When Evangeline drives us to the hotel Nick leads us inside and says this is his favorite chain to stay at whenever he travels for conventions.

This hotel is the nicest building I have ever been inside in my entire life.

The outside looks like a normal glass building but the inside feels like a palace, with marble pillars and floors. There are actual men there to open the doors and the people at the front counter look like models when they’re just there to check us in.

Nicholas paid for the room, and we truly believe that he is really a famous author now because the hotel room is roughly the size of my apartment in Austere.

There’s a living room, dining room with a small kitchen, two bedrooms with their own bathrooms, and a balcony overlooking the beach.

He tips the man who brings our stuff up to the suite and his eyes widen at the amount. My eyes widen too, and I wonder what kind of life Nick lead in Manhattan before he came down south.

“C’mon, let’s unpack our stuff Anne, let’s go,” Evangeline says.

I take my suitcase to the bedroom on the west side of the suite, and Evangeline follows with me.

“You’re sharing a room with me,” I ask her.

“You want me to share a room with Nick,” she replies.

“I mean…”

She gives a huge grin and locks the door behind us. Next, she puts her ear up to the door, waits a few moments to make sure no one is near it, and gives me the same look Mrs. Wolfe did right before she told me to seduce her son.

“Annabelle, you can keep a secret, right?”

Depends.

“Yes,” I lie.

“You sure, because I think you might be upset with me.”

“Just let it out,” I groan.

She plops down on the king-sized bed and giggles.

“I found my own way out of Edelweiss,” Evangeline says.

“I think you should tell everyone in town that secret, they’d worship you,” I reply.

“I am so serious! It’s Nick.”

“Excuse me?”

“That man is rich,” Evangeline says. “Like, rich rich. You know he had money before he wrote those books?”

“I never asked. I mean, everyone is richer if they ain’t from town,” I reply.

I start unpacking my suitcase and try to change the topic because it feels a little wrong.

Gross.

Dirty.

“What does it matter anyway if he’s rich? Charlie got himself some money writing songs! You could do that too,” I tell her.

“I’m not like you guys,” Evangeline says. “I ain’t interesting. I ain’t special.”

I throw my clothes on the ground and sit next to her on the bed and give her a hug. She is so pretty and tall and sweet, and yet she cannot see these things.

It is so sad.

“What are you talking about? You’re pretty,” I tell her.

“I don’t want to be pretty,” Evangeline says. “I want to be beautiful. I want to feel sexy. I want more.”

“You don’t need Nick to-“

“I do,” Evangeline says. “He didn’t just save you two at that diner, he saved me too. My family owns it!”

“Eva-“

“I have the diner but that’s it. I want more,” Evangeline says. “You want more too. If I marry him then-“

I jump off the bed like it’s on fire and cross my arms.

“You cannot marry that man,” I tell her.

“Why?”

“You can’t marry him just for his money! It’s wrong!”

“No, its not,” she tells me. “I don’t want him for only the money, but it sure helps.”

“What about how he feels? Don’t you want to be more than a housewife?”

“Homemaker,” she corrects me. ”What’s wrong with being a homemaker?”

I stomped my feet on the ground, and I didn’t realize it, but I start to shout.

Over a boy.

Like I ain’t left middle school.

“You say you want more but how is getting married to him more,” I ask. “Aim for more!”

“You shut your mouth,” she yells at me. “You got everything you ever wanted but I can’t? You got Charles, you’re gonna be in a movie!”

“A shitty movie! And I ain’t got shit, I don’t really have Charlie!”

“Lying bitch.”

She gets up from the bed and gets up into my face.

I remind her I have never lost a fight in my life, and she should sit her pretty self down on the bed before her face becomes ugly.

“All talk as per usual,” she tells me quietly. “Get everythin’ you want but I can’t?”

“The only REASON I got any fucking role, just my minor role is because CHARLIE knows the director! Not everything is EASY! Stop talking like-“

“Yeah, but I’m right,” she shouts. “You got different standards for everyone else!”

“What the-“

“You get a role because a man helps you. But I can’t get what I want from a man? You’re so full of shit Annabelle Lee, no wonder your eyes are brown!”

“I’m gonna turn your face into-“

The door opens and Charlie walks in.

“Annabelle what did you do,” he asks me.

“I didn’t do a damn thing! This bitch-“

Evangeline starts to cry.

Unfair.

So unfair.

She cries and says I am a horrible person, that I do not understand, and she tells Charlie honey-filled words because he is a dumb fly caught in a trap.

He hugs her and I stomp off into the kitchen and get a beer from the fridge. Nick enters the living room and he’s drying his hair and looks like he just got out of the shower.

He takes one look at me and cocks his head to the side.

“What did Charlie do?”

I laugh and he gives a small grin, and I feel a lot less sour for a few seconds.

He leaves to do something-or-other and my mind wanders back again to the stupid argument Evangeline started.

She sounds just like Charlie.

Why do they think because I’m pretty that I get every single thing I want? That I have never had to work hard for a damn thing in my life? I am used to hearing that from others but never thought I’d hear that from her.

I think I hate her.

I’m convinced I hate her when Charlie comes to sit next to me in the living room and asks me to apologize.

“The hell I’m gonna apologize for,” I ask him.

“I think we’re just a little drunk,” he tells me.

“Not yet! Watch me!”

“Anne, just apologize.”

He grabs me by the wrist and brings me close and I forget that I am angry with her. I forget that we are pretending, that we are not really dating, but that we are really lovers.

It is so easy for him to kiss me in public, and so easy for him to lie. I guess since it’s so easy for him to lie he wants me to pretend I am sorry for anything and everything.

He kisses me on the forehead, and I look at him in the eyes after because I want more. Evangeline and I both want more but in different ways, but we cannot have it.

“Fine,” I tell him. “I’ll say sorry.”

I will tell her sorry.

I will not mean it.

I take another beer from the fridge and a glass of water to keep myself sane, but pause in place.

Why did I give up Nick for a man who doesn’t want me?

Will Nick marry Evangeline and I will be alone when Charlie eventually finds someone else?

What if I can truly get everything I want. What if I can have more?

I want to be selfish.

I am selfish.

I chug the glass of water, then the beer, and think about having Charlie. But then I cannot have Nick. I don’t want anyone to leave me, but I also want to be alone.

“I want more.”