Page 114 of Good at Being Alive
The room is large, already set with chairs and a screen and the lights on a dimmer. While everyone else veers toward the open bottles of wine in back, I move toward the rows of chairs—just as Theo rises from one, more worried than I ever remember seeing him. My heart gives a hard pulse when his gaze meets mine, and tears spring to my eyes. I’m screwed. I love him so much that I’m already slipping, ready to settle for whatever half measures he offers. I’ll be just like Wendy, pining away for the next two decades over a man who doesn’t care quite enough and would never admit it if he did.
The way he stares—as if I’m something he can’t get enough of—might give me hope, except he could have gotten plenty of me. All he had to do was come to my fucking house last night.
I turn away and find a seat near the back, ready to bolt out of here as soon as this trailer is done, and possibly sooner if I can’t get through it without crying.
Lars sets something up and then walks to the front of theroom. “You all saw the original cut of the trailer in Madeira. This is a longer—and very special—version. Particularly special to me because my daughter created it.” He holds out a hand. “Katrina, take a bow.”
What?
There’s a collective gasp across the room, so I’m not the only one who was in the dark.
That explains why she was so adamantly opposed to dating him, I suppose.
She grins at me as she rises.
“I didn’t want to look like a nepo baby,” she says with a shrug, “even if I am one. And I might have done the editing, but credit for the spin we put on this belongs to Theo.”
Theo’s been watching me throughout this conversation. Is that pain on his face, or is itguilt?
“Going with this version of the story is a gamble,” Lars says, “which is why we’re leaving the decision about it to you, Bex.”
Yep. They’re about to make me look really bad. And it was Theo’s idea.
I grip the edges of my seat, more upset and shocked than I’d have thought possible. I’d expected better of these people. I’d expected better of Lars, of Paula and Katrina. I thought we were friends.
Most of all, I expected better of Theo. Because I thought we were a lot more.
Paula hits the lights and we turn to face the screen. Within a few seconds the story begins: footage of the train crash; Kylie telling her followers our company is cursed; Lars saying, “They need to do the show if they’re going to stay afloat.” There’s Theo on our wedding day, asking if he has to kiss me; me in Iceland, pointing at the waterfall and saying, “That’s how wet it makes me when I picture our divorce.”
What the hell? Their plan is to tell everyone it’s fake at the outset? How is that possibly a better solution?
But then Theo’s wrapping an arm around me in the van—Lars must have been filming us on his phone—and saying, “I like you just fine the way you are. You’re quite possibly the best fake wife I’ve ever had.”
There’s us laughing on a balcony and in bed. Our airport kiss in Amsterdam and the stunned look on our faces as we separated.
A conversation between Lars and Paula, one we weren’t privy to. “They’re crazy about each other but Theo is never going to pull the trigger,” Lars tells her.
And Paula says, “What if we forced them to share a room?”
Which I guess explains Paris.
The two of us in the tiny camper in Geiranger, shifting shapes in a darkened room, tripping our way into the bathroom together and shutting the door, followed by our admission that we’d broken the sink and cracked the toilet.
Me in Madeira, saying, “He was always meant to be Bronwyn’s anyway.”
And finally, there’s Theo being interviewed by Lars, but it’s not the interview he did in Madeira. It’s in Lars’s office. Given how worried Theo looks, I imagine it’s very recent.
“I love her,” he says. He’s staring at his hands, unable to look at the camera. “I want the company to make it for our employees’ sake, and for Rick and Kieran, but beyond that I couldn’t care less.”
Something warm and sweet starts to slip through my veins. He didn’t just say he loved me…he put me first. And he told the whole world.
“How do you hope this will end?” Lars asks, off camera.
Theo swallows and runs a hand through his hair, looking upreluctantly. “I just want to end up with her. It hasn’t felt fake to me in a very long time. I just want to end up with her in whatever capacity she’ll have me.”
Everyone applauds as Lars turns on the lights. Theo’s gaze meets mine, even more worried than it was before.
“There you have it, Bex,” says Lars. “It’s risky to present this story instead of the one we’d intended to. You’ll be admitting it began as a lie, which isn’t ideal, I know. It also only works if the story ends happily. Let’s get through tomorrow and you can think about whether we go with Katrina’s iteration or the story as originally planned.”
