Page 44 of People Skills

‘Well, they’re one and the same, actually.’

‘What happened?’

‘His name was Caleb. We worked together. At Jones & Peterson.’

‘Oh.’

This is the story I didn’t want to tell him but, lying here, in the dark, under the stars, listening to the ocean, it’s weirdly hard to not tell him things. It starts to flow out of me, what happened, the ending mostly: everything that happened with Caleb and Grady—and losing my job.

Xavier makes outraged noises.

‘The next time I see Grady, I’ll punch him for you,’ he says. ‘Right in that big red nose of his.’

I laugh. ‘Have you ever actually punched anyone?’

‘Other than playfighting with my brother and his friends? No. But I feel confident I could take him.’

‘Well, yes, he’s twenty years older than you and has a bad back so you probably could.’

‘That’s exactly the kind of fight I’m trained for.’

‘Well, you don’t need to exert yourself because I’m over it. Well, not over it entirely but over it enough that you don’t need to punch him.’

‘I can punch Caleb though.’

‘He’s in New York now so it’s unlikely you’ll get a chance.’

‘So, after all that, he left the job anyway?’

‘Yup.’

‘What an arsehole.’

‘He was. Or maybe he wasn’t. I don’t know. It’s not his fault I loved him more than he loved me.’

‘He treated you like crap.’

‘Not always. Just at the end.’ A pause, as I consider my words. ‘God I sound pathetic. Is that true or am I making excuses for him? I don’t know. Sometimes I want him to be the villain and sometimes I want the relationship to have mattered.’

‘If it mattered to you, then it mattered.’

‘But I want it to have mattered to him. It was a year of my life. I want to have mattered to him.’

‘It did. You did. And if you didn’t, then there’s something wrong with him.’

‘Did Lana matter? To you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good.’

We lie in silence, looking at the sky. I feel a little bit like I could cry, but not in a terrible way.

‘The worst part,’ I say. ‘Was losing my job. Being an editor was part of my identity, who I was at my core, and it was like losing a piece of myself.’

‘I understand that. Being a writer was my entire identity.’

‘You’re still a writer.’