Page 89 of Fake it ’Til Fall

“You didn’t apply anywhere else,” he says.

I stop pacing.

“What?”

“You heard me. You decided this was the only place that might take you. That’s not the same as knowing it.”

“I don’t pay you to psychoanalyze me.”

“No, you pay me to tell you when you’re screwing up your career. Consider this under my purview."

“I’m hanging up.”

“Of course you are. Because someone says something true, and suddenly you remember you hate phones.”

Puck watches me from under the table.

Judgmental dog.

Disloyal, too.

Mark lowers his voice. “You’re not only good for one place, Forrest.”

I don’t answer.

I hate that sentence.

Not because it’s cruel.

Because it isn’t.

“Shit happened,” he says. “You didn’t⁠—”

“We’re not reliving the past.”

“Fine.” His tone snaps right back to business because Mark has the emotional recovery time of a cockroach in expensive shoes. “Then tell me how we’re going to monetize this amazing new relationship.”

There it is.

The circle back.

The man could find a revenue stream in a funeral program.

“I’m not letting this get ugly,” I say.

“Then don’t. But if we’re finally turning a page on your image, why not make it public?”

“What’s the point?”

“You’re Forrest fucking Wolfcraft,” he says, as if the name means something outside the damage attached to it. “People love you.”

“They didn’t love me,” I say.

The words come out before I can dress them up.

Mark goes quiet.

Good.