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“Rusty,” I repeat numbly.

“I would never use you or anybody else to try to get over my own problems. I would never manipulate you like that.”

I hear what he’s saying.

He’s offended that I’m even implying he could have been so heartless. So cruel.

But the worst of it is . . .

I.

Am.

“Why would you come to that conclusion? Why was that even a thought?” he says.

And with an overwhelming surge of guilt, I blurt out, “Because that’s what I was doing. That’s what I’ve done the past week.”

If the previous words were meat loaf, the current confession is like a two-ton weight cracking through floorboards.

“What?” he says.

I take a breath. “I didn’t plan on falling for you. I just . . . I was going through my own personal problems with that situation in Seattle, and then I came across Yelensky’s other book. And I read it. And it made sense to me. And I thought maybe I could overcome this issue of needing to please everybody around me by practicing doing the opposite, like he said. Maybe the repetition of the behavior would train me to overcome my echoism. So. I made a challenge for myself.”

“To?”

“To gain ten rejections by Christmas from strangers. The first try was on the plane. And it went horribly. And then you came up and asked if you could help me with my bags, and I . . . You were a stranger. And it was an opportunity.”

He rubs his eyes. “So you asked me if I wanted a ride,” he says bleakly.

I nod. “And then, well, I kept asking you to do absurd things—”

“Like that snow dance at your car,” he says, and I can hear the implications dawning in his voice. All of it dawning. And it feels horrible. Terrible. Like a nightmare.

“And the problem was, you kept surprising me. You kept saying yes.”

“Because . . . I liked you.”

“And you kept asking me if I was asking you to do things. Like karaoke. Or the kiss—”

He rakes a hand through his hair in growing frustration. “Because I was being polite, Chloe. It’s just . . . my training. And I liked you.”

And there’s the worst hit of all.

I hear the past tense. The liked.

It’s over. The curtain has been pulled, and he sees me for who I really am.

I swallow the emotion down hard from my throat, which begins to ache. “And,” I continue, hoping to salvage anything I can, “at first I didn’t really think I’d ever get a real chance to date you. That wasn’t part of the game. I wasn’t planning to continue the ruse once I knew you.”

His eyes darken with a new and unfortunate thought. “At the restaurant. Yesterday. When you had me drive back and forth on the highway to all those places.”

I feel like hanging my head. “I know it sounds terrible. I thought you were using me—”

“And then you had me order a round of drinks for the entire restaurant.”

“I know—”

“And asked me to cook. But it wasn’t . . . wasn’t friendly, the way you were acting. Something was off. It was . . .”