Chapter Twenty-Six

I know this pain.

The knowing surprises me, but also brings me a measure of comfort, though that doesn't make it feel any better when Maeve truly doesn't initiate conversation aside from a single message asking for next week's lecture notes. There are no sweet PSes, no flirty asides, she doesn't even write my name on the email. It's as if I've fallen down the ridiculously long chute in Chutes and Ladders after being three steps from winning the damn game.

I thought I'd be more discombobulated, more weepy, more angry over the whole thing. Like I was with Emily. But there's just…nothing. A giant hole in my heart, and I know I'll never fill it again if I can't be who Maeve needs me to be. I want to fix it so badly, I do, but how do I fix who I am?

I don't know. So, I spend the majority of the next week in bed, familiarizing myself with the Cannes lineup and obsessively following the blowup over Charlie's Star Trek homophobia scandal. Gwyn asks if I want her to come over, and I say no. She leaves a pan of lasagna for me to heat up throughout the week on my doorstep anyway.

Usually, I can feign productivity for most of the day. Charlie's on auditions and living his life, so he's often out late. I hate to admit how much of a comfort his presence is when he is at home, though, hanging on my living room couch, forcing me out of bed to work near him. We don't talk much. I fear talking is just going to make me spiral. I'm trying to postpone the realization that Wednesday's going to be here before I know it, and I'll have to actually face the fact that I haven't magically become a person worthy of Maeve. I was the worst version of me—selfish and insecure and disrespectful. I'm terrified that on Wednesday, that one last bit of hope I have, that she'll realize I can be forgiven, will be extinguished once and for all.

Sunday night, though, less than seventy-two hours before I have to face Maeve again, I'm paralyzed. Paralyzed by anger at myself for promising this time would be different even as I fell back into hiding the way I used to with Emily. And I'm paralyzed by the thought of having to show up at Cannes and seem not only intelligent, charming, and worldly, but also fucking happy about being there. That I'll have to swallow my pain and deflect any questions about why Maeve isn't with me. Something that should make me so happy is making me feel like I've been dunked under water and I'm unable to breathe.

"Hey," Charlie says, my door whining as he opens it. "You decent?"

That sort of silly commentary would usually make me laugh. I pull up the covers, further burying me and Eustace. "Yeah."

He pads his way over to me and jumps into bed. "So…can I sleep here tonight?"

My heart jolts a little. He's up to something, clearly, but I don't have the energy to find out what it is. "Sure."

"Cool, 'cause, uh, I was in my room and I heard those creepy loud footsteps you're always talking about. I—yeah, I really do think your house infested by a demon."

Amazingly, this fills me with both body-wracking fear and excitement. I'd been—I'd been trying to convince Maeve that the haunting was real for months, even though she said believing in ghosts was like believing in fairies. But she'd always listen to my theories and stories anyway. "Cool."

"It's not cool," Charlie says, his voice getting higher. "It's fucking freaky, but I feel safer with you here, you lump, so thank you."

"No problem."

He wraps his arms around me, pushing up against me so we share body heat. It relaxes my shoulders. "I think you should talk to Maeve."

I wince like Charlie's carving Maeve's name into me instead of rubbing my back. "Don't go there, Charlie."

"I mean I don't think she even knows why she's asking for this break." It's unlike him to be this bold. But I can't summon the energy to leave this conversation. "I mean, all this over a scheduling conflict and you two touched each other's nerves. It's nothing a conversation can't fix."

As if I don't know that. As if I haven't tried to rationalize it that way all week. "Yet she's been radio silent for days. If she wanted to resolve things, she would've reached out."

"Okay, so she's taken her sweet time to cool off. That doesn't mean—"

I whip around, tears burning in my eyes. "Just drop it, okay? There's nothing I can do to fix this. Let me mourn this relationship in peace. I have to get ready to go to Cannes and build upon the one aspect of my life that's going well."

"What even happened in your fight? Like, where exactly did you two leave off?"

My heartbeat picks up just thinking about it. "I thought she was pissed, and she was, but it was—it was like she was disappointed in me. Like I'm one of her fucking students. She said that I—that I wasn't listening to her."

"About what?"

"Her, I don't know. Being sad that I didn't tell her about Cannes."

Charlie stares at me, long and hard. "Okay. That seems very normal."

"She's been against the celebrity thing since we met. Then with the Oscars—"

"Which she went to and told both of us she enjoyed."

"She just…" I pause, taking a deep breath. "She won't forgive me. What's space going to do? She'll end it just like Emily did."

Charlie takes his own deep breath. "Val, you're not going to want to hear this, but look at me." His blue eyes have never seemed brighter. "You need to be honest with her. But more than that, you need to face your fears. Maeve isn't Emily. Emily was an asshole who never respected you and was looking for any excuse to get out of a relationship with you and look like the victim doing it. But you're not in England right now. Years have passed, and Maeve is a new person. You're not in a relationship where you know the ending. You get to learn another person's whole set of flaws and methods. And, if Maeve's also a good girlfriend, she'll do the same for you. And it seems like she is trying to do that! She literally told you what hurt her about what you did. Yes, this could've been resolved without her needing a break, but that's her own shit. So tell her you're sorry and try to bridge the gap."

"We can't resolve this. Telling her what was going through my head while I was lying to her doesn't matter. The effect is what it is."

I expect Charlie to bat the spike right back at me. But he doesn't. He just lies there, eyes on Eustace as he frowns, brings his face back to neutral, and then frowns again. "You're self-sabotaging."

I snort. "And that means what exactly?"

I shouldn't be acting this bitchy to him. He's done nothing wrong, has supported me through so much. We're supposed to be such deep friends, yet he couldn't even rely on me enough to be honest with me about Star Trek. And that's probably my fault too, for not making him feel safe, not letting him know I would shoulder his worries. I've failed him just like I failed Maeve.

He reaches over. I bristle on instinct, but he's going to Eustace, not me. My ears go hot as he strokes my dog's soft back. "You're the reason I might have a job. You've successfully directed a film, juggled dozens of projects, and gotten a PhD. Your first film got into, and I cannot emphasize this enough, fucking Cannes. You can see how Emily is fucking up this relationship, right?"

I can see it in the facts, from comparing and contrasting Emily's and Maeve's reactions like a student. But that doesn't mean I can escape the drowning feeling at the thought of talking to Maeve again. "It doesn't change how it makes me feel."

"That's what therapy is for. Go pick yourself back up and figure out how to be a good girlfriend. I know that's the real you. Not this."

I'm not like Charlie. I'm not good like Charlie. Charlie never let anyone down, Charlie didn't prioritize his anxiety over the livelihood of someone he loved. Charlie didn't roll over and say that his mistake was an inherent character flaw rather than owning up to it. Charlie hasn't spent years cycling through one-night stands like disposable razors because emotion was too difficult. So I believe in Charlie more than I've ever believed in myself. I believe he deserves his Star Trek job back.

I don't believe I deserve Maeve back. Not right now.

"Can we talk about the demon?" I ask.

Charlie sighs deeply, his body pressing against mine. "Yeah. Dude, you need an exorcist. Or at least to get featured on one of those celebrity haunting shows."

And maybe the laughter releases something in me, or maybe Charlie's words made more of an impression than I was willing to believe, but I realize something.

I can do more than I'm doing.

For the first time in years, when Rosalie asks me about my week during our session nearly two weeks after Maeve's and my break, I don't know where to start. Her concern is palpable—I notice it in her subtle facial movements. The way her lips are slightly downturned, the tiny line between her brows. And I know why; I fucking walked into the office in sweats and a hoodie and am currently curled on her couch in the fetal position. I know I have to tell her what happened, or she'll spend the whole session badgering me.

"Oakley in Flames got into Cannes, and Maeve and I are on a break," I say. Just to get it out. Just so maybe Rosalie can pick the most important topic.

And her bug-eyed expression tells me all I need to know: I've brought some serious shit into her office. She's maybe given me that look, like, twice, in a decade of dealing with my bullshit.

"That sounds overwhelming," she says. "Do you have any idea what you'd like to focus on for the session?"

Fuck. Well, so much for the Rosalie Guide Me plan. As if I even know what I want out of this session. I can't be a better person while my brain's like this. "I want to feel happy again."

The words surprise me as much as they do Rosalie. It's like a wake-up shot at a juice bar, my heart is suddenly beating really fast, my blood is buzzing. Happy.

"What does that look like for you?" Rosalie asks, recrossing her legs and regaining her signature composure.

"What do you mean?"

Rosalie chews on her inner cheek for a moment. "What's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word happiness?"

The answers ping-pong through my brain. Spending time with Maeve. Seeing the positive reactions to Charlie's letter. Celebrating Oz and Lily's birthday. Coming out publicly. Having Luna listen to me as I rambled on about kitsch in a Burger King at 2:00 a.m. The twins' birth.

"I'm not— It's so weird," I say. "Nothing is career-related."

"How does that make you feel?"

"I'm…" I rub my forearms. "I guess that surprises me. Because I—I don't know. I think I was happy when I won the Oscar, when I worked with Mason on Goodbye, Richard!, when Oakley in Flames got into Cannes. I mean, those things should make me happy, shouldn't they?"

"In theory, yes, but that doesn't mean on-paper accomplishments really brought you joy. Maybe you respond more to a different type of happiness."

As she says it, though, I find myself fixating on a specific memory. Mason and I, after I came out, did a sort of what we called Goodbye, Richard! redux press series. The movie had gotten an extended release in theaters, and Mason basically said now that I was out, we could be completely open about what the movie was really about. We must've gone on half a dozen late-night shows, done smaller interviews, even BuzzFeed-style QA's. I remember feeling euphoric throughout the entire process. Like every inhibition and anxious thought I usually had when I do press was just gone. I was just joking around with Mason and talking about queer cinema and representation and artistry as if the two of us were alone. The audiences energized me rather than stole from me.

"I remember this one interview with Mason in particular," I say, not even bothering to give Rosalie the context. "Writers Interview Actors. They just put me and Mason in a room together and said to just ask each other whatever. We knew each other so well that at first we were just idiots and asked each other what we were making for dinner that night and our Tupac death theories. But as the interview went on, we started talking about queer representation and what stories meant to us and what it means to tell a liberation story through violence and it just— I felt like I had a moment where I knew everything had been worth it, that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. That I was the real me."

Rosalie exhales slowly. "And you feel like you haven't had that since?"

"No." I'm back to rubbing my arm. "I—I think I got close. When I took this TV directing job and we had hope that Oakley would get picked up. I had this whole vision for my career where I could be more than someone else's mouthpiece for a message that didn't resonate with me. Directing was going to give me an outlet to really say something, to take on projects that were more cerebral and vulnerable, like Stroke. I wanted to be taken seriously, but then the interviews started going south and the thing with Winston happened and everything fell apart."

Rosalie pauses. Really pauses, like she might be uncertain about how I'll react to what she's about to say. "Did everything fall apart that night? What changed in your mind?"

"I realized that my ideas weren't going to be taken seriously. The last time I'd felt my ideas validated was in academia, so I thought it was destiny to go back in that direction."

"Did you find what you were looking for in academia?"

The answer comes so quick that I almost feel knocked out of my own body. "No." I think about the students who still ask me about Hollywood, about all the hoops Maeve has to go through just to get to teach her own class, what my future would look like as an adjunct. It wouldn't be better, even with my celebrity privilege. "It was just different."

"When you think about having to do another interview for your new film, what comes to mind? What impact did the interview with Winston have on you? What would've happened if you'd just done the guest-teaching gig and gone back to your career in Hollywood?"

All this time, and I don't think I've revisited that car ride with Trish after the interview. Everything felt so out of control, so awful, that I took the first balm available to me. It happened to be this guest-teaching gig. But I'm starting to wonder if the wound would've healed regardless. What would've happened if I'd kept pursuing directing? Would Maeve and I have still dated? Would I have taken that HBO gig and…actually felt good about it? It was such a good script, and there was directing potential.

But it also would've meant going back on the late-night circuit earlier than this week. Returning to that awful gay question cycle.

"All I can feel is this—this overwhelming fear and anxiety that I just can't shut down." My head aches. "I don't—I don't know how I did it before. Looking back, I can't think of a time I didn't feel this way. Like I had to fight through tar to get anywhere I wanted to go. I guess there must have been times that were easier than others, where I saw my path clearly and knew what to say and how to conjure my best self for people. I wanted to be the best version of myself for this class. But I also went into the teaching with an expectation. I just keep thinking, If I get this, then the anxiety will go away. It'll get easier. I'll be able to deal with things like what happened with Winston without it bringing me to my knees. But it—"

But it's like Charlie said.

There will always be more.

There will always be social anxiety, there will always be my health conditions, there will always be this fear that my parents were right, that I chose a path for myself that has no value and prevents me from living a fulfilling life. Fame is never going to get easier. I'm never going to be able to just make art and escape into a corner and not be bothered.

"Never will." I finish. "I just have to learn how to deal with it better. No matter whether I switch jobs or not. And I really love directing." Something buzzes in me, from my fingertips to my brain. "And I'm really excited for what's coming next." A smile spreads on my face. "After thinking I had no talent in directing, the board at one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world said I did. That's—" I put my face in my hands, feeling like a giddy child again. "That's unbelievable."

I'm so excited for what's coming next, yet I ran from it. Even with the elation from the Cannes news finally able to be, there's still that twist of anxiety as I sit in Rosalie's office. And maybe more than that. It's pain. Pure, virulent pain. It all comes back to my coming out. After years holding myself afloat thinking maybe the world I loved could embrace the real me, they could only take me in a specific package. Put a bow on it, but it was rejection. Letting go of that fantasy as I went through the press circuit fucking sucked. I told myself I couldn't take it and so I abandoned a career I fucking love.

I never stopped caring about my acting and directing. I wanted Oakley to get into Cannes.

And it did. That film is wholly, nerves-exposingly mine and everything I ever wanted to say about my sexuality, and it's going to compete at Cannes. I'm tired of pushing away my wishes for it. I want it to perform well. I want to do everything I can to make sure that happens. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I've already wasted two months pushing it down and telling myself it meant nothing. I should be celebrating it.

My dream came true two months ago, and I didn't tell the person I love. Of course Maeve was upset about it. Of course she'd need a break after I couldn't even process that. I should be at my career high; Maeve should be able to look at me and be proud, like I'll be when she gets that grant. Charlie was right. I'm done sabotaging myself. I'm going to fight for Oakley, for my creative future, and I'm going to fight for Maeve.

I never want her to feel left out of my life again.

Still, I can't just psych myself up for Cannes and expect that happiness will come to me because I want it to. I can't just wait for the divine intervention of love to pull me up by my bootstraps and win Maeve back for me. But I can help make my life easier.

I take a deep breath. "Can we talk about medication again?"

Rosalie's expression softens. She picks up her clipboard and writes something down. "Of course. You know I can't prescribe it, but your GP should be able to, and I can help you monitor it from a mental health standpoint. You can get a psychiatrist as needed."

And for once in my life, hearing the word medication doesn't spin my heart into a frenzy. In fact, it slows my heart down. The only thing buzzing is my brain, but it's the kind of buzzing I get before sitting down and watching a movie I love. It's—it's hope.

It's been so long since I had hope.