“Alice is doing what?” I hear Dylan say outside our room. Juliet went into the kitchen and she held this thing to herself for all of two seconds.
“Alice!” Dylan knocks on the door, but doesn’t wait for me to answer. Instead, he just barges in.
“What is this I hear about you wanting to transfer? Are you crazy?”
“No.”
Great. Another person to explain this to. I had less explaining to do to my parents.
“But why?” he asks. I go into all the reasons all over again. I feel myself being less exuberant about it all, though. I’m losing patience with all of these people questioning my decision. Then Dylan calls me on it.
“We’re your friends, you know, right?” Dylan says. “That’s why we don’t want you to leave. We love you.”
That breaks my heart. Dylan’s not one for expressing his feelings well. If at all. He’s from Connecticut, after all.
“I’m sorry I’ve been dragging my feet on this divorce thing. The truth is that the fact that we’re still married makes my dad really angry and I sort of love it. Nothing really fazes him much, and this is really getting under his skin, but I’m going to talk to the family attorney in a few days. I’ll take care of it.”
Finally, an explanation for all the delays. I’m thankful for it, but I also feel like it’s too little too late.
No matter what I say convinces either of them that this is really something I want to do and I’m not just running away from my problems here. I won’t admit it out loud, but they’re basically right. So, we eventually call it a night after agreeing to disagree.
32
When I meet Tea for lunch the following day, she has a completely different reaction to the news. I’m ready to go into a big explanation about all this yet again, but she just nods and says that she understands. She really catches me off guard. So much so that I don’t even know what we’re going to talk about for the rest of lunch since I thought we’d talk about this the whole time.
“So, I finished my book,” Tea announces after we order.
“What?”
“Remember, the romance one about the girl pretending to be a wealthy guy’s fiancée on the cruise?”
“Of course! I can’t believe you’re done with it already.” While I’ve been head-deep in my own drama, Tea managed to write a whole book. Imagine that!
“I’d love for you to read it,” she says.
“Oh my God. Yes, definitely!”
“I can send you an ePub version so you can read it on your phone,” she says.
“Perfect!”
Tea has been working on the book since January and it’s finally done. I’m awed by her dedication. In addition to her classes and Tanner, she has been working on this project and now it’s completed.
“Frankly, I’m really jealous,” I say when our food finally arrives. I ordered a tuna salad and she’s having a grilled chicken panini.
“What? Why?” she says, laughing.
“Because you went out there and did this awesome thing, while I’ve been burying my head in the sand and dealing with all of my stupid problems.”
“Well, another way to think about it is that you’ve been out there living life while I’ve just been writing about someone else’s.”
“Given how this semester has gone, I really wish I had some fictional drama in my life instead of real drama.”
“I know,” she says sympathetically. “It’s been really tough. I’m sorry. I’m sure that when you look back on all this next year, you’ll laugh about it.”
I smile. “Probably not next year. Maybe in ten years.”
“Okay, in ten years.” She smiles.
Tea sends me her book that evening and I plan on just reading a chapter or two, but seven hours later, well past my usual bedtime, I finally finish it. Wow. The characters are so vivid; they seem more real than real people. They practically jump from the page. I don’t remember the last time I devoured a book like that. It’s so different from all the books I’ve read for English classes. Unlike in the books that I’ve read before, the romance and the love in this one was real.
The characters weren’t just people on the page. When they spoke, I heard them. I saw them. I felt them. Their love is real. The girl, Savannah, acted just like I would, or anyone our age. The guy, Tatum, well, Tatum was definitely a better version of any guy I’ve met. It’s as if all of the best qualities of the guys I know, like Hudson and Dylan, were exaggerated to the ninth degree. Don’t get me wrong. He has some bad qualities, too, some insecurities, but nothing that his love can’t help him with.
I lie in bed for close to an hour after finishing Tea’s book, waiting to fall asleep. Unlike all those other sleepless nights I had, the ones that tore me up inside, the ones during which I spent hours beating myself up for all the things that I shouldn’t have said and done and all the things that I should’ve said and done, this night is different. I actually lie in bed thinking about the book. Imagining Tatum and Savannah’s love for each other, their first kiss, their first everything. Unlike all these other books, in this one, Tea didn’t shy away from fading to black. She took me everywhere, describing every touch, every feeling, every sensation, and every smell. In the end? I fell in love with Tatum and Savannah and I had to have more.
Why the hell did you write this book?
I text
