Page 128 of Bad Words

As 7 PM drew nearer, my family and friends started to arrive. Tyler and Maricel had bought a cake, and everybody else greeted me with cheery exclamations and said nothing about the internet. Two people trickled in whom I didn’t know: a bearded man in a cardigan and a shy-looking teenage girl, who would never know how much their presence meant to me.

I kept watching the door, the busy street outside, as the minutes ticked down. Some tiny part of me was clutching to the sliver of a possibility. Every bobbing shape in the night was her dark head bowed against the wind. Every glint of light across the street, her phone screen.

At 7:03, Emily said, “Are you ready?”

“Could we wait a couple of minutes?” I said. “Just—just in case.”

It didn’t matter. She never showed.

Chapter Twenty-SixSelina

For half an hour, I stood in the shadow of a USPS mailbox, shivering, looking through the window of Word. The image was a perfect, glowing diorama, the bookstore lights shining on Parker’s messy hair, his smile. The audience was around two-thirds full. For that much, at least, I was grateful. I’d worried nobody would come.

Of course, if nobody had come, maybe I would have been able to make myself go inside. Maybe I could have convinced myself that he would rather have seen me than no one at all.

But I should have known that Parker would have a crowd of friends to support him. Friends who embraced him, friends who insisted on photographing him with his stack of books, even as he protested. His family even seemed to have flown in, his four siblings bookended by his parents, in whom I could see Parker’s features.

He looked exhausted but happy. After Emily’s introduction, he did a short reading, then closed the book and started to speak.

I wanted so badly to know what he was saying. But I heard, for the thousandth time in the past three days, This is all happening because of you, and I wasn’t selfish enough to ruin a celebration with his friends and family simply because I wanted to hear his voice again.

I made myself turn away from the window and walk down the block, my breath clouding in front of me. The train was southward, but I turned west, toward Jacob and Cassie’s place. On Saturday, Jacob had texted our group chat, saying, Are you okay? We saw the profile. And you going to bat for Parker.

I’d said, Yes, it’s fine, I shouldn’t have gotten involved.

The idea of telling them what Parker had been to me, even for just a few weeks, had felt excruciating. But at this moment, the idea of returning to my apartment, filled with memories of him, felt worse.

A minute later I was buzzing and saying, “Hi, it’s Selina, can I come up?”

I hurried up the steps. When Cassie opened the door, the sight of her worried face made something in me wobble.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

My hand flew to the bridge of my nose. My eyes burned.

I let out a sob.

“Selina?” Her voice was sharp with alarm. As I stepped over the threshold and she wrapped me in a bear hug, she called back into the apartment, “Jacob!”

I held my eyes shut, enveloped in the scent of Cassie’s coconut conditioner. I heard quick footsteps and the door closing, and Jacob saying, “Oh, man. What happened?”

“I don’t know.”

“Selina? Hey.” His hand touched my back. I looked up, crying, my hand still over my nose and mouth. “Hey, did something happen to you?”

“No. It’s—” I tried to breathe. “Just … Parker.”

Cassie and Jacob exchanged a look. Then Jacob guided me toward the sofa, and Cassie hurried to the kitchen island to run me a glass of water, and soon she’d pushed it into my hand and was crouching by my side. “Wh-where’s Lyra?” I said, glancing around.

“Asleep,” said Jacob. “She’s a little sick.”

“Oh, no. When did—”

He shook his head, settling beside me. “Don’t worry about it. She’s okay.”

“Hey,” said Cassie, rubbing my thigh. “Hey. Tell us what happened.”

And I did, although I had to stop intermittently to cry. I didn’t know how to do this. I had never done this before. I told them everything, described every lovely facet of the fragile thing I’d broken. I couldn’t believe how little I cared, anymore, about what Parker had said to some two-bit reporter or what insults toward me he’d let go unchallenged. He’d been willing to look past what I’d done to his career. How ludicrous, how prideful, that I’d thrown that grace away.