Chapter Twenty-Four

I dreamed about Orion chopping wood, only instead of wood, it was soccer balls. Except in the dream I didn't realize it immediately, and it didn't seem like he did either. We were both just there while he chopped wood, and then suddenly it was soccer balls; we were surrounded by diced-up and deflated soccer balls. The bits were gathering around our ankles and he kept going, and when he looked up at me he was terrified.

I can't stop, Orion said in my dream, eyes locked on mine even as his body continued moving through the motions of chopping wood.

When I woke up, heart pounding, neck aching, sweating into my sleeping bag, it took me a few seconds to fully inhabit myself again. I was comforted by the constant blowing of sand against my car, the slight rocking in the wind. I didn't want to reach out of my sleeping bag for my phone, but I could tell it was early because even here at sea level, the sun wasn't really up.

It would probably still be full dark in the mountains. I imagined Orion asleep beneath his quilts. Would the snow be melted yet? Had he fixed his garage? Should I send a message to him through his publicist with my contact info so he could tell me what I owed him, or would that seem too transparently a ploy for him to call me?

Was it a ploy for him to call me? It wasn't as if he needed my financial help to fix his garage. But I was the one who'd broken it.

I couldn't work out what percentage of me was just trying to get my phone number to Orion Broderick, so I abandoned the idea for later contemplation.

I had obscurely hoped that I'd wake up and everything would suddenly make sense. The bright new day would clarify my priorities and next actions, the sea would bring me a refreshing feeling of peace, and the future would roll out before me like the plush red carpet at the kind of gala that just might change your life.

A few hours of lousy, spine-twisting sleep had not filled me with anything but sore muscles and what might be a permanent twinge in my neck each time I tried to look to the left.

I was never particularly invested in my own death, but I was beginning to think it would kind of just ... be nice to stop thinking so hard? Not to make light of actual suicide, but I'd always imagined it as some big, significant, weighty thing, this massive decision that alters not just your own life but a lot of other people's too. Yet in this moment the idea of walking out into the ocean and not coming back just sounded calming. Not like a big decision at all, but a very, very small one.

There wasn't much else going for me. Would anyone even know? Or care? Who would pay for my cremation? It certainly wasn't coming out of my estate, which was basically the contents of my car, a bed back in LA, and that final paycheck I'd just received, which was the only reason I could look forward to a cup of coffee.

I did look forward to a cup of coffee. The thought of it made me less inclined to walk into the sea. Though I thought some more about it, with that dream of Orion staring at me with frightened eyes saying I can't stop over and over again.

Which was when, you know, I realized that I was seriously thinking about drowning as an alternative to trying to figure out what the hell I should do with my life, and thinking about it so casually . Like. Was this how it was for some people? Because the idea that it might be that easy made me feel ill.

I was not a soccer player trapped in a dream where I massacred soccer balls. I very much could stop this. So I decided to wake the fuck up and take a walk.

The beach in the morning in April was fucking cold. That wind. It wasn't made of literal ice, like in the mountains, but she was damn chilly all the same, and my poor, battered hoodie, which I'd only taken off to wash since I'd gotten home, could not hold up to that cutting cold at all. I kept trudging, though, feeling virtuous in my suffering.

Maybe this was, whatever it was called, penance for my crimes. Maybe it was masochism. Maybe it was just an attempt by my body to shake the shadows out of my brain.

I should forward my info to Orion's publicist with a note saying, No worries, but I promised to pay for the damage, so if Orion is interested, let me know . That would be fine. He could take it however he liked after that, but at least I'd know I'd done the thing I'd said I'd do.

I would hit the room-for-rent ads hard and take anything that seemed safe, as long as I could afford to get into it. If I wasn't going to walk into the ocean—and now that I was freezing-ass cold, the idea seemed absurd because the ocean would be even colder —then I'd have to manufacture some faith that I would get another job. I might be able to borrow a little money here and there. Or I'd just run up my credit cards, whatever. I'd make it work.

Or did I need to focus on a job first? Except it would be easier to get a job if I had a place to put my clothes and shower, and I didn't love the idea of becoming a beach bum for the foreseeable. Some of those beach showers didn't even have hot water. There were limits to my desire not to run up my credit card bills.

Maybe someday in the distant future I would look back at this and ... maybe not laugh.

Fuck. Fuck. No job, no money, no place to live. Fuck. Limited money, I lectured myself; limited money and credit cards is different than no money.

Sure, it felt like no money, but ...

I stopped walking and bent over, trying not to cry or have a panic attack, or freak out.

I might be in love for the first time in my life with a dude who detests me. We will never meet again. Whatever happened to journalistic objectivity, Cleary?

When it comes to Orion Broderick, I never had any in the first place.

The line hooked into my brain.

Journalists are supposed to prize objectivity above all other qualities, but when it comes to Orion Broderick, I never had any to begin with.

Didn't like ending on "with," but the sentence had a better flow. I scrabbled in my pockets, but all I had were my keys.

I fell in love with the former pro soccer star in a snowstorm during which he invited me to stay with him at his isolated mountain cabin. And no, it wasn't an eyebrow-waggle "Please come inside, stranger" moment; it was more of a "If I don't let you in, you'll freeze, so I guess I have no choice" moment.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit, I had to write this down. Words were bubbling up in my head, and I needed to get them out.

I started jogging back toward the car, and even as my throat stung and my thighs burned, the old, creaky, disrepaired machine in my mind that still remembered how to write kept whirring.

Orion Broderick has disturbingly perfect white teeth, which he claims not to bleach. It might have something to do with his draconian stance on caffeine ...

An attempt at bread-making without the use of Mother Nature's favorite cookbook (Google) does not go well, but there is something far too charming about a man who tries anyway ...

If you've never felt the strong legs of an athlete wrap around your hips ...

No, nope, not writing that, sorry, brain, not even going to ever write anything—

By the time I was back at my car and pulling out my computer, there were far too many words to get down and my battery was only at thirty percent. But no matter. If it died, I'd find a notebook and keep going.

Fucking hell. I forgot what it was like, this moment of suspended time when everything else fell away and it was just me and a keyboard.

Other thoughts tried to intrude—nowhere to go, no job, no future, no friends, no family—but I forced myself to transcribe all the sentences in my head until none were left, until I was emptied out like a wrung rag.

All of those things were still true, of course. And while I felt like I'd gutted myself and written in blood, it wasn't an essay or an article or anything but a collection of thoughts and images and ... feelings put to language. I couldn't show anyone this and communicate what I really meant, not yet. Maybe not ever.

But it was the most real thing I'd done in months. Maybe years.

I was in love with Orion Broderick. And okay, so he'd never know it. Fine. But I did, and that wasn't nothing.

Also, I wasn't completely alone in the world. Now that I was thinking more clearly with all those words out of my head, it occurred to me that at least one other person would be sitting around thinking about the implications of my getting snowed in with Orion, though she was lucky enough to not have to wrangle with the oops-I'm-in-love part.

I might not have a job, but I didn't think I'd lost quite everything, so I called the only person I could think of: my fairy gaymother.