Three's a Crowd: Quitting My Couple Channel novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Her Tablet

Cecelia hugs him at home and he steps away; her tablet lights up with Cormac's messages about how well she handled him; he writes the ending of the script cold.

Cecelia got home an hour after me.

I was at the kitchen counter with tea going cold, staring at a blank page titled "Proposal."

She dropped her bag on a chair, came up behind me and wrapped both arms around my waist.

"Em, don't be mad."

Her voice was low and warm, and her chin was on my shoulder.

"I'm sorry I was so busy today. I know the Iceland thing took you by surprise, and I handled it badly in front of the brand. I'll make it up to you."

For five years, a hug like this had worked on me every time.

I'd say it was fine, and then I'd do the dishes, and then we'd both forget what the fight had been.

I took her hands off my waist and set them gently at her sides.

"I'm tired," I said. "I'm going to work on the script for a while."

She looked at me for a moment.

It was a quick look, almost curious.

"Okay," she said. "Don't stay up too late."

She took her phone into the bathroom, and a second later the shower came on.

I carried the tea to the bedroom to get my charger.

Her tablet sat on the nightstand, screen down, and as I reached past it the screen woke up.

She was still logged in to her messages.

Cormac's name sat at the top, with a preview.

I should have walked away.

I read it standing up.

Cormac: Did you smooth things over with him?

Cecelia: Not yet. He pushed me away when I hugged him.

Cormac: That must really hurt.

Cecelia: I'm fine, honestly. He'll calm down. He always does.

Cormac: He said Iceland, Cece. He said the twentieth.

Cecelia: I heard. The shoot is Saturday. After it's up, I'll sit him down and fix everything.

Cormac: And the thing from the jeweler? You'll have it by then?

Cecelia: Thursday. They're doing the last adjustment. Does Em know anything about Saturday?

Cormac: Not a word.

Cecelia: Good. Keep it that way. Let him write it like it's just another job.

I read it twice, and then I put the tablet back face down, exactly as it had been.

I couldn't make the sentences into anything but what they said.

The shower kept running.

I could hear her humming a song from our first year of videos, the one she used to sing out of tune on purpose so I would laugh.

I sat on the edge of the bed, and I felt very calm.

It is a strange thing to find out where you stand on a Friday night, while someone you love washes her hair.

I didn't cry.

I went back to the kitchen, opened the laptop and looked at the blank page.

There was a folder on my drive I hadn't opened in a long time, called "Snowy Mountain."

Inside was a single file, four years old, a draft I'd started and never finished.

I had written it for myself, on a train, with a ring I couldn't afford yet.

I closed it without reading it.

I typed a title for the new script instead, "Proposal, Version One," and I began.

It was easy to write.

That was the part I hadn't expected.

I knew every beat of how Cecelia turned her head when she was happy.

I knew how Cormac's voice caught on the second word of an honest sentence, and which one-liners the fans would clip and share.

I wrote them kneeling in the snow, one beat at a time, until the light on my screen was the only light in the apartment.

Cecelia came out in her robe around midnight and leaned in the doorway.

"Em? Coming to bed?"

"Almost done."

"You're the best at this," she said softly. "You know that, right?"

"I know."

She went to bed alone.

I stayed up and wrote the whole proposal, every word of it, up to the moment of the question.

Then I got to the ending.

For three years I had written the endings with a little warmth, a little hope, a small private joke only I would catch.

A sentence for Cecelia, hidden in the middle of somebody else's line.

I looked at the cursor for a long time.

Then I wrote the ending the way you would write it for strangers.

"She says yes."

Nothing in it was mine, and nothing in it was hers.

I saved the file, closed the laptop and sat in the dark kitchen listening to the refrigerator hum.

On the nightstand in the next room, her tablet lit up again.

I didn't go to look.

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