know why I assumed they would have been in on it. “How did they think you got the money?”
“I said Michael sent it from New York.”
“And they believed you?”
He shrugs. “I think at that point they didn’t want to look too closely. They just wanted Luther to get better. But that means when I got home,” Sam says, turning to me, “I was the only one who knew what I did.” He quickly holds up his hands. “I’m not saying it was as hard on me as it was on you, okay, not even close. But I was relieved for Luther, and then at the same time I was being eaten alive by guilt.” He looks over my shoulder, remembering. “You had that interview with Barbara Walters, and then pretty soon after that you were cast in Evil Darlings. When I got that news, I went out to the bar and got so drunk that my friend had to drive me home in his tractor.”
“What?” I ask, confused. Was he upset that I went into the industry? “Why?”
“Because I’d been crazy about you. Completely fucking obsessed. And for the first time it occurred to me how stupid I’d been,” he says. “How reckless with you. My life went on the way it always had, for the most part. I assumed you’d get a flash of attention and then your life would go back to the way it was before, too—college, living in Northern California, whatever—it never occurred to me that it might not. That your life might have been totally ruined by what I did. How dumb was I? You turned the exposure into something good, but you could have just as easily gone the other way. How would I have felt if I’d heard about you using drugs, or—worse? What if what I did had caused real damage in your life?” He blinks into focus and looks back at me. “I really could have fucked things up.”
I laugh dryly, sipping my coffee. “You did fuck things up.”
“But look at you. You’re doing okay,” he says, and then very quietly adds, “right?”
“I’m doing okay.” I chew my lip, debating how much to admit, and why the desire to tell him I’m not always thriving has risen to the surface. Is it because I want him to still feel a little bad? Or is it something else in me, something kinder that wants to tell him because I want him to know me better? “I’m still not great with relationships. I haven’t been since.”
Sam’s brow pulls low, and he blinks down to his hands. “I read about lots of them.”
“Most of them have been coordinated,” I say. “Publicity only.”
“Chris?” he asks, and there’s a vibration in his voice, a layer beneath casual that feels darker, a little gravelly.
“We were real for a while, but he was a mess.” Self-conscious now, I lift my thumb to my lips, chew my nail. “For a long time, we weren’t together anymore but we kept up the facade.”
“I saw you with Nick,” he says. “That night.”
The night we got drunk and kissed. Idiots. “I know.”
“Are you two . . . ?”
I shake my head, embarrassed all over again. “I was messy that night. Over all this.” I wave between us, but then widen it to include everything this set has contained—the pressure of a high-profile, character-driven role, the presence of a world-renowned director, and of course my dad.
He makes a little sound, a tiny “Ah” in acknowledgment, but it makes me crazy, wanting to dig a little deeper to know what he’s thinking. I mean, how much can this really bother him? He’s with someone else, after all. He goes upstairs to call her almost every night after dinner. And he chose our current circumstances. It’s not like he gets to play jealous ex here.
“Anyway,” I say, wishing I hadn’t brought up any of this now. “I hate sometimes that I haven’t fallen in love since London.” It feels like too much as soon as I’ve said it, and I quickly add, “But I know I will someday.”
I feel exposed in a way that he isn’t—he’s settled, with children, healthy. But I don’t want to be the broken bird anymore. I’m tired of suffering from an emotional limp through every relationship I have, even this new friendship—is that what this is?—I’m trying to forge with Sam. Honesty, clarity, and closure. That’s what I need here.
He smiles, and I can imagine the comma scar there beneath