Page 19 of Hate You to Love You

‘Why?’

‘So I can tell you what I think of the movie.’

He baffles me. What makes him think I’d want to keep this conversation going?

‘Go on,’ he urges, pressing the phone into my hand.

‘You’re really going to watch it and let me know what you think of it?’ I ask.

‘Consider it a promise.’

I punch my number into his phone and shove it towards him before hurrying away. It couldn’t hurt, especially since it seemed like he was genuinely interested in letting me know how he felt about the movie.

Dad and Mum are by the counter, arguing over whether or not they should buy lollies and popcorn.

‘Dalisay,’ Dad is saying to Mum, ‘what happened to us always saying “yes” to life?’

‘Angelo Reyes, there are packets of snacks that have been sitting in the cupboard for as long as I can remember. No more snacks until you finish those peanut butter cups.’

They tease each other like this all the time, ribbing each other about dumb stuff and giggling like teenagers.

‘Everything okay, anak?’ Mum asks as I approach them.

‘Yeah, who was your friend?’ Dad adds.

‘No one,’ I say.

But the way Elliot looked at me lingers in my mind.

chapter eight

now

For the first time since moving into Addie’s spare room I can’t sleep. I’m unable to accept that the home I thought would always be there will soon be gone. By the time I give up getting any sleep it’s almost morning anyway. My eyes feel so heavy that I collapse onto the couch on the way to the kitchen for coffee. I’m exhausted, and the tour hasn’t even started yet. I’m meant to be meeting Claudia today, but instead of excitement a heaviness weighs on my chest.

Crashing at Addie’s place was always meant to be temporary. After Dad had gotten sick, I moved back in with my parents to support them during his treatment. But in the months following his passing, home began to feel like purgatory. A prison of memories. Mum was insistent that Dad never would have wanted me to forget what it was like to live. So, when Addie proposed I could stay in her tiny spare room for nominal rent while I figured out where I wanted to live, I’d jumped at the opportunity. Except the temporary set-up between us became permanent. Addie and her partner, Maria, had been so welcoming, and their apartment was so close to the city. It made it easy to stay.

I check the time on my phone and let out a heavy sigh before covering my face with a pillow to block out the sun.

‘I’ve told you time and time again, Carlos, there’s no sulking in this house,’ Addie teases as she exits the bathroom and pulls at the bottom of her vintage University of Michigan shirt. She was just as good at finding the best second-hand clothes as she was with life advice and her knowledge of snacks.

‘Remind me what you were doing when you watched the season three finale of Lost last week?’

Addie shared my love for rewatching TV shows from the 2000s. When I first moved in with her, we’d started One Tree Hill, which was her favourite. While she was hesitant to start Lost because of the criticism she’d seen surrounding the series finale, the first episode gripped her and I’m pretty sure she loves it more than I do now.

‘Excuse me, but Charlie’s death caused some valid emotional trauma,’ she says, pulling the pillow away from my face. ‘Now get up.’

‘I love you, Addie, but I don’t think I can do the positivity thing today.’ I grab the pillow out of her hand and place it over my face again.

Addie takes a seat on the arm of the couch and gives me a friendly nudge. ‘So, you had a little incident at your book launch. You’re not the first person to make a fool of themselves on a night out.’

‘It’s not just that,’ I say, thinking about Mum selling the house, the looming tour, Elliot. It’s only a matter of time before she gets something out of me, but I’m not ready to talk about the house yet. ‘It’s Claudia’s publicist,’ I manage. ‘It’s… it’s… Elliot.’

‘As in your Elliot?’

‘Mmhmm,’ I mumble into the pillow.

In Addie’s eyes, Elliot is the thing holding me back. After he’d left, she’d tried to set me up on a few blind dates, but I was incapable of getting Elliot out of my head. He had broken my heart, and the way we loved each other had left my heart tender and sore. If I wasn’t enough for Elliot, how could I be enough for someone else?