“Oh. That.”

“Yeah. Anyway, she started taking notes on what I was saying tonight, like my personal life is mere fodder for her creative genius, and it . . . I don’t know, it was too much for me. Like, I’m a person, not your story inspiration, and my life isn’t going to get a happily-ever-after in an hour and a half. It will keep on going after the credits roll, and it will keep on being hard.”

I don’t know what I expect Nick to ask, but it isn’t “Why don’t you get a happily-ever-after?”

I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “Because of my life? It’s a shitshow.”

“You keep saying that, but what makes it a shitshow, Chloe?”

“You’ve met my dad, Nick. Most days, he can’t even remember what he had for lunch, or if he had lunch, and eventually he’s going to forget me, too. He’s not going to get better. And no one’s coming along to save me, to make it easier to take care of him or pay for his place, and I have to get my degree on the Internet during whatever free time I have, which means I’ll have a bachelor’s degree maybe by the time I’m seventy-five, if I’m lucky. And all I want to do is have my own little bakery, my own happy place, but I don’t even know if that’s possible. I think it might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever believed in, because the world doesn’t need another bakery. Columbus sure doesn’t need another bakery, which means I’d have to go to some other city, but I couldn’t go to another city until . . . well, until after. With my dad. Which I don’t like to think about.”

I take a breath, on the verge of tears, but I don’t have a Five-Minute Cry scheduled right now and I’m not about to have an impromptu one with Nick on the line.

“I don’t want to see this movie,” I say. “But also I have to see this movie, in a theater full of people, with my best friend who probably hates me. This blows.”

Nick breaks his silence. “Is Mikey Danger coming with you to the premiere tomorrow? Or, I guess, tonight?”

“Why would Mikey Danger be coming?” I ask, confused.

“Um . . . because you’re dating him?”

“Oh. Oh, yeah, I forgot. I broke up with him.”

Silence.

“Nick?”

“You broke up with him?”

“Yep,” I say. “Dumped his ass. I mean, okay, sorry, that sounds cruel. He’s fine. Mikey Danger is perfectly fine for some other person who wants to spend every evening eating takeout in front of infomercials and then falling asleep. But, as it turns out, that person is not me.”

I can’t see Nick, but I can hear him smile through the phone. “Let’s go to the premiere together, okay?”

I swallow. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

I nod, even though he can’t see me. “Okay.”

Being with Nick will make it better, like being with Nick makes everything better. He’ll be there for me to lean into and on, there to talk to me if it’s too much, there to leave with me if I can’t or don’t want to handle it.