Page 40 of Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts

The air in the arcade felt strangely cool, my face was so hot with embarrassment and the stuffy air in the Zombie Invasion booth. Declan stepped out behind me. He had the grace not to say anything, but when I hazarded a glance at him, there was a rosy tint to his cheeks, and I thought I saw him reach to subtly adjust something in his shorts. He cleared his throat, louder than was necessary. “So, pepperoni or cheese?”

“Pepperoni all day,” I said quickly, hoping that if I responded in a normal, non-robotic way, it might make the situation feel less awkward. It didn’t.

Declan avoided looking at me. “I’ll, uh … be right back.”

“Okay.”

I sat down on the stool in front of Wheel of Fortune as he made his way over to the counter to pay for the pizza. What was wrong with me? It wasn’t my attraction I was second-guessing. It was more the point of all this, of putting in all this work to build a connection with someone, if I didn’t plan on it extending past this vacation. It felt disingenuous; I’d sort of started to like Declan as a person, and I didn’t want to play games with people I actually liked.

He stole a glance over his shoulder and gave me a small, sheepish smile. I looked away, willing my face not to betray my thoughts.

He rejoined me a moment later with the slices of pizza and two paper cups balanced in his arms. “I got you a soda,” he explained as he handed one of the cups to me. “I remembered you got Sprite on the ferry, so …”

“Thank you.” I followed him through the doors to an outdoor table. The night air was damp, thick with salt water. “You know, I didn’t even recognize you on the ferry.”

Settling on the opposite side of the table, he arched an eyebrow. “I kind of figured when you tried to introduce yourself to me later.” He took a sip of his drink. “So I’ve been meaning to ask. How’s the podcast going?”

I studied him as I chewed my pizza, already on edge. “What makes you ask?”

He shrugged. “I figured you guys are probably working on it some in the middle of all this. With the whole sponsorship thing or whatever.”

“We’re not recording until September.” My heart stuttered in my chest, like I was already being caught in a lie. But I hadn’t done anything. There was nothing to lie about. And there was no reason he would know about the rule-breaking thing—that, at least, I felt confident about. He didn’t use social media and I’d been pretty vague about everything outside of my conversations with Jo. But I had a feeling he was maybe testing the waters, poking around for some sign that I intended to use him for the podcast.

“I finally listened to it, you know,” he said. “Season Two, Episode Six, I think it was. You were telling that story about the guy from Portland who wanted to pee on you?”

I resisted the urge to hide my face in my hands. “Oh, God.” That episode was all about Rule Number Two: if you were too embarrassed to talk to your girlfriends about it, think twice. Of course, we never made any rules about being too embarrassed to talk to high school acquaintances. And for some reason, it was humiliating to think that Declan had listened to me telling that story, of all stories. “I promise it’s not always like that. And I totally didn’t let him pee on me, by the way, if you listen until the end.”

He chuckled, shaking his head. “I’ll take your word for it.”

“Why’d you pick that one? What did you do, close your eyes and pick an episode at random?”

“It was the first one that came up when I Googled the podcast.” He looked torn between amusement and some other emotion I couldn’t quite put my finger on. “I mean, it was pretty entertaining, I’ll give you that. I can see how you guys got your following.” There was an uncomfortable pause, and I sensed there was something else coming. “But I don’t get it, though. The whole thing seems …” He trailed off. “I don’t want to sound insulting.”

“No, go ahead and say it.” I’d heard it all before. The internet didn’t pull any punches. Which didn’t mean I was totally comfortable with all the venomous comments, but I was used to them. Numb to it all, in a way, so long as it didn’t affect our partnerships or numbers.

Still, he hesitated, seeming to chew on the word as much as his pizza, biding his time. Finally, after another sip of his drink, he got it out. “Depressing.”

I gaped at him. That was a new one. “Of all the impressions you could have got, depressing?”

He shook his head, looking thoughtful. “I mean, not the sex stories and all that. But all the rules, all the reinforcement of the ‘no commitment’ thing, it just seems … I don’t know.” He lifted a shoulder. “Lonely.”

I narrowed my eyes. “There are other relationships that can be just as fulfilling as romantic relationships, you know.”

“Of course, I know that,” he said. “I guess I’m just curious where you see yourself. Long-term.” He held up a greasy pizza hand in deference, a balled-up napkin in the other. “By all means, if you plan to be running the podcast at fifty, I fully support that. But is that what you want? Would it make you happy?”

I exhaled through my nose. “I don’t know.” I could just leave it at that. Twenty-somethings the world over were forgiven every day for not knowing what they wanted to do with their future. But the truth was, I knew enough to know I wasn’t totally content. And that was enough to make me keep talking. “I sort of feel like it’s all I have going, right now. I keep hoping I can use my experience with the podcast to transition into something bigger. Maybe get a job promoting art or music or something like that.” I’d juggled several ideas—anything more meaningful than promoting lingerie brands and travel companies. As nice as all the free stuff was, I hadn’t found the podcast to be very fulfilling for a while now. It was just that all of my own ideas came up short without Jo to back me up. Jo had come up with the initial idea for Seven Rules, and it had been Jo who marketed it, Jo who planned out our episodes, Jo who arranged for guest speakers and managed our partnerships.

Without Jo, I wasn’t sure I was much of a podcaster. I was just Margo, a girl with trust issues and the occasional funny Tweet, who’d managed to hide how mediocre she was behind the smoke and mirrors of Photoshop, green hair dye, and a pasted-on sort of confidence that just barely held it all together at the seams. And who cared to listen to her?

Declan nodded, his brow creased in thought.

“I’ll admit, sometimes it all feels kind of meaningless.” Was I still going? Apparently, I was, but it felt sort of good to get it all out in the open. To talk to someone who didn’t give two shits about the character I’d spent the past four years method-acting; Go’s tricks hadn’t worked on him, but he seemed perfectly content to just talk with Margo, and that bolstered my confidence. “Especially ever since this whole wedding thing. We make up all these rules for being independent and avoiding commitment, and then Jo runs off and gets married, and what do I have to show for it? A bunch of followers on Twitter and a string of hookups with people who don’t matter.” It was as close as I decided I was willing to get toward telling him the truth. It wasn’t my place to spill the beans about what we were planning for next season, but my feelings were still my own, and I was allowed to talk about them. “Does that make any sense?”

“Yes,” Declan said. “Like I said, most people would call that feeling lonely.”

“I’m not lonely,” I protested.

He rose to his feet, collecting our trash and tossing it in the nearest trash can before offering me a hand. I hesitated a split second before accepting it, feeling ridiculous as he helped me to my feet. I wasn’t the sort of girl people carried over puddles or pulled out a chair for. And I didn’t deserve it from Declan, of all people. Up until tonight, I’d treated him less like a person and more like one of these paper cups: convenient in the moment, but easy to dispose of when the time came. Which said less about him and more about me.