Brinton didn’t want to smile, but the corners of her lips betrayed her.
When Shay was gone, Brinton closed out of the movie. On her home screen, her Photos app randomly generated a beaming Jamie on the pontoon boat. Golden sun kissing his face and chest. It felt like someone had taken a Louisville Slugger to her core.
What did that mean? That Shay was right? Brinton had lost, round for round, in bouts with her own self-doubt.
She rolled out of bed and crossed to the old wood dresser by her door. Opening the top drawer, she tore through the abandoned receipts, single socks, and maxi pads until she found the business card with the number of the psychiatrist her mother had suggested. Brinton had lived through this bad movie enough times to know the ending. She needed to rewrite the story.
She plucked her phone from her knotted bed sheets and dialed.
A few days later, outside an Upper West Side bar, Brinton considered her options: she could go home, where another season ofInsecureawaited her. Or, she could do the exposure therapy homework Dr. Mensah, her new psychiatrist, had given her to help address her panic disorder. The idea was that gradually, the more she immersed herself in places and scenarios that triggered her, the less likely she was to experience severe panic attacks.
That’s how she found herself in the crowded hellscape that was a professional networking mixer for Columbia alumni.
The bar had that old New York City feel, dimly lit with cracked leather booths and permanent rings on the tables from the many pint glasses of yore. This was the first time Brinton had been out since she left Iris. It was nothing like the Skylight’s neon glow, but it would do.
She slipped into a booth with a glass of tap water and waited. The plan was to stay for twenty minutes, enough time not to feel like she completely lied when she reported back to Dr. Mensah tomorrow morning. She pulled out a copy ofPleasure Activismby Adrienne Maree Brown, but only got a few lines in before the seat across from her dimpled and the table lurched forward.
She looked up to find a woman with a crown of Bantu knots and violet lipstick that popped against ebony skin. Brinton learned that Aida was a literary agent who, on the side, was set to open her own YA Fantasy–themed bookstore in Brooklyn.
They bonded over their mutual distaste for forced networking and, surprisingly, Aida’s admission of being a highly functioning Virgo with OCD. To her surprise, Brinton was drawn to Aida like a moth to a flame. It had been weeks since she’d smiled so hard.
A few hours later, Brinton hunched over her laptop in bed. She opened the manuscript for her would-be novel. It had been at least a year since she last touched it. Then, she thought about what Jamie had said weeks ago at the bar.
You’re an artist, like me.
The draft was a mess of half-baked prose, but it was hers. That was part of the artistic process, as Aida reminded her when they had talked at the mixer.
Screw it, shewasan artist.
Brinton massaged paragraphs and strung together lines of dialogue for hours. By the time she looked up, the sun had started to rise, shading the sky a spectacular shade of iris.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
“Shit, man. You trying out for a remake ofThe Life and Times of Grizzly Adams?” Cory did a double take after popping his head into Jamie’s home studio the following Monday. “I almost didn’t recognize you with that beard.”
Jamie had been so busy writing and recordingHoneybee, a six-song EP, that apparently, he’d made enemies of his razor and can of Barbasol. He stroked the wild, dark-blond bush and smiled. “A worthy sacrifice for my art. Is everybody here?”
As Cory flopped down on the cobalt velvet couch, Jamie winced, remembering Brinton sitting there for the first time not too long ago. Watching him pour his heart out. He missed the hell out of her.
“I think your daddy’s on the way back from picking up Mamaw, but I reckon they’ll be here any minute. Are you gonna finally reveal why you assembled us all here? I love a good mystery, but the Braves play in an hour.”
Jamie stood from the new ergonomic armchair at his desk. It didn’t smell a thing like Brinton, which made thingssimpler and more devastating at the same time. But the reduced distractions had served him because a lot had changed in six weeks.
The circus of theLandmarkghostwritingarticle had died down, and while there was no shortage of trolls on the internet who called him a jackass-Nepo-baby-phony, the truth was out there. He had accepted that. That was, in part, thanks to a few sessions with his old therapist, who helped him sit with that discomfort.
A little whiskey under the silver moonlight didn’t hurt either.
But today, Jamie decided it was time to share his plans with the people he loved most.
“I will—when everyone’s here,” Jamie called as he walked out the door.
Cory shot up behind him. “Why does this feel like a reverse intervention?”
A few minutes later, Jamie stood in his living room by the mantle. Across from him, Emma Lou, Tex, Cory, and Sammi sat on the couch while his father was posted in the tobacco leather armchair in the far corner.
Jamie cleared his throat. This had been a long time coming, and he was ready. “Y’all are the most important people in my life, and I would be nothing without you. I haven’t always been easy to deal with”—Jamie looked directly at Tex and Sammi, who smiled back—“but I need all of you.”
His gaze shifted to his father.
