Nothing Like the Movies
: Chapter 22

Liz

I was pacing around the production office when I heard the door open.

“That is quite the story,” Clark said, walking over to his desk and dropping his gear.

“Finally,” I said, so happy to see him. I’d blown off my class to wait for him, and it’d been killing me. I’d been pacing like a caged animal, wondering if he was asking Lilith’s questions properly, if Wes was answering him, and if Lilith was going to kill me for my unprofessionalism. “Oh my God, tell me everything that happened. And I’m so sorry for falling apart.”

“Don’t apologize—I get it now,” he said, taking the scrunchie off his wrist and pulling his hair up. “The entire time I walked down here I’ve been thinking about how poor little freshman Lizard must’ve been so sad.”

“Wait—did he mention me?” I asked, scared of the answer.

“Oh, no, he was very careful about that.” Clark crossed his arms and said, “He never even mentioned he had a girlfriend when his dad died.”

“Oh. Good,” I said, relieved. “Now tell me everything he said.”

“I don’t have time,” he said, glancing down at his watch. “I’m late as it is, but you’re going to die when you hear the story. Just pull the card and watch it yourself.”

“Okay. Thank you so much, by the way,” I said, standing to hug him. “I really appreciate you saving my ass.”

“What are boyfriends for?” he teased, hugging me back. “I think Lilith is going to love what your boy gave us.”

“He’s not my boy,” I said defensively, irritated that he’d say that.

“The way you’re focusing on that and not what I said about Lilith speaks volumes.” Clark stepped away from me and grabbed his backpack from under his cubicle. “Text me what you think.”

“I’ll probably show it to Lilith and then text you,” I said, dreading the fact that I was going to have to show her what an absolute unprofessional I was. She was going to have video proof that I’d lied when I said I could be professional with Wes.

“Cool, cool,” he said, and then he was gone.

I took a deep breath, for some reason ridiculously nervous to watch the interview. I’d purposely avoided filling in the blanks via internet research once I knew I’d be interviewing Wes, so I still didn’t know the logistics of how he came back. I was dying to replace out, but for some reason, the thought of watching him tell the story filled me with dread.

I sighed and loaded the drive, knowing with absolute certainty that I was going to hate what I saw.

But it wasn’t just bad—it was awful.

The worst thing I’d ever seen.

Because it couldn’t have been more than thirty minutes of content, with only a few questions I hadn’t seen on Lilith’s list, but so many of his answers seemed wrong. Weren’t they? They couldn’t be right, because I’d been there at the time and had known nothing about the things he was saying.

In my recollection, he found out his dad died, and after the funeral he decided to take the semester off because he missed his dad too much to play baseball. It’d gutted him, realizing that he literally couldn’t touch a ball without feeling physically ill, but I told him it was fine.

Because it was.

I didn’t care if he ever played baseball again.

He took a job at Hy-Vee so he’d be able to afford school second semester (in Omaha), and I used to talk to him every night when he got off work.

So where, in that, did these things he said to Clark fit in?

Had his mother had a breakdown and Wes had to take care of his family? And if the answer to that was yes, why hadn’t he told me? And my heart was in my throat when he answered the question about his friends back at UCLA, because I couldn’t help but wonder.

Was he talking about me?

It felt like he was.

Had it really been like that for him?

I’d loved texting and FaceTiming every day, and I thought he had too. We used to joke that there was something kind of fun about it, even while it sucked, and we laughed that when he got back to school the next fall, we’d probably miss little things about it.

Like the way he always took a screenshot of our FaceTime calls before we hung up.

I’d felt bad for him that he wasn’t in school and had to work, but in my wildest dreams, I hadn’t imagined that he was the one taking care of his family.

Escrow statements and rewiring the thermostat?

He hadn’t been able to trust me—was that it? He’d felt like he couldn’t tell me that his world had collapsed? I remembered him celebrating my tiny school victories via FaceTime, seeming excited when I shared little anecdotes from my music classes; was that a factor? Had I made him embarrassed? Had I been too obtuse?

Should I have known?

When the video stopped, I took it out and went up to Lilith’s office. Clark was right—she was going to love Wes’s interview. His story about begging for a tryout, then driving cross-country all night with his sister? Even I loved that part because wow—what a gamble.

What a perfect ending.

It also made me miss Sarah, who I hadn’t thought of in ages.

Lilith’s door was closed when I got to her office, and I was nervous to knock. There was no doubt she’d love the interview, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to lose total respect for me, given the fact that I’d choked.

I took a deep breath and knocked, feeling like a naughty child when she said, “Come in,” and I nervously opened the door. “Do you have a sec?”

“Of course—come in. What’s up?”

I took another deep breath and started talking as I entered. “We finished Wes Bennett’s interview, and I wanted you to take a look. Now, I—”

“Ooh, gimme,” she said, standing and reaching for the drive in my hand. “Thank you so much for making it a priority.”

“Yeah, um, here’s the thing,” I said, handing it her, unsure how to even explain what happened. “I started the interview, but we didn’t get very far before I stepped out and Clark stepped in with the questions.”

She looked at me over the top of her glasses. “Was he out of line?”

“No,” I corrected, “nothing like that. He was helping me.”

“Okay, well, let’s watch it. No worries.”

It took Lilith no time to have the interview loaded up and playing on her wall monitor.

She steepled her fingers under her chin and watched without a word, her face unreadable. I squirmed in my chair when it got to the part where I stood up and sounded like an unprofessional teenager with my whole I can’t do this thing, but Lilith’s expression didn’t change.

And this time, I watched Wes watching me freak out, which made my stomach flip. A wrinkle formed between his eyebrows, and he looked up at me from his conference room chair with a million questions in his eyes, almost as if he was asking how it was that I couldn’t do it when he was the one who’d lived it.

Yeah, fair.

Lilith sat perfectly still until the interview ended.

My armpits were sweaty, and I knew my cheeks were beet red.

“Wow,” she finally said, looking across the desk at me. “I already knew the general story, but I am still blown away. Great interview.”

“Thanks,” I said, waiting for the rest.

“And I have thoughts about Clark’s unexpected on-screen appearance.”

Aaand here it is.

“Obviously you were struggling, so your intuition—with Clark—was spot-on. It gets so much better when they’re talking.” She was nodding while she said, “I’m not sure if Wes opens up better with a guy, or maybe it has to do with the fact that the two of you dated, but it’s like a night-and-day difference. Don’t you think?”

“Yes, I do,” I agreed, relief flooding me that she wasn’t mad.

“Okay, great,” Lilith said, grabbing a pen and writing something in her planner. “I have a million ideas now that are bouncing through my brain, so I need to organize them before they disappear. However, before you go, I wanted to tell you that I watched the Reel you sent over, and I love it. Post it.”

“Already?” My voice was a little too high-pitched, but Lilith’s glowing endorsement was too fantastic for my voice to remain at normal human decibel range.

“It’s perfection—don’t change a thing.”

“Thank you,” I said, beaming like a kid who’d just given her art project to Mommy.

Lilith’s praise had me buzzing as I scrambled to make it to my next class on time. It’s perfection—don’t change a thing. I was at a near-run toward Schoenberg Hall when I remembered that I told Clark I’d text him.

I pulled out my phone without slowing, but when I unlocked it, I had an unread text.

From Wes.

I stumbled to a stop, making people go around me as I tapped the message. I was frozen in place, because why would he be texting me?

Wes: You okay?

I blinked and definitely wasn’t okay. Not now.

Because why would he send me a message like that? I glanced at the time of the text, and he’d obviously sent it sometime after I left him in Clark’s interviewing hands.

I had a meltdown and left, which made him send me a text.

Asking if I was okay.

I knew I should probably respond with something like I’m good, but how are YOU? or maybe I am—thanks for checking!, because he was being nice.

Thoughtful.

But as I kept rereading those two words, hearing them in his voice, I hated all the feelings they elicited.

I didn’t have feelings about him anymore, dammit.

I put the phone away and went to class, irritated that I was irritated after Lilith had been happy with my Reel. I should be skipping across campus, but as I took my seat in the lecture hall and rifled for a pencil, I realized that Wes’s thoughtfulness had really ruined my mood.

So that night, when I was sitting on the couch, eating beef Top Ramen straight from the pot in front of Gilmore Girls, I wanted to scream when Clark dared to plop down beside me and say, “How would you feel about me being friends with your ex?”

I slurped up the noodles while glaring at him. “What does that even mean? Has he offered you a spot in his posse or something?”

He sighed patiently, staring directly at the curly noodles disappearing into my mouth while Kirk performed “The Journey of Man” on the TV. “It just means I really like the guy and don’t want you to be pissed that I do.”

“Yeah, well, he’s a really likeable guy.” Had anyone ever not liked Wes? I wasn’t a child, and I couldn’t tell Clark who he could be friends with, but it annoyed me at that particular moment. “So are a lot of people. I mean, do whatever you want, as long as I’m still number one.”

“Don’t pout; of course you are,” he said, putting his feet up on the coffee table. “But hear me out about something. You should maybe forgive him for breaking your heart. It was a long time ago, and he was going through a lot at the time.”

“What?” I kind of yelled it. “Are you serious right now?”

“I just, like, sense he wants to be your friend.”

“Oh, so you’re high right now,” I corrected, insulted by the way he was butting his nose into a past he knew nothing about.

“For the love of God, Liz, I just felt it this morning, okay? Like, I could see it in his eyes when he looked at you.”

“Yeah, well, those eyes cheated on me, so no.” I gritted my teeth, steeling myself against the anger that was supposed to be gone by now, and said, “I have no ill will regarding Wes, and I wish him the best, but I’m content to stay very far away from him, thank you.”

“He cheated?” Now Clark was the one kind of yelling, his eyes huge in his face. “He cheated on you? I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not my favorite thing to discuss.”

“I can’t believe it,” he said, shaking his head slowly as if I’d just told him Wes was an actual vampire.

“Right?”

“It’s just so hard to believe,” he said, looking shocked. “He just doesn’t seem the type.”

“Trust me, I know,” I replied, really wanting him to shut up about it.

“Are you sure?” he asked, his eyes narrowing. “I mean, it’s just impossible to believe—”

“Oh my God, I don’t want to talk about this, okay?” I dropped the silver pot on the coffee table and stood. “Be his friend, I don’t care, but please just stop talking about him.”

I went into my room and slammed the door, so frustrated that I wanted to throw something. After a long day of shutting out unwelcome emotions regarding Wes, I’d just wanted to come home and escape. To watch comfort TV and think about nothing.

Instead, I was treated to my best friend asking me if I was sure Wes had cheated on me.

Was I sure?

What kind of question was that?

Wes Bennett had looked me in the eye, on New Year’s Day, and told me that he had.