Page 84 of Love Scenes

Even though I don’t—not really, at least—I give one anyways. Because that’s who I am to her. Her big sister. The one who is brave and says what she feels and finds solutions in impossibleplaces. “It didn’t change. We just got lazy. Wrapped up in our own stuff.”

“I wanted to be there. I didn’t know how,” she admits.

“Hey.” I lick my thumb, then wipe the mascara smudge running along the side of her face. “It really wasn’t all you. This is my fault too.” I think for a minute, looking at her sad eyes. Knowing how much she hates to be this broken. How she only does this for the people she really trusts. “Here’s what we do. Once a month, you spend the night at my place. The two of us.”

Her expression shifts, something hopeful blooming in the hairline cracks between us.

“And then every other week, or maybe more depending on our schedules, you and Mara come over for dinner. And Opal. The whole squad.”

She breaks into her real, full grin, the one she shows to so few people that seeing it is like being handed a piece of the stars. “I’dlovethat.” Then she licks her finger and tries to run it across my cheek.

“Ew. I don’t want your spit on my face!” I yell.

“You just did this to me five seconds ago.”

“That was different.”

“Different how?”

“I don’t know. Different. Get your gross hands away from me.”

She pulls back, another genuine smile plastered across her face. “Thanks, Bub,” she says, as if she’s the one who stormed off set, in desperate need of saving.

“No. Thank you.” I hit her shoulder. “I hate you. Don’t forget it.”

She walks with me to hair and makeup, an arm wrapped around my shoulders. One of our makeup artists silently puts anice mask over my eyes to take down the puffiness while a hairstylist runs her fingers through my pin curls, basically giving me a head massage.

These are luxuries I’m taking as commonplace. I’m being cared for by people who don’t know why I’ve been sobbing, though I’m sure they have a pretty good idea. They only know that it’s their job to make me shiny and new. They care for me with such delicate hands it makes me want to cry again, which would be the rudest possible choice to make. It’smyjob to keep going. To make sure everyone here can leave set knowing we’ve gotten the necessary work done. To not be the spoiled daughter who got this role through sheer nepotism alone, doing whatever she pleases.

Tyler leans against the makeup counter, cleaning her face with one of the makeup remover wipes. The sight of which should not incite as much of an emotional response in me as it does. I let it pass, feeling the cool ice soothe my swollen eyes.

She kicks my leg with her boot. “Can I say one more thing?”

I have no idea what’s about to come out of her mouth, but from her tone, it’s going to be personal. The hair and makeup people are always the first to hear the real gossip, so I give her a quick nod of approval, throwing my rules out the window.

“We all went to a full-on movie premiere the day after Kearns broke up with you,” she reminds me. “And you were so happy. The best mood I’d seen you in for months.”

It’s less revealing than I expect, while also being more insightful than I’m ready to deal with at the moment. It’s not everything, but it explains a little why she didn’t think I needed her. Though I don’t think that’s the point she’s trying to make.

“What am I supposed to do?” I ask.

“Whatever that line is Dad told you that you always quote. Put pride behind your happiness, or something.”

“Never let your pride get in the way of your happiness.”

“There it is.” She tosses her wipe into the trash. “Do that.”

“As if it’s that easy,” I say. Then I shake my head.

No more bitter rejection of uncomfortable truths.

“I’ll try,” I tell her. “I promise.”

22

I knock on his door. Once. Twice. All the way to six times. Then I stand waiting, plunged in the half darkness of a morning on the verge of coming awake. The trailer door swings open a quarter of the way.

Joe waits out of view, only his fingers in sight, curled around the locking mechanism.