“Who? What? How?” I stare at the overpriced Criterion Collection logo on the coffee mug in front of him. Debate the pros and cons of smashing it against his phone.
“It’s, she’s… you know Sarah, who you met yesterday?”
He keeps talking. I watch his mouth shape the words. Sarah. I do know Sarah. I remember every bouncy swish of her ponytail, how she’d glanced at him for approval, how marketing-nice she’d been to me. Then I’m thinking about bubble tea. Max and I would always grab them before our night classes, buzzed on sugar and the idea of living out our dreams. We got coffee when we watchedThe Big Lebowski, brownies burning to a crisp in his oven. And that time I showed him how to sew the rip in his favorite sweatshirt, his big fingers fumbling the needle so many times that we’d cried laughing. Thrifted picture frames, rain boots, drafting documentary proposals, unstoppable together. Nobody else knows me like he does.
And he cheated on me.
“Does she know about me?” I say, interrupting whatever speech he’d been giving.
How many times have I seen Max rake his hand through his hair and let out a gigantic, frustrated sigh? Sometimes, it’s my favorite thing he does. “No,” he says, raking, sighing. “And I know this makes me the worst person in the world, but… things would be better off if she didn’t.”
“You don’t want to tell her that you cheated on me with her,” I clarify. Slowly.
He gives me that little smile that used to bend me in half. “Yeah?”
Swallowing, I almost taste the milk-tea sugar on my tongue. There’s one question I haven’t asked yet. I know I don’t want to ask it. But I also know that in approximately thirty minutes, once Max has inevitably left, I’m going to spiral into the cigarette-stained carpet unless I muster the courage to confirm my worst fears. This one question is standing between me and the depression moving in faster than a storm front.
“Why?” I whisper. “Why her? Why… why did you wait until I’dmovedhere?”
His mouth wobbles like he’s chewing the inside of his cheek, as if he’s the one withstanding an endless time loop of emotional land mines. “I didn’t mean to be this shitty, okay? It’s just… she’s fun. She actually laughs at my jokes, and likes Marvel movies, and likes to wear makeup—”
“I told you I’d learn how to put it on if you wanted me to—”
“I don’t want you to.” Max sighs. “I want someone who already wants the same things I do. I don’t have to make her like Formula 1 or make her listen to good music or make her be normal.”
Like he has to with me. Had to, until today. His unspoken words send a lasso around that depression storm front and yank it closer. “I know you, Lilah. I know you only agreed to do Ignition’s movie for us, and that you were probably planning on getting me to quit somehow. That means there shouldn’t be an us.” Max stresses that final word. Us. “We’ve grown apart, and this is what I want to do.”
Red-hot humiliation sends a wave of heat over my face. I can’t stand it when he knows something I don’t, the obvious things, the social cues I miss. Here I was, determined to talk Max out of making this colossal career mistake, dreaming about moving back to D.C. together, and he’s been secretly fine-tuning his brand-new life with his brand-new work girlfriend. It was never going to happen.He never would’ve listened to my concerns or dropped off this project now.
It was already over. I just hadn’t known it.
“You could’ve broken it off while I was in D.C.” My voice is a shredded whisper, burning its way out of my throat. “I’d still have my normal life there.”
“Well, not really.” Max looks down, worrying his lower lip. “That’s the other thing I wanted to talk about. The company… we kind of started it in my name.”
My body does that funny dream thing. You know how when you’re almost asleep, and then your entire muscular structure tenses because you feel like you’re about to slam into the sidewalk from a fifteen-story drop?
That.
“No, our company is Black & Graywood. We both own it.”
Max has the audacity to look apologetic. “I started the LLC. Technically, everything belongs to me, including the name. Remember? You’d been swamped our senior year, and I offered to handle the paperwork.”
I think I know where this is going and I can’t breathe. “Don’t,” I say, somehow managing words of all things. “We should shut the company down, then. If we aren’t, if you don’t, if this is it, then Black & Graywood should be done. You can’t take my last name from me.”
Max’s eyes harden. “I don’twantto do that. But Lilah, I’m—sorry—I’m firing you.”
Done. No more breathing. His words sting like a slap across the face, but more than anything, more than the embarrassment and anger and pure, sickening panic, I hate that I hadn’t put this together myself sooner. Silly me, for trusting my male partner to keep my best interests in mind while filing business paperwork.Whoops for thinking that a global sports conglomerate had pursued a co-woman-owned documentary company strictly because they admired our political work. My thoughts don’t stop there, either. Who reached out to who first, Max or Sarah? Over which email chain sitting in the Black & Graywood inbox did my demise begin? There had to have been signs this was coming. Zoom meetings. Calendar invites. I know we haven’t been overjoyed and in love lately, but our career is hard. Max was the one who’d begged me to date him.
And now he’s dumping me for another woman and stealing the business I built. And myname. Doesn’t he know how much it means to me to be a Graywood, after sixteen years of waiting for my birth mom to want me? I barely feel likeIdeserve the name.
“You can’t fire me. I’m on contract with the team,” I try. “They want me to film Arthur.”
“Again, Black & Graywood is on contract. I signed everything as the business. I’ll text you a screenshot of the paperwork if you don’t trust me.” Max is slipping into annoyed. He’s done with this conversation already, and frustrated that I’m somehow not, somehow clinging with my claws sunk into my life. “Also, I already let Sarah know you’re off the project. She’s sad, but she understands. She knew you weren’t an F1 fan. I mean shit, Lilah, you can’t even drive.”
“I know how to drive.”
“You don’t have your license.”
