Page 119 of Bad Words

“New book? Short story?”

“New book.”

He bobbed his head.

“I was surprised you liked that short so much,” I said. “The one about Selina Chan.”

Arthur’s eyes strayed back to me, and I wondered if something in my voice had given me away, if I couldn’t even say her name anymore without revealing myself.

“It was good,” he said. “Like, I don’t know enough to say what the difference was, but it did feel different from your books.”

“Better than my books, you mean.”

“I liked your books. But—yeah. Maybe your books feel like they’re trying to prove something, and that story felt like it was just saying something.”

I began to smile.

“What?” he said.

“Nothing.” I shook my head, looked back at my laptop. “I guess that’s writing for you. Spending your whole life learning how to say something.”

My phone buzzed, and I grabbed for it, knocking it off the table.

“Wow,” said Arthur. “Whoever this woman is, she really did a number on you.”

I laughed. “You have no idea.”

I held out two more days before going back to her apartment. I barely made it through the door before needing to kiss her, needing to feel her hands on me again. Another week and a half lurched by like this, days of self-imposed deprivation broken up by nights together. We went out dancing that Saturday night, somewhere so loud and full and young that we felt invisible. We read a new book from a writer we both liked and texted each other highlighted quotes, commentary attached.

I’ve been going back to this sentence all day.

The way this rhymes with the sound of the creek in chapter four? Unreal?

And then, somehow, it was the week before the High and Dry launch. My City interview with Selina went live on Thursday morning, and after she got off work that afternoon, we holed up in her bedroom and looked at the reactions online together. I sat at her desk, socked feet up on the radiator, while she lounged on her bed.

According to the internet, I was a sellout and Selina was a bitch. I was such a good sport, and Selina was so funny. I was insufferably pretentious, and Selina was also insufferably pretentious. It was strange to watch them at it, painting new details onto caricatures that neither of us believed in anymore.

“Oh, look,” said Selina, angling her laptop toward me. “This person accused you of sleeping with the enemy.”

“For real?”

“I think they were being figurative.”

“If only they knew.”

A beat of charged silence. People would, of course, know at some point. Wouldn’t they?

“Okay,” said Selina, closing her social media tabs. “I think that’s enough for me.”

Still looking at her screen, I caught sight of a half-drafted email. “Sorry,” I said, glancing back to my own computer on the desk. “Not spying.”

“Aren’t you? Isn’t that the point of sleeping with the enemy?”

“Good point. I think my mission got sidetracked somewhere.”

“It’s to my parents,” she said, lifting the laptop closer to me.

My smile fading, I hunched down toward the bed to read.