of the things he lied about wouldn’t have even mattered to me, but he still felt the need to lie.”
She shakes her head. “What you need to understand is that males are just naturally less intelligent. Especially when it comes to emotions and relationships and…everything really. The list is endless.”
“I’m not sure that’s backed by any actual science.”
“No. But it makes sense, doesn’t it? Do you know why I kicked Matías out over a year ago?” she asks, head cocked. “Because his assistant was in love with him and he refused to see it. She’d text him about work at all hours. Make overly familiar little comments. Even cooked for him. Casseroles, cookies, you name it. I can’t cook for shit, but like we didn’t already have a chef on staff. And Matias refused to see it, flat out would not set boundaries with the woman. Even when she turned up for the second time all dressed up with surprise urgent documents for him to sign when she knew that I’d be out. Such bullshit!”
“Huh.”
“He suggested we go to therapy to deal with my jealousy issues. When all along, he just needed to tell this woman it was never going to happen.”
“I had no idea,” I say.
“Nice guys are the worst. So clueless. It wasn’t even like I was insisting he fire her or something. He just needed to wise up and set some limits.”
“That’s very reasonable of you, really.” I’m not saying I’m surprised, but I am. “Not sure I’d be that nice in your shoes.”
“Don’t get me wrong—I wanted to kick the girl’s ass. But she’s not the one who made me promises. He was. And the thing is, despite all of this, he’s still the one. I knew it all along. There he is in my head, up on a little pedestal flashing me his smile.” She groans. “I can’t help it. I love him. A thing Mom once told me that seems pertinent is this: even heroes fuck up sometimes. At the end of the day, they too are only human.”
I snort. “She has a point.”
“So, tell me everything that went down between you and my little brother. Don’t leave out a single detail.”
“Oh, I’m not sure—”
“Alice, I like you. I don’t like many people,” she states. “I especially don’t like many of the people who’ve tried to date my brothers. Even the rare ones who did happen to make them happy upon occasion. Maybe you and Beck will get back together, maybe you won’t. But sometimes you just need to lay everything on a friend. I’m sitting right here. Let me be that for you.”
And regurgitating the whole thing is going to hurt. That’s a given. But then, keeping quiet and isolating myself has done me absolutely no good in the past. The exact opposite, in fact. It’s a bad habit I need to break. Because I haven’t even tried reaching out to my own family or friends yet. Meanwhile, Emma just waits, her gaze patient and understanding, even. She’s been here too. That was the point of her sharing the story with me. Heartbreak sucks and keeping it to yourself doesn’t make it any better.
“Okay,” I say, the stupid tears coming all over again. “All right, I’ll talk.”
In the afternoon, Mrs. Francis delivers an item of mail. Only my first name is scrawled on the front. Inside the envelope there’s a copy of the contract I signed. Someone has helpfully highlighted the section on what my payout would be should the relationship with Beck be terminated. There’s also a smaller envelope full of ashes, weirdly enough. NDA is written on the front. Guess I’m no longer bound by that. There are also copies of emails detailing donations to the various charities and businesses I’d been recently researching. Which is great for them. It’s a start.
Living in this bubble of depression sucks. I want to shake it off, but it keeps right on weighing me down. If the harm done by the idiot in my last year of college stung, then Beck’s betrayal is about a million times worse. Every part of me feels hurt and I hate being this fragile. That’s he’s in pain too just makes it a million times worse. I also hate not having an answer for how to instantly fix things between us. Maybe I should go back to college and do some more psychology. Learn about relationships, maybe.
Someone, however, who isn’t in school where he belongs is Henry. “Fam,”