Happy Saturday, people!
Usual housekeeping first:
1. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your reviews and alerts. You propelled Ivories past 1,2k reviews and EditorWard is thankful and humbled. I love hearing your thoughts and theories.
2. Also thank you to Team Momo, who work tirelessly to help me make this readable. My stories wouldn't exist without them and I'm so grateful they're in my corner. Alice's White Rabbit and Midnight Cougar are in the editing chairs. AGoodWitch, IAmBeagle, Driving Edward and RobsmyyummyCabanaBoy pre-read.
3. I still don't own - SM does. But I do own a black KitchenAid mixer with a dough hook and I do use it to make pizza dough. I also don't own a set of Frozen drinkware but I bought a Lego Frozen castle for my niece. Close enough?
Blanket warning still applies.
BEHIND THE IVORIES – CHAPTER 22
A week later, I'm having a much-needed solitary morning at the loft after a grueling workweek.
Mid-May is when the newsroom gears up to prepare the summer issues. Some of those are big hits with our readership because we do a spread about all the summer festivals in the Greater Boston area before they start and all the events leading up to the Fourth of July celebrations. We do reviews online after every event and a big recap in August when everything wraps after Labor Day. The June, July, and August numbers are bigger than Christmas at the Tatler. As a consequence, by the time we put to bed these publications, we're all exhausted. Editor included.
To top that all off, I haven't seen or heard as much of Bella as I would have liked this past week. At first, when she called me to postpone our weekly lunch on Monday, I thought my horrible PTSD episode had scared her off. But I had to eat my judgmental words.
She accepted the offer from the Berklee College of Music, and her schedule is about to fill up to the brim with commitments. She's enthusiastic about her new endeavor, but she also has a shitload of work to do for it.
She told me all about it during our standing cooking lesson and dinner last night. She doesn't just have to prepare syllabi for the three classes she'll be teaching. She's also doing research for her PhD, for which the school gives her an almost free ride since she'll be part of the faculty.
Her new studying schedule is part of the reason why we're not going to the farmers' market together this morning. With the week I had, I thought about begging off, but guilt gnawed at me. I didn't want things between us to change; it was one of my fears after last Saturday. So, I was fully prepared and willing to drag my exhausted ass out of bed early this morning, but last night, she swooped in and saved me. Being Bella, though, she had to be a little smartass about it and threw in a dig about the "overworked editor." When I pressed her about it, she admitted Mac had let it slip that we all had a horrible week at the office.
So, I'm spending my hard-earned, solitary, quiet morning sipping my coffee and perusing the internet.
What am I perusing, exactly? The first order of business, of course, is a quick look at Bella's social media platforms. While I'm scrolling through the Twitter machine, I catch a promoted tweet from one of the classical music magazines I follow—because now I also follow a bunch of those in addition to Politico and Bloomberg. It's called having diversified interests.
The tweet from The Classical Source links to an interview with James Fray, of all people.
An irrational sense of foreboding grips me. I click on the link, then wait not-so-patiently while it loads. I only need to skim the headline and deck to decide the entire article is, well, a piece of crap. It's a puff piece, and blatantly so.
The jumping off point is, of course, Fray's performances at Carnegie Hall this past week. It's all about how he sold out the place for all of his shows, but they're sweeping under the rug that the honest part of the industry press called his playing "wooden, formulaic, and lacking in freshness." The Sunday Times isn't out yet—they're going to have at least a review of his live performance, and I can't imagine it being more charitable than this.
But these people at The Classical Source are carrying water for Fray, and they're doing it in the worst way, too, by allowing him to talk trash about the competition. In fact, the moron has the nerve to say, and I quote, "I am proud that my fans have gathered here in such massive numbers. All my performances this week are sold out. Once again, we're here to declare that Carnegie Hall is the true home of classical music. Johnny-come-lately's like Isabella Swan can't command the same kind of devotion, outreach, or quite simply, staying power or quality of execution. Of course, she never sold out Carnegie Hall. There is no real interest for tasteless, unimaginative music, after all."
I don't think so, you overslicked, overdressed, overconfident Parisian piece of shit.
That entire article could be used in a masterclass about journalistic malpractice. They never ask him for a comment on the other reviews—strike one. Granted, it's a direct quote, but letting him go off on another performer without justification isn't cool—strike two. They didn't fact-check his assertions about Bella not selling out Carnegie Hall, which she did, if I remember well—strike three. And where's the editor? Who red-teamed these three paragraphs of ego boosting? Player out.
To add insult to injury, the outlet is spreading this crap with a promoted tweet, which means the more people interact with it, the more the platform pushes it on other users' feeds. Also, the more engagement, the more money the outlet has to pay for its promotion— it's the only silver lining in trolling them. Hit them in the pocketbook.
Oh, for fuck's sake. That's enough. Time for EACullen to leave his lurking days behind.
I screencap Fray's quote and save the file. Then I sift through my browsing history to find the outlets that gave more honest reviews of his performances—ah, there we go. One was in Bachtrack. Another one was in Musical America. Snip, snip—a few clicks later, I have two more apropos quotes about Fray's performance. Then, for good measure, Google helps me track down reviews of Bella's sold-out performances at Carnegie Hall two years ago. Stellar reviews. Two more screenshots saved. Fuck you, Fray.
I navigate back to my Twitter profile, and that's when I realize one tweet isn't going to cut it. Fuck, I'm dipping my toes back into online commentary with a Twitter thread. Talk about baptism by fire. But extreme measures and all that.
I add the Fray-related screenshots to my first tweet. With another cup of coffee and some pondering, I narrow it down to the 280 characters and two tweets required to nail this bastard to the wall. Let him feel what the social media pillory feels like. Bloody fucking moron.
EACullen A short story of how it started - how it's going. I'm sensing a bitter case of #SourGrapes here, #JamesFray 1/2
EACullen Hey, ClassicalSource, it wouldn't hurt to fact-check direct quotes. It's called having journalistic standards. Looks like #BellaSwan has plenty of fans—they sold out Carnegie Hall. Twice. MSG, too. Twice. How's that for staying power? 2/2
Feeling as though I've done my part to champion Bella and put this fucker in his place, I log out of Twitter and abandon my laptop to take a shower.
An hour later, I'm making a quick inventory of my pantry and freezer—as much as I dislike braving the weekend crowds, I need groceries, and I need them pronto.
While I'm dictating my list into my phone, a call comes through. Siri, ever efficient, interrupts my note taking and announces, "Bella Swan mobile calling."
Leaving behind my dwindling supply of pasta and breakfast cereals, I grab the phone off the counter.
"Good morning, Ladybug."
"Hi!" She sounds chipper today.
"How's the studying going?"
"Boring! Please come save me," she replies.
"What kind of rescue operation do you have in mind?"
"Um. I haven't thought that far. Whatcha doing?"
"Making a grocery list. How's that for domesticated?"
By now, I'm sitting at the breakfast bar. This conversation could run longer than I anticipated.
When static, crackling silence stretches between us, I call out to her. "Bella, you still there?"
"Yes, sorry. I was thinking."
She cracks me up. "You know I can't actually see you through the phone, right?"
"Well, how about we fix that?"
A second later, the screen alerts me of a FaceTime call.
"There you are," Bella says smiling.
From the looks of it, she's huddled on the gigantic gray sectional in the front room.
"I don't see any textbooks." I can't resist teasing her a little.
"I considered a dramatic pyre in the backyard, but then I remembered I'm against book burning. You look tired, Edward." She says it with a sigh, touching her fingers to the screen.
I snort. "Understatement of the century. I swear, anything that could go wrong this week, did."
"Back to my original point. Let's rescue each other and do something else."
It doesn't take me long to ponder that. "I'm game. What's on the menu?"
"I want to make pizza. From scratch. Teach me?"
"We're going for the big guns here." It's an involved process but intensely rewarding when you finally munch on a crunchy, savory pie.
"Don't intimidate me. I want to try," she insists.
"It's just as well that I need to go for groceries. Let's do this."
And with that, we check off ingredients and toppings together before we agree to reconvene at the Wisteria House after lunch for an afternoon of pizza making.
Bread flour. Bella. What could go wrong?
&&&IVORIES&&&
It's around three when I get to Bella's, laden with supplies.
"I didn't know you'd be getting my groceries, too," she quips.
"By all means, stand there while I crack under the weight of bread flour and tomato concoctions."
She snorts, then pushes the door wide open to let me pass. "Well, have at it. You know where everything goes."
I drop the canvas bag on her kitchen counter where I already spy a huge glass bowl, a French rolling pin, and a bottle of dark green, viscous nectar of the gods—extra virgin olive oil.
"Looks like we're starting with the right stuff. Did you look at any recipes?"
She rolls her eyes as she putzes around the kitchen, opening and closing cabinet doors in search of who knows what. "Too many, I think. But I understand the basics."
"Let's hear those basics, shall we?"
"A-ha. Found them," she announces with triumph in her voice. "These glasses. That's what I was looking for."
"And the correlation between the glasses and our pizza?"
She shakes her head, and with a dismissive wave of her hand, she tut-tuts at me. "None, but look. Aren't they pretty? They are Frozen glasses. And of course, they keep lemonade cold longer. It's logical. Plus, they're my favorite glasses because Bea gave them to me."
"I could have brought myself to drink lemonade even in a sub-par vessel."
"Beside the point. I have standards. So you obliquely benefit from it and get lemonade in a kick-ass glass." She explains it with a straight face, but there's mirth dancing in her eyes.
If she can engage her students the same way, she's going to make one kick-ass professor in a few months, to use her own words. Going along with the reasoning, I tip my head to her. "I bow to your superior drinkware selection skills, Ladybug. Thank you for the lemonade."
"It's your mom's recipe. I finagled it out of her at dinner."
The comment makes me snicker. "You don't finagle anything out of Esme Platt-Cullen. Nothing she hasn't already decided to give, at least. But you couldn't have known that."
Her face falls. "Oh. Well, drat."
"Don't take that negatively. If she didn't like you, you couldn't have pried that recipe out of her by hook or by crook. I'm her only offspring, and I had to butter her up for her chocolate cake recipe."
A tender smile dawns on Bella's face. "I love that you did it to bake me a cake. Thank you," she whispers, leaning into me. "Pizza?"
"Pizza. Do you want to hand-knead this mess or cheat? You have a KitchenAid, after all. Might as well use it."
She turns, looking at the brand new bottle green stand mixer sitting at the end of her counter. "I haven't yet figured out if Char and Garrett meant that to be a gag gift or not. It showed up the week after I moved in," she explains.
"If that's the size of their average gag gift, send them my way next time they're up to no good."
"I frankly have no idea what they spent on this contraption, and I don't want to know. Now, are we using it?" She steps toward it, already uncoiling its power cord.
"I don't want to risk the piano player's fingers with hard labor. Let's put this bad boy to work."
She scowls with another of her almost childlike expressions of pique. "But I wanted to pummel the dough."
Shaking my head, I protectively hide the bag of flour from her grasp. "You don't pummel dough. You're supposed to knead it. Vigorously but with some savoir faire, for fuck's sake."
"Ugh. Don't speak French to me, please. Not if you want me to answer."
Nodding, I remember just why French is a no-go. "My bad. Sorry, Ladybug."
"Yeah, well, Mr. Editor, you can't know everything. Okay, how do we make this pizza? I'd like to eat it tonight."
And with that, we shift from lighthearted banter into disciplined cooking mode.
&&&IVORIES&&&
Three hours later, we're relaxing on the couch, sipping more lemonade and munching on assorted nibbles while the dough rises. Bella's garage is the warmest part of the house, so that's where we set the covered bowl to do its thing until it's time to punch it and roll it into pies. We've opted for a longer rise time in an effort to obtain a more digestible, lighter crust.
Suddenly, her phone rings, interrupting Bella's narration of one of Miss Bea's hysterical antics.
Bella straightens up with a groan. "It's Ross's ringtone. It could be work-related. I have to take this."
"Don't worry about it. Say hi to Miss Whitlock for me."
She nods and walks back into the kitchen to retrieve the still ringing phone. Because I don't want to eavesdrop on her conversation, I give in to my exhaustion and rest my eyes for a minute. It's only for a minute. Or two. Or three.
Next thing I know, my shoulder's shaking. "Edward? Wake up, please," she pleads.
Giving my head a good shake to dispel the hazy fog of sleep, I sit up at once, still quite disoriented. "What?"
"I don't know how to phrase this," Bella says. Her voice sounds tentative but unworried. Whatever "this" is, there must be no cause for concern.
"What happened?"
Still holding the phone, she perches on the coffee table in front of me. "Do you have a Twitter account, by any chance?"
Confused how that has anything to do with an afternoon of pizza making or with Ross Whitlock, I blurt out my answer. "Yes."
"When was the last time you checked your mentions?"
I don't have a clue where she's going with this. "Eons ago, why?" Disjointed noises from her phone lead me to believe Ross is still on the line. "What's Ross got to do with my Twitter account?"
Bella puts the phone to her ear again. "No, Ross. I'm not going to let you steamroll over him. There's certainly a good, reasonable explanation for this."
"Let me talk to her. Please," I add.
And while Bella haggles with Ross, I search for my own mobile device. Ah—I left it in my jacket. Wondering why I didn't hear any pings from my cell, I conclude that either I turned it to silent unaware, or the little lever on the side caught onto something and toggled it. When I unlock the screen, one cursory look at the Twitter icon is enough to make me groan. "Holy shit. Why do I have twelve thousand Twitter notifications?"
"That's what I was trying to tell you. Looks like a certain EACullen went viral."
&&&IVORIES&&&
Ten minutes later, I'm sipping on freshly brewed coffee, feeling slightly more coherent. Bella and I sit at the breakfast bar, and Ross joins us via FaceTime on Bella's iPad.
"Hey, Ross. How's your Saturday going?"
She snickers, raising an eyebrow. "Are you shitting me right now? And here I thought Mac was the only smartass around here," she adds. Her tone hovers between lighthearted humor and disbelief. At least she's not pissed.
Mac makes a peek-a-boo appearance behind her, shouting, "Hey, I resemble that remark!" Then he disappears off-screen to parts unknown.
"Back to business. It took me a while to reconstruct this, Choc. A call to Angela cleared it all up though."
"Who's Angela?" I've never heard that name from either Bella or Ross.
Bella answers with an impish smile. "She's the president of the Duckling Army."
"You keep in touch with the president of your fan club?"
"Yes, Mr. Editor," Ross replies. "They appreciate the access, and it goes hand in hand with our media strategy."
Direct contact with the fan base, no press mediation. "Got it."
"What did Ang say?" Bella asks.
"Those ladies sure know how to work Google Alerts, let me tell ya. They received one this morning for James's interview in The Classical Source. They followed the cyber trail on Twitter until they found a short Twitter thread debunking the entire thing. They jumped on it. You know how the Army works."
"Ruthless and efficient," Bella answers.
"Yep. They ran with it. Engagement figures are through the roof. The scuttlebutt is that James's camp isn't full of happy campers, but they can't do squat about it. Opera News picked up on the media kerfuffle, and American Record Guide followed. They all traced it back to the original article, confirmed the debunking with their own fact checking, and flat out called for The Classical Source to retract their Fray interview or, at the very least, publish a correction or disclaimer that proper editorial standards were not followed. This is big."
An unspoken question lingers in the air, but neither Ross nor Bella voices it out loud. I don't believe I have a say or a specific role to play at this juncture, other than answering their questions, so I stay quiet and keep sipping my coffee.
Before long, Bella speaks. "Look, Ross. I don't see a downside to this, do you? We didn't orchestrate it, and the Army did its own thing as usual. I'd say, let tweeting dogs tweet."
Ross drums her long, manicured fingers over her keyboard, letting the clack-clacking sound filter through the speakers. "I agree. We don't have any fingerprints on this."
"Fine. So, Edward and I can go back to our home-baked pizzas, and you and Mac can go back to … whatever it was you were doing." The dismissive wave of Bella's hand says it all. For her, the conversation's over.
"I won't keep you then. Don't do anything I wouldn't do, kids. Toodles." She doesn't even wait for our answer to disconnect the call, which ends with the usual "bloop" sound.
After folding her iPad closed, Bella erupts into belly laughs beside me, and I don't have to wonder any more if this is a good or a bad thing.
&&&IVORIES&&&
An hour later, when our on-and-off bouts of hysterical, wheezing laughs have mostly abated, we're sitting on Bella's couch, munching on the pizzas we've baked. She has one of those coffee tables that lifts open into a work surface, and we've set up camp here instead of eating in the kitchen.
"Tell me again what gave you that idea?" she asks.
"I saw that puff piece about him, and it drove me nuts."
She scoffs. "It's a fairly normal reaction where James is concerned. So, just like that"—she snaps her fingers—"you thought you'd fight injustice, one tweet at a time?"
I shrug. "I hated that he badmouthed you without cause. Plus, that idiot of a 'journalist' didn't fact-check him."
"Yes, yes, it's all about journalistic malpractice."
"Of course. I have to uphold better standards than that," I quip back. "But there's one thing I didn't understand. Or I missed it in Ross's explanation."
"No, you were too busy figuring out the gazillion of followers who flooded your timeline. I didn't even know you had a Twitter account," she adds. Then she points her finger at me. "You could have told me."
"I mostly lurked. I was curious about you before." It sounds like another confession.
"Before when?" she whispers, leaning into my shoulder. She looks up at me from her perch beside me, her whiskey and chocolate eyes shining with wonder.
"Before is when I didn't know you. When we weren't friends. Before is … before I knew who you are."
I let those words float between us for an untold beat of time. She's still holding my gaze, her pizza all but forgotten, even despite all the work she put into it. I barely got my hands dirty today.
"But how? Why?" she asks, searching my eyes.
I sit up, then lean forward to push away my plate. Suddenly, stuffing my face is the least of my concerns. "In the beginning, I took it as penance, I guess. I don't have a better name for it."
My definition—the word "penance"—paints a tortured frown on her face. "No, Edward. Why?"
I reach out for her hand, and she folds it into mine silently, without argument. The zinger under my skin—the contact high she always gives me—grounds me and electrifies me at the same time.
"That day was a rotten failure for me, okay? I felt like I couldn't hack it anymore. I blamed myself for it for a long time. Back then, I thought getting to know you—from afar, granted—would help me understand where I'd gone wrong."
She squeezes my fingers, then swings our entwined hands between us like kids do. "Why do you always do that?"
"What?"
"Shoulder all the blame in any given situation. You weren't alone that day, and I didn't go easy on you. I'm just as responsible, so let's just split it halfsies and call it a day. No more casting blame, please. Things have changed so much." She throws a glance at our unfinished pizzas. "Let's call it a day on those pies, too. I'm not hungry anymore."
Together, we fold the coffee table back into its original position and make quick work of cleaning up the kitchen and storing leftovers. Then Bella talks me into sipping herbal tea with her—to counterbalance my caffeine intake, she says.
When we resume our perch on the couch with our mugs, I find my voice again.
"Are you sure my little stunt isn't going to be a problem?"
She laughs. "Sure. You heard Ross."
"Your record label?"
She waves me off. "Jake is half the label. He hates James for what he did to me. He's probably peeved he didn't think of it first."
"I can't believe it went viral."
"You know better than I do how this stuff works, Edward. There was exactly zero chance in hell the Army wouldn't catch wind of a tweet mentioning me or Fray. Why did you do it? Expose yourself that way?"
"Why wouldn't I?"
Relinquishing her mug of tea on the coffee table, Bella folds her legs under her and turns to me. "Not one other person in the world had the same idea. Other than my team and me, the hard-core members of the Army are the ones who know my press mentions best. They had the same information you did, and yet they didn't jump on this incident as you did. So, don't try to sell me this idea that anyone would or could have done it. Nobody did. Except you. If the reasoning for it had been such a slam-dunk, you wouldn't have had to resurrect a dormant Twitter handle to come to my rescue. The trash would have taken itself out. And, in fairness, the Army would have picked up on it. Eventually."
I shake my head. "Eventually wasn't good enough for me."
She sits up, grabbing the back of the couch for support. Her face is so darn close to mine like this. A smattering of freckles, sprinkled here and there like falling stars, adorns her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. There's a new scarf braided into her hair tonight; its hues of burnt sienna play off the honeyed tone of her recently tanned skin. She walks everywhere now the weather's improved, and it shows.
"Why did you do it?"
"For you, Ladybug. I did it for you."
She leans closer. She's so close now I can smell her—the perfume she wears speaks of citrus and laughter, of sunshine and mischief, of ocean breeze and silent conversations. And while I'm lost in this no man's land between tingling skin and anticipation, she speaks again, all of a sudden breaking the dangerous spell I'm in.
"Why did you do that? Why me?"
But when her gaze bores into mine, I realize I'm wrong. The spell isn't broken. It lingers, and the air around us sizzles with electricity because of it. Slowly, tentatively, Bella raises her hand, then lands it on my cheek. Her warmth seeps through my beard and into my skin. Something about the way she's looking at me pins me into place, and I can't avert my gaze or move a muscle. All I see, hear, feel, and smell is her. She surrounds me.
Before I can muster the words to answer her question, she inches closer until her lips capture mine. It's a fraction of a second, but a maelstrom of thoughts and feelings swirls in my mind. How this is, on its face, wrong but feels right. How this changes our dynamic and possibly fucks up our relationship for good. How long it's been since anyone kissed me—let alone with this much tenderness. How long it's been since I wanted to kiss anyone. As my breath hitches, my hands tremble, and my skin tingles, her nearness obliterates all conscious thought. My arms wind around her, and she launches herself into me, tangling her fingers in my hair. And this kiss, these lips continue to caress mine—a promise, a threat, a dream, a possibility, and paralyzing fear all rolled into one.
I feel her—her shape against my chest—while she moves her lips against mine. Her movements are sweet, steadfast, and deliberate at the same time. She's not giving me any ground, any way out. A groan escapes me, and she holds me closer, angling her face to coax open my mouth. She straddles my lap, and when she pushes down on my groin, the heat of her body against me forces another tortured moan out of me. And, wretch that I am, I give in and savor her for the first time. As the pleasure and elation fill me, dread also creeps up on me, slow and implacable. An avalanche of dread. My breath turns shallower, and it's not just because of the frantic kisses we just shared.
When she stops to catch her breath, leaning her forehead against mine, I cradle her face in my hands and caress her cheeks. There's a foreign light dancing in her eyes, and now her freckles blend into her flushed skin.
"What the hell are we doing, Ladybug?"
My thoughtless words, spurred by my impending panic, dump a frigid cold shower on both of us.
"I thought …" Her words trail off into a whispered nothing, and she rains a trail of kisses on my jaw and neck instead.
"God, Bella …" I feel all of her around me. And a part of me can't deny this feeling, this euphoria. My traitorous body is sending me a clear message of how much I'm enjoying her. But mere enjoyment isn't the point. "I can't … we shouldn't … Please, stop."
And that's when she pulls away from me. As always, she's honoring my choices. But I can see from her expression how much this costs her, how much it disappoints her.
"I'm not going to force myself on you, Edward. But I'd like an explanation."
And the Bella I know, the woman who cares but won't take any shit either, is back.
Voicing my words and my reasoning in a way that won't hurt her or fuck up our friendship, however, is a different kettle of fish. "We're friends."
"Bullshit."
"So we're not friends now?" The part of me that functions on black coffee and sarcastic repartees has taken over the conversation. It rarely bodes well for me.
"Don't twist my words. You know what I mean."
"And what do you mean?"
"Relationships evolve. People change. We can be friends and be … more, too."
I lean my head against the back of the couch, as if looking at the ceiling will yield some sort of epic epiphany, and drop my arms from around Bella's waist.
She rolls off me and resumes her spot on the couch, now putting a foot of distance between us. Might as well be an abyss.
"I can't. I won't risk this. I won't risk us." As those words leave my lips, I know with unshakeable certainty I've already sealed our fate. I've already risked "us."
She sits there blinking at me. Incredulous doesn't even begin to describe her expression. Maybe incredulous and disgusted will do.
What the fuck am I still doing here? What the fuck is there still to say? I can't do this. To her, to myself. What does "more" lead to? How am I supposed to deal with "more"? And what the fuck does "more" even mean?
I don't know if I'm built to have, to cope with "more" any longer. It was easier before. My solitary life was easier, predictable. Safer.
"I need to leave, Bella. Please, tell me you understand."
"I can't keep you here against your will, and I won't." She sighs.
"We're still friends," I insist. I don't know to whom I'm lying more—her or myself.
She doesn't reply. I might as well be looking at a statue. A mournful statue.
I rise from my perch on the couch and silently retrieve my jacket and phone. I don't make any move to say goodbye to her. When I reach the front door, I throw a glance behind me. She still sits there, her shoulders slumped in defeat.
I did that. Why? Why did I do that? Whom am I protecting? Her or me? And how valid will my reasoning be in the cold light of day? I don't know.
But leaving is all I seem to be capable of doing because the walls are caving in on me. And I can't bear to see a new day where she may not be in my life, but I can't bear to risk what we have for "more." I'm in a catch-22, and I see no fucking way out.
When I click the door shut behind me and step out into the warm, late May night, the only sound I hear is a muffled sob.
I did that.
Yeah, EditorWard. You did. I'm pretty sure you're gonna get your a$$ kicked in reviews, and you partly deserve it ... The other part ... don't pummel him too hard, peeps. Those walls around his heart are still as impervious as they ever were. Rome wasn't built in a day.
Footnotes: "red-teaming" is a journalistic practice used to vet stories. You have a "white" (or other color I can't remember right now) and a "red" team. The first one presents the story, and the red team's job is to poke holes through it to see if sources and facts have been independently checked. One memorable episode of "The Newsroom" went into this in detail.
MSG is, of course, short for Madison Square Garden.
All the classical music publications mentioned in the chapter actually exist, but I'm sure they all abide by stellar journalistic practices ;-)
I'll see you all next Saturday, with the aftermath of Edward's actions. Fair warning: you might need tissues for the next 2/3 chapters.
