The Dirty Truth

Stepping out of his car, he greets me under my building’s entry awning, pausing to drink me in with his enchanting aqua gaze before leaning in to steal a kiss.

But at the last minute, I turn my head, offering my cheek instead.

“Fair enough,” he says into my ear after his warm lips graze my skin. “Just know you won’t be doing that by the end of tonight.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

WEST

“Where do you think we go when we die?” Elle asks, peering into the starry sky from the rooftop bar of the Belmond Hotel. A quick phone call to the owner yesterday—a longtime business associate of mine—and he had no qualms about clearing the place out for a few hours. I wanted to take her somewhere special for our first date, somewhere with a view—and privacy. This is perfect.

At ninety floors in the air, with glimmering stars overhead and a glowing metropolis below, it’s like we have the whole city to ourselves.

Our own little world.

“I was hoping we could start our evening with a toast.” I fill our champagne flutes from a bottle of uncorked Cristal. “Not an existential crisis.”

Her glossy lips twist at the side as she peels her pretty eyes from the heavens back down to earth.

“But do you ever think about that?” she asks anyway.

“Not if I can help it.” For the first twenty-odd years of my life, death was the quiet theme song playing on a loop in the background. I intend to spend the rest of my years running in the opposite direction, and someday when my number is called, I don’t plan on going down without a fight. Lifting my flute, I nod toward hers until she does the same. “To another first.”

She clinks her glass against mine, takes a sip, and drags in a temperate, early-June breath as the flickering candle between us turns her eyes an incandescent shade of blue.

“You’re getting that look again,” I say when she squares her shoulders. “Like you have something profound to say.”

“I died a few months ago,” she blurts.

Nearly coughing on my Cristal, I place the flute aside. “Excuse me?”

If that isn’t profound, I don’t know what is.

“When I had my aneurysm. I was clinically dead for three minutes,” she continues. “And you know what I saw?”

“What . . . ?”

She shrugs. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

“Maybe you weren’t actually dead. Doctors have been known to be wrong once in a while . . .”

Elle shakes her head in disagreement.

“You read all of these stories about near-death experiences and people seeing bright lights and loved ones and feeling pure peace and seeing colors that don’t exist on this earth—but no one ever talks about the black void.” She reaches for her flute, swirling the golden liquid but not taking a sip. “It makes me think that this could be all there is, you know? This one life. I mean, no one knows anything for sure, but what if this is all we get? One chance at this.”

“If that’s all we get, then that’s all we get. Nothing we can do about that.”

The wind tousles her hair, and she sweeps a wayward curl from the side of her face before her pretty gaze is replaced with a far-off look.

“I made a promise to myself last month,” she says. “To engage only in the things that give my life meaning and joy and purpose. So if I’m here with you now, it’s because this means something to me.” With a slight chuckle, she adds, “I don’t know what it means, but it means something.”

“Likewise.”

“I don’t want superficial, West.” She tilts her head. “Five-dollar champagne on your rooftop would’ve been just as lovely as all of this. Not that this isn’t wonderful. But you don’t have to impress me with things like this.”

“Isn’t that the entire point of dating? To impress each other?”

“On some level, yes,” she says. “But I just mean, your life is so curated and filtered and perfect. And if you want to date me, you’re going to have to let your guard down.”

“I’ve let my guard down with you more than you realize.”

“You let your guard down only when it’s convenient for you,” she says. “Only when you feel like it.”

I toss back a mouthful of champagne, swallowing the resentment I harbor at that statement.

“So for the sake of meaningful conversation and getting to know each other a little better . . . tell me, West: Where do you think we go when we die?” She sits straighter, studying me, waiting patiently for my response.

I contemplate my answer before offering a simple “I think we become stardust.”

“That’s it? Poof—stardust?”

“Poof. Stardust.”

While the idea of my brother looking down on us from some paradise in the sky sounds awfully reassuring, I can’t bring myself to subscribe to such an idealistic notion. If he does exist in some other dimension, I only hope he’s far away from my parents—who are likely bickering from here to eternity.