“It’s just. . . he’s just. . . all over them,” I finally said.
Even though it was a vague response, Eli nodded as if he understood. Something about the lack of sympathy in his eyes encouraged me to keep going.
“When I spoke to Piper, I couldn’t tell her that she didn’t have a point because that would have been a lie. I don’t have a social life. I can tell she’s worried about me. I’ve become a burden on her and my mom, and that kills me. I don’t want them to be fake with me. To tell me I’m doing great when I’m not. They’re the last people I have left that I can be real with. So that’s why I said yes to this. For them. Because maybe this whole thing is going to be a disaster that will probably result in humiliation, but at least I’m doingsomething.”
I drew in a silent, slow breath through my nose, then looked at Eli to gauge his reaction.
To my absolute shock, I found him staring at his shoes, a small smile on his lips.
“I said something funny?” I asked incredulously.
He jerked his head up and shook it, but his dimple remained, as if imprinted there. “Not at all,” he said. “I can’t even imagine what you’re going through—what you’ve been through. It’s just...it’s just that you’re here for the exact opposite reason as me.”
“How so?”
“I’m here because I’mtoosocial. My dad thinks I party too much.”
I snorted. “Do you?”
“Maybe. He thinks I’ve never faced a single obstacle in my entire life and that I’ve had everything handed to me.”
“Have you?”
“Do you want me to share or not?” he asked, a hint of laughter in his voice.
“Yes,” I said swiftly. Despite having just shared something with him that would typically send me running back to my room in tears, I smiled. Because he didn’t focus on it. He didn’t ask me to dissect how everything made me feel. He didn’t tell me how sorry he was, or run away. He just kept going. Like I was a real person and not some weirdly fascinating display of tragedy. He kept going, like he wanted me to know him just as much as he wanted to know me.
“My life has been easy as you can imagine. My father is disgustingly wealthy and famous.”
“Sounds tough.”
“Let me finish,” he scolded, but his lip turned up.
I held up my hands in surrender before gesturing for him to continue.
“I never knew my mother. She was a producer, but she died from cancer when I was just a baby. I honestly don’t think about her much, which makes me feel guilty sometimes.” The openness of his words left me hanging on everything he said.
“But her passing left my father to raise me, much to his dismay.” Eli’s forced chuckle didn’t meet his eyes. “He never wanted kids and didn’t really know what to do with me. So, he decided to model me after him. He insisted that I go into acting early on, even though I never really enjoyed it. I hated it as a kid and begged him to let me quit.”
“Is that why you haven’t done anything in years?”
He tilted his head slightly. “Honestly, I stopped getting many offers when I started to act up as a teenager. Maybe it was immature, but rebelling was the only way to get his attention. I sound like a spoiled brat, but when I started partying more, I finally got out of doing things I despised.”
“I guess I get that.” He watched me intently as I answered, as if worried I might have a different reaction. “But you want to be a writer instead? That’s why you wrote a screenplay?”
For once, Eli didn’t appear quite as confident as he normally did as he ducked his head.
“I mean, I’m trying. I grew up on a set, watching the directors and the writers run the show while my dad stood there looking pretty in front of the camera. I always felt like that was where the real magic was. Behind the scenes. For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to write and direct.”
“And your dad doesn’t like that,” I guessed.
“Not even a little. He acts like I’m the biggest disappointment imaginable, so I figured I might as well lean into that.”
“It must be hard to have him disappointed in you,” I said, thinking about my own delusionally supportive mother, who had read everything I’d ever sent her and insisted I could be the next Jane Austen.
He frowned. “Even when I was acting and doing as I was told, he never thought I was good enough. He’d be disappointed in me no matter what.”
“That doesn’t really sound like an easy life,” I pointed out.
