I pouted. “I don’t know how I feel about this.”
“Your text a few hours ago said you’re going to break up with him anyway, so what’s the harm? I think it’s kinda funny, in a slightly dark way…”
I pouted harder.
“I’m sorry, Val. If you don’t want us to look, we don’t have to.”
“No, I’m curious now. And yes, I have already decided to breakup with him. I just feel like…a sucker. Like I got faked out. I feel like next thing you know we’ll find out it was some sort of bet.”
“I doubt it. I think he just stole his game from his dad’s books.”
I grabbedHope Against Hopefrom the shelf after we hung up and started rereading it.I’d better not discover any familiar lines in here.
I found one before I fell asleep.
The next night, Natalie and I were up until midnight on FaceTime, pouring over all our Edward Phelps paperbacks.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor of my bedroom, I read the words the male love interest said to the main character after their third date inThe Impossible Dream.
“Shoot.”
“Did you find another one?” Natalie asked, reluctantly lifting her head up from the paperback in her own hands.
I underlined the quote in pencil—Introducing you as anything else just wouldn’t feel right—and read it aloud to Natalie. “That’s what he said when he asked me to be his girlfriend.”
“Damn,” she said. I bookmarked this page with a tiny pink sticky note, closed it, and tossed it into the growing pile of similarly bookmarked paperbacks in the middle of the carpeted floor.
“I can’t believe a real-life man said all these things to a woman he was pursuing, and it worked?”
“Yeah… It kinda worked,” I admitted.
Natalie broke into a fit of giggles and then noticed the look on my face—a mix of embarrassment and awe. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh. I honestly don’t blame you. If a handsome, mature man said these things to me, I’dswoon.”
“Ugh,” I groaned, lying back on the floor and looking up at the ceiling.
“Don’t you want to keep reading? See if there are others?”Natalie asked, her voice emanating from my phone where it leaned against the stack of books.
“I think it’s safe to assume the answer is yes at this point.”
“Probably true… Hey, on the plus side, at least he likes romance novels? Not that it matters, since you’re breaking up with him. But I’m sure he’ll make some other romance novel-loving woman happy someday.” She chuckled, obviously trying to lighten my mood.
“He likes them too much, Natalie,fartoo much. This is so ludicrous.”
“Agreed. You literally cannot make this shit up.”
“Unless you’re Edward Phelps.”
“Unless you’re Edward freaking Phelps,” Natalie agreed. She picked up another book from the unchecked stack on her coffee table and opened it.
Ever the charmer, but he couldn’t even use his own words. And I fell for it, for a time. Shame washed through me, settling in my stomach like a stone.
For the rest of the week, I spent my writing time sorting and filing emails to the Peters & Dowling server—a permanent legal record of everything I’d worked on over six years. It was cathartic to go through it all, reminding me that while I’d chosen to leave this career behind, at least for now, I had done a lot in my time there. I’d worked on investments in companies that had gone on to change the status quo in their industry and negotiated mergers that led to new medical devices being distributed all around the world. I decided I was allowed to be proud of what I’d accomplished, even though I didn’t want to do it anymore.
Telling the handful of associates I’d made friends with over the years was less nerve-wracking than telling the partners, but harder in some ways because I felt like I was abandoning them, especiallythe junior associates. But they were all supportive. Some even said they were jealous and wished they had the courage to quit, too.
I slipped my work phone back into my bag when Luna hopped into the backseat of the car Thursday afternoon, braids long since lost to the harbor winds.
“How’s tennis going?” I asked as I turned right to get back onto Main Street and drive toward their house.
