But it was time, at long last, to man the fuck up. So I did.
“How much did you know about me in high school?” I asked her. “Outside of school, I mean.”
Mina frowned, thinking back. “You lived in Evelyn Heights.”
The richer part of town, where all of the houses were big and new. “That’s true. What else?”
She briefly put a fingertip to her bottom lip, then dropped it, as if it was a habit she was trying to break. “I guess that’s it,” she admitted. “There wasn’t any gossip about you that I remember. Not that I ever heard any gossip, really.”
I ran my fingertip around the edge of my coaster. “I lived with my mother, my father, and my brother, Caleb,” I said. “He was older. Our parents were pretty demanding, I guess. They wanted us to excel, to be the best at everything. Caleb and I were supposed to get good grades, play multiple sports, win championships. If we could add in multiple languages and student council, that would be great, too.”
“Ouch,” Mina said as the waitress put a pint of beer in front of me and a fruity mixed drink in front of her. “That wasn’t anything like my house.”
“No? What was yours like?”
“I think my parents might actually be the nicest people on the planet,” Mina said. “I know you’re not supposed to say that about your parents. You’re supposed to resent them for whatever they got wrong. But my parents are just nice people, period. My dad used to help me make puppets when I was little, so I could put on puppet shows for them. My mom calls me every Sunday at four o’clock because she’s worried I’m lonely in New York City, and every week she says I can come home if I want to. I’ve been here for ten years.”
“That’s nice,” I said, meaning it.
She shook her head. “It’s off topic. We’re talking about you. You and your brother were supposed to be great at everything. Go on.”
“Right,” I said. “My parents weren’t abusive, but they made it understood from the time Caleb and I were little that their expectations were high. It was just something we lived with. We didn’t think about it much. At least, I didn’t. I just did my best to be everything my parents wanted me to be.”
“You did pretty well,” Mina said. “Though I don’t remember you on the student council.”
“I got into too many sports,” I said. “I didn’t have time. Though to be fair, I would have hated it.”
“I remember,” Mina said as our food arrived and she used her fork to stir her chicken stir fry. “Football, basketball, swim team. Honor roll. Everyone thought you’d be a CEO someday, maybe. Or president. At least a senator or something.”
“Instead, here I am,” I said gesturing to my uniform. “Intubating people before I finish my charts, then go home to my four roommates.”
Her eyebrows went up. “Four?”
“It’s the only way to afford the city. I want to know how you got here. What you’ve been doing for ten years.”
“You’re changing the subject,” she said.
“Maybe, but I’m already sick of talking about me. I’d rather talk about you. I take it you came to this city for the theater.”
She lit up a little at the mention of theater, like I knew she would. “This place is amazing for theater. Not just the Broadway stuff, though that’s great, too. But the off-Broadway stuff and the little independent productions. You can go on any Saturday night and find something to see. Maybe it won’t be very good, and maybe it’ll only cost six bucks, but it’s theater. It’s a dream.”
“And what about you?” I asked, digging into my steak. I really was more interested in her than me. “Are you getting roles?”
“Not much,” she admitted. “It’s a tough town. Everyone who’s any good comes to New York.”
“You’re good,” I said.
“How do you know? You haven’t seen me perform since I sang in the world’s worst high school production of Oklahoma! over a decade ago.”
I shrugged, a gesture that always used to irritate her in science lab. “I just know.”
Mina narrowed her eyes. “Maybe, but it doesn’t change the fact that I need to pay the rent. So I waitressed for years, and now I spend my days working at a financial firm.”
I nearly dropped my fork. “A financial firm? You?”
“You don’t need to look so shocked. I can add and subtract, you know, and I was the one who got us the grades in science lab. But I’m not actually a financial…person. Whatever they’re called. I order office supplies.”
I frowned. “So you literally just…”
“Order pens, paper, toner, that kind of thing, yes. It’s boring and I hate it. I hate my boss, and I’m pretty sure she hates me back. I should hate the CEO of the company, because he’s an arrogant jerk, but I don’t, probably because he’s hot.”
For some reason, that bothered me. “That sounds like a bad idea, having a crush on the CEO.”
Mina took a forkful of her stir fry. “I don’t have a crush on him, Holden. I just said he’s hot. I save my crushes for fictional men.”
“Fictional men?”
“The ones in the romance novels I read.” She lifted her chin. “Yes, I read romance novels, and any opinion you have of that can go straight up your—”
“I get it,” I said. “I never said there was anything wrong with reading romance novels.”
“Then you’re one of the few people who doesn’t feel the need to make fun of it. I like them, and they make me happy. The men are hot and perfect, the women are awesome, there’s tons of mind-blowing sex, and everything works out in the end. They’re my antidote to the crappy real world.”
I felt myself frowning at her. It wasn’t the idea of her reading romance novels—that didn’t matter to me. It was the phrase The men are hot and perfect. That, and There’s tons of mind-blowing sex. Mina had to read books to experience mind-blowing sex?
“What?” Mina said, looking at my expression. “What’s the problem?”
What about real life? I was happy that Mina enjoyed some hot entertainment, but she deserved all of that great stuff in real life as well. True, men in real life weren’t perfect—I certainly wasn’t—but it didn’t mean she couldn’t have some kind of fairy tale.
I got the feeling that Mina read those books because she didn’t believe in the fairy tale in real life. And that was something I had contributed to, wasn’t it? I had taught her the first lesson in being hurt by a guy, in not expecting any guy to be perfect, or even to hit the basic low bar of decency. On prom night, I’d taught her that pretty well.
And I didn’t like that. Not at all.
“What is it, Holden?” Mina asked me again. “You’re freaking me out.”
“Here’s the deal,” I said. “When I get my watch back, you get the rest of the story.”
She frowned. “What?”
“I’m not telling you the whole story tonight. I said I would, but I’ve changed my mind. You have to see me again, and when you do, I’ll tell you some more of it. If you don’t want to give me my watch, then I don’t want to give you my story. At least, not all of it.” I smiled. “Sorry, Mina. If you want to know the end of the story, you’re just going to have to wait.”