She pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers.
“I feel like I’m stuck in the worst déjà vu of all time.” She pitched her voice up, wrists limp. “I don’t know how this happened. It was a mistake. I’m sorry I’ve just ruined your career because I couldn’t stop fucking Cal.”
I reared back at the cruel imitation.
“The first time was bad enough,” Harriet said. “But you were young and stupid.”
I flinched at her assessment.
“But now? What’s your excuse now?” she asked. “Are you seriously that horny that you couldn’t have fucked literally any other guy? It had to be Cal? It had to be the director?”
I wasn’t sure how much more of this I could take.
“You’re pathetic,” Harriet said. “But I’m not letting you drag me down with you. Not again.”
“I’m dragging you down?” I asked.
My voice was soft, but hard.
I’d lied. I didn’t deny that. I’d made a mistake. Mistakes.
But I’d had enough of being blamed for things that weren’t my fault.
“Your lack of opportunity is your problem,” I said. “Not mine.”
Harriet pulled back.
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t blame me for the fact that it took this long for someone to take an interest in your work,” I said.
It was a low blow, and I knew it.
But this was a fight a long time coming, and like a night of too much drinking, sometimes you just had to get it all out before you could feel better.
Harriet and I had kept our anger at each other locked up tight, but that never made it go away. It just made it fester. Grow. Expand. Distort.
“At least I earned my success,” she said. “It’s not due to my tits and ass.”
“No,” I said. “It’s due to my tits and ass. Because we both know I’m the only reason this show is getting made. My name. My reputation.”
The worst part was that there was truth in every single word we were saying, and that was the thing about being friends with someone for as long as Harriet and I had been. You knew exactly where to strike. How to wound.
“I don’t buy your surprise,” I said. “You’ve been testing me. From the very beginning.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No?” I stood. “You lied about Cal approaching you. Kept that whole fucking thing a secret until you could spring it on me.”
“Right,” she said. “The opportunity of a lifetime. That I sprung on you.”
I ignored her. “You knew how I felt about Cal and you still went to him.” My fingers wrapped around the back of the chair. “And all this time, it’s like you’ve been watching me. Waiting for me to make a mistake. Waiting for me to fuck up.”
Harriet’s arms were crossed, her chin up. Defensive.
“This whole thing was like a big fucking test,” I said. “That night at your place. Where you forgot that you’d invited both of us over? Tell the truth, Harriet, did you actually forget or were you trying to prove something?”
“I didn’t have to prove anything,” she said. “You proved it for me.”
I was exhausted.
“What do you want, Harriet?” I asked.
I was tired. I was hurt. Sad.
“It doesn’t matter what I want,” she said. “You clearly don’t care.”
She slammed the door when she left.
CHAPTER 36
We didn’t say anything on the subway ride back to my place. We didn’t get milkshakes.
“Do you want to talk about what happened?” Cal asked.
I’d dropped onto my couch like I was a stone. Fish climbed up onto my lap, but I didn’t feel like I deserved her attention or her purrs so I pushed her off. She went to Cal—smart girl—rubbing against his legs until he picked her up.
“Harriet knows,” Cal said, stating the obvious.
“Yes,” I said.
“Okay,” he said.
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “Not okay. This is a problem. This whole thing is a problem.”
Cal didn’t say anything. He was still holding Fish, scratching her neck, and even from here I could hear her purring. She adored him.
She was going to be so mad at what I needed to do.
“We can’t do this, Cal.”
He put Fish on the ground.
“No,” he said. “Not again.”
My eyes burned.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just…it’s just too complicated. It’s too much.”
“Right,” Cal said. His hands were on his hips. He was looking at the ground. “Right. Right.”
He was angry.
“Okay then,” he said. “I’m going to go.”
My heart felt like it was breaking.
“I’m sorry.”
I’d said that a lot in the past few hours. And I was sorry. I just didn’t know what else to do.
“Are you?” he asked. “You’re both grown-ups. Why do you care what she thinks about your love life? Is it any of her business?”
“We are all literally in business together,” I said. “And she trusted me to keep my personal life out of our professional one.”
“Maybe that was an unrealistic request,” Cal said.
“Right,” I said. “Because this is all my fault. You had nothing to do with any of it. Just poor innocent Cal stuck in my wicked web of sluttiness.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” he said.
“I just feel so sorry for you,” I said. “Clearly, I’ve taken advantage of you. Again.”
“Let’s not do this,” Cal said. He reached toward me. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said those things.”
“You meant them,” I said.
“No,” he said.
“Let’s stop lying to each other,” I said.
“What are you doing?”
“This is for the best,” I said. “This was always a mistake.”