“O-okay.” Katy seems surprised. “Addie, I’m really, really sorry. I swear I didn’t know about Rory. And I should have told you right away when you started seeing the…Zach, but I was just…I didn’t know how to handle it or whether it was the right thing.”
I nod, but say nothing.
I feel numb, like a stranger in a completely new and foreign world. Katy gives me the closest thing to a hug she can manage with me sitting catatonic, leaning over the wheel and looking out the windshield.
“Will you be okay?” she asks.
I nod again, and then she is reluctantly opening the door, scrambling out of the car. I stay there for minutes, hours, staring out the window. Trying to make sense, for the second time in twenty-four hours, of an entirely new version of my life.
BEFORE
Early August
Zach is working today, and I’ve just ridden over from my viola lesson. Since his dad is at a dentist’s appointment and the store is dead, I am sitting cross-legged on the counter, wistfully scrolling through the latest pictures Katy has sent of her trip.
“Did your dad always want to own a movie store?” I ask as Zach works on the computer a few feet away. He’s ordering some new horrodies.
“No way,” he says. “We used to sell mostly music back in the day, but the only thing selling worse than DVDs is CDs. It’s all digital.”
Then he points at the screen and says, “Look at this one.” I squint at a picture of a man in a business suit, his pants rolled up to the knees, holding a briefcase and standing in a literal pool of what is quite obviously ketchup. Of course.
“It’s by a British dude named Moyer. He was number one onCinema Tomorrow’s list of up-and-coming directors, and his first film was pretty good, but obviously not as good as what Ciano was making whenhefirst started. Do you know what’s so great about Ciano, like, specifically?” Zach says.
“What is so great about Ciano, like, specifically?” I ask.
“He nearly died.” Which is not what I’m expecting him to say. “Rotary Windclock—you know, the third one I gave you—was inspired by it. When he was nineteen and in college, he was out late one night alone when he got jumped by four guys, mugged, beaten to a pulp, and left for dead.”
“Holy crap,” I say.
“I know. There was no one around, and by the time they found him, he was unconscious. He had to relearn how to walk. Like, he still walks with a cane because of it.
“Anyway, the point is that when he made it into a movie, he decided not to make it heartwarming or depressing or a story about overcoming or whatever. He didn’t even aim for funny, which is at least the respectable cousin of silly.” Zach opens up another web page while he talks, pauses to read its synopsis of a movie, then closes it. “He said in an interview that his producing partner wanted him to do a documentary about his journey back, like regaining his locomotion and stuff, but he refused.”
“That might actually have been pretty interesting,” I say.
“Yeah, but that’s his point.” Zach focuses on me now, his eyes intense, voice passionate, the way he always gets when he talks movies. “That was hispower.You take the worst thing that’s ever happened to you and you tell it any way you want to. You make it silly. You reclaim it. The point is that it’syours.And everything that happens to you, not just the bad stuff, is like that. Make it whatever the hell you want it to be. The entire interview is a fucking revelation. I should find the article and email it to you,” he says.
“Do it,” I say, reaching for my phone, which has just vibrated in my pocket.
I show Zach the picture Katy sent. “They wereliterallyoutside Carnegie Hall.”
Zach squints at my phone, then stands and stretches. His T-shirt jumps up, revealing his stomach and the waistband of his underwear peeking just above his jeans.
“You’re making yourself miserable,” he says, playing with a strand of my hair. I untuck my feet and let them dangle so Zach is standing between my legs. “MaybeKatyis having a horrible time but she’s taking Ciano’s advice and making it sound wonderful.”
I roll my eyes at him but hold his shirt between my fingers and pull him in closer.
“I’m not that miserable,” I breathe against his lips.
“Now,”he says, smiling. His lips are so soft, his tongue warm inside my mouth. His breath is a little cigarette-y, but he’s always chewing mint gum lately to decrease the taste. I wrap my legs around him and kiss him harder. If this is misery, I want to be miserable for the rest of my life,diemiserable.
We are tangled all around each other when the door of the store suddenly bursts open, a faint breeze—the first real hint of summer passing—wafting in.
I twist my upper body around to find Raj gaping at us, his jaw a few inches lower than normal.
“Hey, dude,” Zach says casually.
I spin around so my legs are on the counter again, no longer locking Zach’s body around me. “Hey, Raj.”
