Page 95 of Bad Words

“Nah. Why?”

“This woman who works at the bookstore asked me out.”

“Oh, for real?” Arthur levered himself up on the sofa. “The one with the curly hair, or the one who’s like fifty years old?”

“Arthur. What do you think?”

“Right. The fifty-year-old.”

“I hate you.”

“Same. So, what’d you say?”

“Nothing yet.” I dropped my duffel and settled into a chair. “I don’t know. I’m … she’s running my book launch, for one thing.”

“Good point. Don’t shit where you eat.”

“Bro. Could you not describe my love life as taking a shit?”

“Do mine ears deceive me? Does the renowned author not know what a metaphor is?”

I rolled my eyes, smiling. “Anyway, even without the launch, I’m … I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you know? She’s hot and likes books. Isn’t that, like, all two of your boxes checked?”

For the first time, I considered trying to explain to Arthur what had happened with Selina over the holidays, but I could predict his reaction down to the beat. He’d howl me out of the room, urge me to say yes to Emily purely because she wasn’t Selina Chan.

“I guess I’ve been thinking I … I might be interested in something else,” I said, looking down at Emily’s text.

“But you don’t even know this woman. How do you know you want something different?”

“Yeah. That’s true, you’re right.” I hesitated, then stood. “I’m going to unpack.”

As I headed down the hall, Arthur called, “You should do it, Park. You’re the one who’s always talking about how apps are a textureless way to meet somebody.”

“And they are,” I called back before shutting myself away in my sanctuary.

Having settled into my hammock, I reread Monday’s conversation with Selina, trying to decipher her intentions, which seemed slippery and changeable. It felt like trying to interpret the shift in a summer wind. I watched the ceiling sway with the movement of my hammock. That night, discovering the empty space where something I’d loved had been, I hadn’t turned to my family or friends but, inexplicably, to her. Stranger was the fact that she’d made me feel better, her small, calm texts puncturing my feelings of distance and self-pity.

Yet I couldn’t even admit to Arthur or my mother that I was talking with her. The agitation I felt whenever she spoke to me—was that the overdrive my mom had described? My body seeking out a high-conflict situation because it couldn’t distinguish between an adrenaline rush and desire?

I felt suddenly desperate for clarity, any hard answer, any obvious truth. I found myself closing our texts and navigating to the City website and, out of four years’ habit, reopening her review of These Extraordinary Times.

As I reread, the hum in me quieted, then died out.

At three hundred pages, the book might have been a disappointment. At nine hundred, it feels like a cruelty.

The words hurt as much now as they had four years ago. In fact, they found new places to hurt, because now I imagined her looking me in the eye and speaking them.

Selina had once told me she didn’t do retractions. I knew she chose every word with care. She could easily have written a pan without punchlines, without a drop of ridicule, but this was what she’d always maintained: That I was an insult to literary culture, not just talentless but beneath contempt. That I’d failed at the one thing I’d ever loved.

I stood up so quickly that my vision swam. No, a few polite questions on Monday didn’t make Selina Chan a kind person, no matter what her friends said. Had I brainwashed myself into thinking she was anything other than disdainful and unsympathetic, just because—why? Because she was beautiful? Because she could be funny? Because she had a bad relationship with her parents? A truce was one thing, but was my self-worth really so low that I’d feel interested in somebody who’d written about me like this?

That seemed like the mindset of a desperate person, but I didn’t have to be desperate. I had a career that impressed ninety-nine percent of people. I’d had enough girlfriends and second dates to know that, despite the way I’d felt growing up, I actually wasn’t bad-looking, and since signing up for my overpriced gym, I knew I was in the best shape of my life.

Didn’t I think I was good enough for somebody like—like Emily, somebody who smiled when she saw me?

I reopened Emily’s text. Hey, Happy New Year! I wrote. It’s great to hear from you. Dinner sounds fun.