Chapter Twenty

It turns out there are some perks to having your ex-boyfriend humiliate you and make you a national laughingstock, because months after the fact, you might get a plate of free mini croissants and little strawberries cut into cute shapes next to a folded note that says Welcome to New York, June!! That, and a sweeping, ridiculous view of downtown Manhattan from one of the top floors of a very swanky hotel, paid for courtesy of the same reality show producers who zoomed in on you wiping snot off your face with your own sleeve in HD.

There's a strange kind of calm in me as I stand by the window and take in the sea of buildings cutting across the sunny skyline. In a few minutes, a car will come and take me to the studio. In a few hours, the interview will be finished. And not long after that, the Griffin chapter of my life will be sealed shut. I may not be entirely certain what's on the next page, but right now, that's comfort enough.

This much I do know—Levi and I are going to meet up after ward and get a celebratory drink in the hotel bar, then do some decidedly steamier celebrating up in the room. Tomorrow we'll go on a run in Central Park and catch a matinee and grab a quick dollar slice before I get on the bus to go home. But what I'm hoping is that I won't go right back to doing what I've been doing ever since Levi left a week ago, which is mostly feel like I'm stuck in limbo, half with Levi and half not.

It's not as if we haven't kept in touch this week. We call each other in the morning and after Tea Tide closes. We text each other links to funny memes and TikToks about the Revenge Exes still floating around. We've started an email thread of the Gallery Game where we just send each other random pictures of framed museum art with a bed emoji and a question mark and the other either responds with a check mark or a giant X .

We're fully in the present with each other, but that's just it—we're only in the present. Neither of us has said anything about the future. I have no idea when Levi's coming back or where he's planning to live, no sense of whether I can ask him to a concert happening in Benson Beach a few months from now, no real picture of what we're going to look like moving forward. The wedding is in a month, and beyond that, there's just a murky, unplanned gray.

But these are all conversations that will be much easier to have face-to-face. I just have to get through the interview without doing anything vaguely meme-able, and we'll have all the time in the world to talk it out.

"Well, don't you look stunning?"

Griffin greets me at the midtown studio with a big, boisterous grin, his dark hair subtly gelled, his camera makeup already in place. They've put him in a well-tailored navy suit with a white button-down, matching the navy trim on the dark green floral dress someone from wardrobe thrust into my hands the moment the town car they sent deposited me here. I blink at him from behind the two makeup artists making quick work of my face—"Don't worry, dear, the mascara's waterproof," one of them said to me with a wink—and offer Griffin a flat "Thanks."

He hovers there for a moment like I'm going to return the compliment. When I don't, he shifts his weight for an uneasy second and then says, "Hey, thanks again for doing this. You're a real pal."

The word "pal" sounds so ridiculous coming out of his mouth after the literal decade we spent together that I'd let out a snort if someone weren't actively setting powder on my face right now. But with that aborted snort is a strange kind of relief. Griffin's here, in the same room that I'm in for the first time since he broke up with me, and I feel… nothing. Not nostalgia, not hurt, not even anger. Not anything but the urge to laugh.

A quiet surge of confidence flows through me, an invisible armor. Whatever lingering nerves I had about the interview, about facing Griffin one last time, all fade somewhere underneath it.

"Sure thing," I say breezily. "It'll be nice to give the audience some closure."

Something flickers and dims in Griffin's practiced smile. A quick surprise followed by an unmistakable disappointment. I bite down another urge to laugh—it's clear he thought he was going to find an entirely different June. Or maybe not a different June at all. Maybe he thought he was going to find the old June, the version of me that compromised too easily, who placated and gave in because I'd rather him push me into things than pull away from me.

But that June is long gone. He knew that before he broke up with me. I moved back to Benson Beach, and suddenly I wasn't Griffin's June anymore, but the June who was learning to run Tea Tide, who said no to his whims, who was growing and changing without him. He knew he couldn't handle me trying to reach my best, so he dumped me in a way where he could put me at my worst.

But I'm still here. Stronger than ever. And with one look at his uneasy face, I can tell it's driving him up the wall.

"Let me know if you need anything," he finally settles on saying, the smile back in place.

I give him a tight smile of my own. "I'm good, but thanks."

Watching him slink away is so satisfying that it feels like its own kind of closure. Now whatever happens in this interview will just be icing on the cake.

A half hour later, I'm perched on the plush velvet chair they put me in, delicately crossing my ankles, sitting at the exact casual-but-confident posture that Sana's been drilling me on all week. She's still neck-deep in whatever she's trying to write for Fizzle , but she got me in touch with a friend who has media training, and between the two of them, we worked out a script for pretty much any scenario Business Savvy might throw at me.

One that I need right off the top when Archie, the severely chipper host of Business Savvy , slides into a chair a few feet away from where Griffin and I are seated and theatrically winces at a sound coming through the speakers.

"Oh, dear," says Archie with a glance toward the screen behind us. He turns back to the camera and says cheekily, "How on earth did that end up there?"

It's me, of course. Crying Girl. Bawling my eyes out on my couch and hiccuping out "I just—I just—" like they're the only two words I know, my face so blotchy and mascara-streaked that I look like the world's most tragic tomato.

But I was ready for this. Sana made me watch the clip ten times a night like it was exposure therapy. I might as well be watching a video of paint drying.

"Don't do that to her, Archie, come on," says Griffin, all at once making a show of being protective and serious. "That's uncalled for."

I settle deeper into my chair and smirk. This was clearly a setup to rattle me and make Griffin look all chivalrous for defending me. One that I derail when Griffin turns to me with a put-upon sympathetic expression and realizes I'm not only unfazed, but amused.

He opens his mouth to say something else he must have rehearsed, but I cut him off, leaning toward Archie.

"No, no, Archie, keep it rolling," I say gamely. "I'm trying to get a Kleenex sponsorship over here."

Archie lets out a surprised laugh. "That's the spirit!"

The clip fades out and Griffin clears his throat. "Gosh, June," he says, pressing his hands together and sitting on the edge of his seat to better face me. "I know we've talked about how sorry I am about that day, but I really am. I'm going to feel awful about doing that to you my entire life."

I can see the camera zooming in on his apologetic face from the corner of my eye, another one panning in to catch my own. I smile easily, feeling less like I'm in an interview and more like I'm in a mildly amusing puppet show, watching Griffin try not to tangle his strings.

"Aw, don't worry, pal," I say pointedly, enjoying the way it makes his eyes flash in irritation. "Thanks to you, I always get to story-top at parties."

He settles his expression, composing himself into the picture of apology again. "I'm just so upset at the idea of hurting you after everything we've been through."

"Right," says Archie. "You two were an item for… how long?"

Griffin blows out a breath and shakes his head, like the years somehow flew out from under him. "Wow. It's hard to say, since we go so far back as friends. We've just always been around."

Ten years , I could easily supply. We dated for ten entire years. And even though it would be briefly satisfying to drop that bomb on Griffin on live television, I don't particularly want to cop to it, either.

"I'm sure it is. And as I understand it, the two of you were drifting apart before the show started," says Archie, with an authority that leaves no room for protest. "But you're both good friends still, right?"

Sana warned me that in all likelihood, they were going to have an entire narrative of their own crafted to tilt in Griffin's favor, but this feels low even for him. In hindsight, we should never have been together in the first place. But us drifting apart didn't make it any more okay for him to go off and cheat.

"Sure," I say, turning to Griffin with a steely-eyed smile. "We're friendly."

A vein in Griffin's temple twitches, like I'm toeing a line. I hold his gaze steady. A warning that if he pushes any of this too far, I'm more than willing to cross it.

"But despite that, you dated a mutual friend of yours—Levi Shaw—to get back at Griffin," says Archie, leaning back and raising his eyebrows in amusement.

I let out a sharp, stunned laugh. "There are a whole lot of reasons I'm dating Levi, but I can promise you none of them are to get back at Griffin."

"No. No, of course not," says Griffin, with a little too much ease. "That was all just in good fun, right, June?"

I know that syrupy tone. It's Griffin in his element, Griffin at his most Griffin . It's the same tone he used countless times when he was asking me for things without really asking, knowing full well he was going to get his way.

Which means whatever he's going to say next, he's planning to do just that.

Griffin turns to the host, and it almost feels like slow motion, the way he leans in, the way the calculating smile curls on his lips.

"I mean, get this—Levi and June have only been pretending to date."

I feel my entire body go stiff before the words even have a chance to sink in. For all the scenarios Sana ran me through, we never once anticipated this. Hell, even as it's happening, I can't wrap my head around it. Like if I just will it away hard enough, I can make Griffin take it back, make him swallow whatever it is he's gearing himself up to say next.

Archie raises his eyebrows with such comic surprise that there's no way this wasn't staged. "Is that so?"

"Yeah. I grew up with them, so I knew right away," says Griffin, with that same charming smile that looks waxier than a Ken doll's.

The adrenaline is buoying me now. Griffin's expecting me to get flustered the way I did last time, but last time I came into a sneak attack. This time I came prepared. Maybe not for this , but prepared enough to handle it.

I say in a wry, even tone, "Well, shoot. That's all news to me. Someone better tell Levi while we're at it."

"Aw, come on, June," Griffin says playfully, turning to me. "It's okay. Now everyone knows there really aren't any hard feelings. We're all friends."

Archie leans in toward us, eyes gleaming at me. "So this entire Revenge Exes thing—was it a lie or not?"

"Well, first of all, we were never the ones who called it that," I start, but Griffin doesn't let me get any further.

"Oh, I have it on good authority that it is," he says. "June and I come from a small town, after all."

"You know what they say about secrets in a small town," says Archie, with a nod toward the camera.

Griffin turns to me with what he probably thinks is an affable look. "And it's not like people weren't going to find out eventually," he says. "Especially since Levi moved back in with Kelly and all. You guys had a fun time, and now it's water under the bridge. I'm just glad we all got to have a laugh out of it in the end."

I suck in a breath to let Griffin have it, but Archie interrupts me with the seamless authority of someone who's watched a fair amount of people lose their shit on live television. "Well, folks, things are certainly getting wild over here—let's see what else we can dig up on the Revenge Exes when we get back."

I'm frozen in my seat, blinking at Griffin. The fury in me is so white hot that I feel like I could burn out every one of the studio lights aimed at us right now. I'm trying to decide who I'm angrier at, Griffin for throwing me under another bus or myself for being stupid enough to let him, when someone starts removing my mic.

"What—the interview's not done," I say.

"We're finished with your portion," says the producer firmly.

I shake my head, pulling away. "But I have more to say—"

"We're finished with your portion," she says again, her eyes flashing a warning. I understand right then that this is a fight I'm going to lose. Even if they let me stay on, there's no way they don't have a contingency plan to make me look even worse.

"Right," I say.

Griffin has already stepped away. The moment my mic is off I'm hot on his heels, but I don't need to be. He's standing off to the side, his eyes finding mine so fast that it's clear he wants a confrontation. And he's going to get one.

"That was uncalled for," I tell him. "And a down-and-out lie."

"June, don't bullshit me," he says, all the fake warmth out of his voice. It's almost a relief to hear it—at least now we can cut the crap and have a real conversation. "Kelly told me the whole thing."

I let out terse laugh. "Kelly? When on earth would you have talked to Kelly?"

Griffin is both furious and smug, and neither suits him. "She got in touch with me last week. We got dinner. She spilled the beans on your little scheme to make me look bad before we'd even ordered drinks."

I can't even process the bit about Kelly, stuck on Griffin's accusation.

"Oh my god." I laugh in earnest now, stepping back, incredulous. "You really think everything is about you, don't you?"

Griffin's face goes beet red. "Why else would you do it then, June? You didn't talk to Levi for years , and then suddenly you're all lovey-dovey?"

"And how exactly does that make you look bad, Griffin?" I ask, but the moment the words are out of my mouth it clicks. The last of the laughter tapers out of me. "It doesn't. You know full well you did that all on your own. It's just that you hate him. You dumped me, but you don't want me to be happy with a guy you hate."

Griffin shakes his head sharply. "I don't want you to pull one over on me with a guy you hate."

Now that I'm seeing him like this, stripped of all his niceties, his put-on charm, I'm almost terrified I didn't see the extent of it earlier. That there might be some universe where I was willing to keep ignoring it, where I'd still be stuck trying to be the girlfriend I was never quite going to measure up to no matter how hard I tried.

It doesn't matter. In this universe, I don't have a single second left for him to waste.

"Let me be clear—this was never about you. And no matter how or why it started, Levi and I are together now." I lean in just close enough to make the words stick. "I'd tell you to get over it, but I don't plan on ever seeing you again."

Only then does Griffin start to lose some of his bravado. Only then does it become clear that he's been waiting all this time for me to bend the way I used to, even break the way I did when we broke up. Now I'm immovable, and Griffin doesn't know how to interact with something he can't move.

"I don't see why you're all bent out of shape about this," says Griffin. "The way I see it, you and Levi played us, and now we've played you right back."

There's a hand on my shoulder. "Miss Hart, your car is here."

On the quick drive to the hotel, I figure out the extent to which Griffin "played" us. A story about the Revenge Exes being fake has already hit the internet; the producers of Business Savvy must have had it planted for at least a week. There are photos of Levi going in and out of the apartment building, one where he has two cups of coffee in hand, another with Kelly smiling at his side. There are quotes from two different outlets confirming they got photos of us from the same source. And the rest of the special was spent essentially breaking down all that evidence for the live audience after they came back from commercial.

I'm numb to it all as I scroll, my phone blowing up with people calling one after the other—Levi, my parents, Dylan, Levi again, numbers I don't even know. A text from Sana pops up, the only notification I bother opening: I got you a ticket for the 6pm bus back if you can make it.

I hope Sana is prepared for me to kiss her on the damn mouth the instant that bus turns in to Benson Beach.

I scramble for the backpack and the duffel bag I packed, desperate not to be in the city for even a second longer. Only when I spill out of the elevator into the massive lobby, I stop short.

There is Levi, his back turned to me, in a heated conversation with the concierge. The sight of him feels like turbulence, a wild current that can't decide how to take shape. There's the staggering relief. The innate part of me that sees Levi and instantly feels at ease. But then there's something else pushing just under it. The something that made me dismiss his calls in the car, that made me so willing to seize that bus ticket Sana bought without giving him so much as a heads-up. Something that started as anger, maybe, but might be something deeper. Might be something worse.

When we made this break-up pact, the only thing we promised was to be honest with each other. And Levi wasn't. I don't mind that he told Kelly. I don't even really care that she ratted us out. But Levi didn't tell me that he told her, which means it could only have been motivated by one thing. He wasn't telling her for the sake of clearing the air. He was telling her because there was a part of him, however slight, that still didn't want what he had with Kelly to be over. And he didn't tell me because he felt ashamed.

Maybe I'm wrong. I want so desperately to be wrong. But no matter what I am, I know I can't have this conversation with him right now. It's too fresh, too raw. If we talk about it now, it feels like so much else is going to get pulled up from the depths with it. Things I'd rather stay buried, because I'm terrified if we say them out loud, we'll be over just as soon as we've begun.

The best thing I can do right now is go home. That's what I tell myself, at least, when I turn to leave the hotel lobby and hear Levi's voice from behind me: "June."

One of my steps falters, but I keep walking.

"June, wait," Levi calls.

I raise my hand for a taxi and one stops with astonishing speed. I pull the door open just as Levi catches up with me, his eyes brewing with worry, with regret.

"June," he says one last time, and I shake my head—consider apologizing—but no. If I say one word to him, a whole lot more of them are going to follow, and I can't have that conversation right now. I close the taxi door behind me, tell the driver the intersection for the bus stop, and watch Levi's stricken face disappear.