Everything in me drops out: my heart, my breathing, even my mind’s gone blank. It hits like a fight-or-flight switch, but my body picks neither.

I read it again. Slower this time. Maybe I misunderstood. It might be forwarded from a coworker who needs advice. Or any other version of this that makes sense.

It isn’t.

Suddenly, everything clicks into place. Her distance this morning. The way she rushed off. The vague, emotionless texts. Why she was chosen for the article in the first place.

Emma wasn’t stressed. There was no work pressure. No confusion.

It was guilt.

My world tilts, like someone’s given it a cruel little spin. A hollow, sinking feeling opens in my chest and spreads to the rest of my body until my limbs feel unreliable.

I sit on the edge of the bed and try to go through the breathing exercises I learned years ago in therapy. They don’t work.

She knew what this was going to turn into when she took the article. Hell, apparently, it’s what she does for a living. She’s more involved in the Hollywood scene than I am.

I was dragged along. I opened up, told her how I felt. Was everything a lie? Did I take my mask off, just to miss the biggest act of all right in front of my face?

My eyes are glued to where she lies, unable to look away, to make sense of what’s happening. Still asleep. Still Mills in every other way. As if my mind is playing tricks on me and I’m imagining it. Somehow that makes it worse.

The past few weeks rewind in my head, moving in slow motion over all the moments where I thought I was breaking her wall down. All the questions. The observations. Was it all part of the story?

I exhale slowly and stand. There’s not enough brainpower to confront her right now. I don’t trust myself to wake her up… and not say something I’ll regret later on.

The article’s basically done. Our working partnership is over. Whatever this is—us—it has to end too.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see one of her many notebooks, a pen tucked into the spiral binding. With shaky hands, I close her laptop, place it on top of her nightstand, and tear a piece of paper from the back of it.

There’s no thinking. I pour everything onto the page. The love, the hope, the betrayal. When I’m done, I fold it carefully and leave it on the pillow next to her. I sit there for a beat longer than I should.

Eventually, I stand, get dressed, and leave before and change my mind.

I thought she saw me. I shake my head. How did I get this so wrong? What I felt with every touch couldn’t have been one-sided. It didn’t feel fake. The way she relaxed into me every time I kissed her.

And as much as I don’t want to believe it, the email thread is right there, mocking me, making me wonder if she’s exactly who she’s always been—a gossip columnist chasing her next headline, getting the win no matter what.

TWENTY-SIX

Emma

The bed feels cold.

It’s the first thing I notice when I wake up. My body instinctively turns to find the warm, hard body that’s been next to me the past couple of days. My hand reaches out before my mind catches up with the fact that it’s empty.

The absence has me sitting up, checking for any noises coming from the kitchen. Everything is quiet. The bathroom door is wide open, lights off. For a moment, I frown, trying to piece together where he might have gone. Then, I see the piece of paper resting on top of the pillow.

My heart does a small jump. Matt’s been so thoughtful lately and leaving a handwritten note instead of a text message is exactly the kind of move he’d pull. I pick it up, wondering, again, how I got this lucky.

The feeling doesn’t last long. As soon as my eyes scan the first sentence, I know what this is. It’s not a love letter.

Three paragraphs don’t feel like enough for this. It’s too controlled. I can picture Matt forcing himself to keep it together. I almost wish he would’ve woken me up, full of anger. I could’ve handled that. The bickering. The fighting. Not this.

The thought of him hurting because of me rips my heart in half. My stomach turns so suddenly, I have to brace myself, one hand pressing against the side of the mattress, the other reaching for my nightstand. I feel like I’m either going to be violently sick or I’m going to pass out altogether.

I scan the lines again like they might change, but it only settles everything deeper.

I keep replaying everything, trying to figure out where I got it wrong. Right now, I don’t know what was real and what wasn’t. And I hate that. All I can say with certainty is I meant everything I said to you. I keep coming back to the same thing… you still didn’t tell me the truth. I wish you would’ve trusted me enough. What the article was really about, what you actually do for work.