Page 216 of Handsome Devil
“Hey, some guys like bimbos. Don’t even pretend it’s not true.”
“Alright. Proceed.”
“Someone more accomplished. Someone less ambitious. Someone quieter or louder or richer or poorer. Someone justbetterin his eyes.”
“Why?” Katie asked me.
“Because that shit is ingrained. When I was growing up, my mom always wanted me to be everything I wasn’t. She was so pissed when I ‘ruined’ my face playing soccer. She didn’t even understand why I’d want to keep playing. She wanted me to be prettier, and when I had my plastic surgery she acted like my whole life had changed for the better. But then when I was happy about my new face, she told me not to get arrogant about it. She wanted me to be smarter, then when I got good grades she said I should be quieter about it so I didn’t scare the men away.”
“Oh, Chandra.” I could almost hear Katie’s eyes roll.
“Remember when she came to my first big debate with debate club, in eleventh grade? And I worked so hard on it. I won my debate and I was so proud of myself, and all she said was, ‘Your figure looks lovely in that dress.’ I was fucking crushed. At that point I decidedfuck this. I’m going to be what I am and I’m doing it big, you know? I’m going to bemeat everything I do, whether it’s good or bad or nothing at all. I’m gonna rock it. Even if I’m just sitting on the couch watching TV, I’m doing it my way.”
“Yes, you are. I bet you’re wearing heels right now.”
“I am.”
Katie laughed a little. “So, now maybe you need to ask yourself, what do you do if the worst thing happens?”
“You mean, if Dane finds me lacking?”
“Yes.”
“Is this before or after I burn down his penthouse apartment with all his precious bespoke suits and his Bugatti inside?”
“Before.”
I drew a deep breath and pushed it out. “Ugh. Okay. Maybe before I get the gasoline and matches, I take a step back and realize that if he feels that way about me… I mean, if I’m ‘too’ anything for him or ‘not enough’ of something else… he’s not the man for me anyway.”
“Right,” my best friend said gently. “And after that, what’s the worst thing that could happen?”
“Well,” I relented, “if I still go burn down the apartment… I think I left some nice shoes in there. I guess it would be a shame if they had to be casualties.”
“And you can’t let yourself get arrested for arson. You’d hate prison clothes.”
I laughed. A little. It was the first time I’d laughed about anything, all day. EvenSchitt’s Creekdidn’t do it. Only my best friend could get me there.
As usual, she helped me reach down through the layers of armor I wore to find the heart of the matter.
And the heart of it was: I was afraid. I was afraid that Dane would discover my great weakness—that I wasn’t nearly as fearless as I liked to pretend I was.
And that he’d reject me because of it.
Yes, I’d called him the villain of my story. But I wasn’t some heroine.
I was just a girl. The same girl he knew, and overlooked, back in school.
I was human, and if I was truly honest with myself, I already knew that I wanted him to love me so bad that I could taste it, like bitter poison, when he reminded me this morning that he was leaving me in three months.
The next day was Friday, and I went into the office, like normal. Dane did not.
I still hadn’t heard from him.
Suri said she heard from him, once. In the afternoon, he asked her to find some paperwork he’d left in the meeting room and scan it to him.
So, it seemed he was working—from the penthouse?—and possibly avoiding me.
I supposed maybe we were separating after all.
