He made the mistake of looking up at Arielle just as that last comment landed and regretted it immediately. “I gotta go,” she said, her words barely a whisper but rocking him like thunder.
“Our food’s not even here yet,” he said inanely, as if she could give a damn about that as the internet tore her apart.
She didn’t even dignify him with an answer, just shoved her phone back in her bag and jumped up, then froze when she realized how many eyes in the restaurant were watching her. On the table, his screen continued to light up—texts from Lev and his manager and God only knew who else. It was so bad, and it was sostupidthat it was so bad, but it was still bad, and it was his career, and—
She was leaving. God, she was really leaving. He jumped out of his chair and followed her out, hoping not to make a bigger scene. “Ari, please don’t go.” He wanted to reach for her, but the last thing they needed was more commentary, and Naomi probably wasn’tthe only one filming them anymore. “They’re just idiots on the internet—”
“Newsflash,Ein Klein Hotmusic,” she snapped, whirling around, her eyes red with angry, unshed tears, “your whole life is idiots on the internet. You have to impress them and all your adoring fans, and I am not the right kind of impressive. Cool, I get that; it’s kind of what I’ve been telling you from the very beginning.”
“I’mimpressed by you. Doesn’t that matter for anything?”
“Does itlooklike it matters for anything?”
His gut twinged. “Ari…”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” She turned back to the door, and he was dying to follow her out, but he’d left his phone on the table and there was still the bill…
“Please wait for me. Let me just pay, and I’ll take you home. At least let me do that.”
“Good night, Judah,” she said firmly, but as she walked out the door, he was pained with the certainty that she meantgoodbye.
Chapter Twenty-Six
If Judah stared any harder at the dark screen of his cell phone, he was liable to set it ablaze. He wasn’t sure how many apology calls and texts he’d made already, but Arielle was making it pretty clear she wasn’t interested in any of them. It’d been hours since she’d walked out on him at Migdal, and in that time, he’d done nothing but alternate between reaching out to her and typing angry responses to all the social media comments, and then deleting them before he could set his career on fire.
Finally, the screen lit up, but it was just Lev, responding to Judah’s last message exactly as he knew he would:Keep your mouth shut. I’m sorry, but if you answer, it’s gonna make things worse.
Another text. Still Lev.I changed all your passwords, so don’t even think about it.
And then,But tomorrow, you’re buying me lunch and telling me everything.
Judah snorted. Lev was a good assistant and a good cousin, if you ignored the fact that he constantly gave free concert tickets to his mom’s friends. But there was no chance in hell Judah was giving him the Arielle backstory. He could already picture Lev’s look of disappointment, hear the lecture about how he wasn’t just destroying his career but “abandoning his relationship with HaKadosh Barukh Hu,” because Lev Feldman was the picture of consistency and did not believe in “picking and choosing” which Jewish laws to keep and which to discard.
He slipped the phone onto his nightstand and collapsed back onto his pillows with his eyes screwed shut. He couldn’t stop thinking about the pain in her eyes at the end of the night, howthey’d shone in the worst way. Those were eyes meant for laughing, dancing, teasing, smoldering… He’d never imagined making them fill with tears.
Of course, he couldn’t have imagined any of this—how much he’d miss her, how much he’dlikeher, how much their first real date would feel like he’d literally prayed for a first date to feel. He’d barely scratched the surface of her, and he ached with how badly he wanted to know more.
She’s scared of blackouts, he thought, frantically raking up the crumbs he’d already gathered.She loves Lego because her hands feel fidgety if she has nothing to do with them, and she likes having something to show for it. She has a little scar on her knee from the one and only time she ever tried to learn how to skateboard.
None of it made him feel better, not that there was any reason it would. He didn’t know how to make this work, didn’t know whether there was even any point in trying. Against his better judgment, he looked at the comments that’d made her run off in the first place. They’d multiplied in number, though there still appeared to be no consensus about what it meant that there was a photograph of him holding a girl’s hand on an obvious date in the first place.
He looks so happy, one comment said, with a row of emojis he supposed were meant to be faces brimming with tears. (He strongly agreed.)
Those tits tho, said the comment underneath it. (He strongly agreed with that one too but wanted to punch the guy who said it.)
Wasn’t he just with that other girl??(That one was sort of correct, but he’d been broken up with Mira nearly as long ago as he’d dated her, which felt to him like an acceptable time to date somebody new, though he was hardly an expert.)
Is he cheating? Omg he better not be cheating.(That one was just offensive. Besides the assault on his character, if he were cheating, he’d have to be a complete idiot to bring her to a kosherrestaurant in Manhattan, where you were always guaranteed to see people you knew.)
He wondered how many of the comments she’d seen, and he scrolled to the ones he knew for sure she had—the ones that’d popped up while they were still together at the table. His stomach roiled at the sight of the one about Arielle being a downgrade, and the temptation to reply to it was so strong that his thumb hovered over it for a second before he realized someone else already had.
@KeaverBeaver:Your face is a downgrade, loser
Judah laughed out loud for the first time since he’d watched Arielle walk away, his heart filling with a rush of love for his little brother. He switched over to his text messages, and after a quick glance to make sure Arielle still hadn’t responded, he opened a new one to Akiva.
Judah:I see you’ve been busy on the internet
Judah:Thank you
