Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 153268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 766(@200wpm)___ 613(@250wpm)___ 511(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 153268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 766(@200wpm)___ 613(@250wpm)___ 511(@300wpm)
“That is enough.” His jaw was so tense, it looked like it was about to snap out of his skin.
“It’s why you taught me how to dance in tenth grade.” I ignored him, stumbling toward him blindly, happily, excitedly. “Why you were never grumpy with me…” I was in a trance, my tongue as loose and unhinged as my thoughts. “…and when we bumped into each other under the mistletoe when I was in eleventh grade, you pressed a Hershey chocolate to my lips and smiled. You said, ‘Same place next year?’”
“Actually, that time I was turning you down politely.” He was swatting me off like I was a fly that had slipped into his shirt.
“You made me a paper ring.” Jesus, how long had he had feelings for me? “You had an Oh Henry! in your drawer for me to steal every time I came over, because I once told you they were my favorite. You always had one ready. Every single time.” I stopped running, wheezing. “They don’t even make them anymore. How the hell did you find them?”
“How did I fin… Does it matter?” He shook his head, raindrops flying from his hair everywhere. “What mattered was that your skinny, anemic ass ate them. You were severely malnourished as a teen. Lived off chicken nuggets and chips.”
I stopped running. He came to a halt too. Everything was drowned out. The world stopped moving.
Row flung his hands in the air, turning to me fully.
“Bitchy,” I said simply. “I’m Bitchy. And you are—”
“Mac.” He completed the sentence, a mocking sneer finding his lips. “Feel cheated?”
I shook my head. No, I didn’t. I couldn’t explain it without sounding deranged, but I had always known, on some level, I was talking to Row all these years. “How did you find me in that forum?”
“I didn’t.” His jaw jumped again. “One night I searched androphobia because I was curious about…something.” He rubbed his cheek with his knuckles. “I was in between shifts working for this asshole chef in Paris. I stumbled upon this forum. You had to sign up to be able to read the threads. You started talking to me.”
I had. I’d liked his name. I’d liked that he’d liked all my comments without ever contributing to the conversation. It had made me feel like there was someone on my side. Row looked everywhere but at me, avoiding eye contact.
“Wait, why did you search androphobia?” I narrowed my eyes. “You’re not afraid of men.”
“I was afraid of a man.” His jawline turned stony. “Everyone is fighting their own demons, Dot.”
“So…we just happen to have the same problem?” I scratched my head, confused. “That seems highly unlikely.”
“Believe it or not, I had no idea that it was you until you came to Staindrop. I mean, I had my suspicions, but I never confirmed it.”
“You lied about your life,” I noted. He’d said he lived in New York and was a measly sous-chef. That he was originally from Philadelphia. That he lived with roommates.
“What was my alternative, telling you that I was a millionaire, a famous chef who made it to People’s ‘Hottest Thirty Under Thirty’?” He arched an eyebrow.
Touché.
“Well, you could’ve told me the second you found out.”
“I tried.” He wrenched a cigarette from his pocket, took one look at my face, and tossed it on the ground, stomping on it in annoyance. “Repeatedly. You kept telling me not to.”
McMonster was Row.
Row was McMonster.
The man I’d thought I might fall in love with was the same man who hated me so much these days he couldn’t even look at me. I didn’t know what to do with this information. I couldn’t even unpack it. Something occurred to me then.
“How did you know I’m, you know, not comfortable with men?”
“How did I…?” He squinted, like I was ant-sized and he had to look carefully to see me. “Maybe because I notice every fucking thing about you?”
I blinked. One, two, five hundred times. He did?
Row tilted his head upward, letting the rain pound on his face, a dark, humorless chuckle escaping him. “Fine. Want the truth? Here’s the truth: No, I didn’t ‘have feelings’ for you.” He air-quoted the words with a sneer. “I was in love with you. Honest to fucking God, full-blown, snatch-my-heart-out-and-let-you-use-it-as-a-stress-ball in love with you.” He looked disgusted with himself for uttering each word. “And you didn’t give half a shit about me.”
That wasn’t true. I had been busy weeding through my adolescent trauma and distracting myself with nineties memorabilia. Reimagining my life without Instagram, and Snapchat, and WhatsApp. I had been drowning while simultaneously pretending everything was going swimmingly. I had felt so broken, so unworthy, the prospect of precious Ambrose Casablancas hadn’t even occurred to me.
Row had seemed as bright and far as a star. Ethereal, out of this world. Wherever galaxy he belonged in, I wasn’t welcome there.