Chapter 9 Chapter 9 Over the next few days, Thalia sent me a few meaningless messages. Nothing but bragging about how obsessed Dashiell was with her. I was swamped with work transitions and getting to know my new colleagues-I didn't even have time to open them. Eventually, when I stopped responding, Thalia stopped sending them too. My new life in Austin was taking root and flourishing. Dashiell's name seemed to have completely disappeared from my world. So when someone brought him up again, it felt like hearing about someone from another lifetime. 'Dashiell?" I asked. The background was noisy, and I had to strain to hear, thinking I'd misheard. 'Aurelia, it's me. I'm at Club V, and Dashiell's here totally wasted. Can you come pick him up?" I was sitting in Austin's downtown plaza, taking some snacks from Kieran, and replied automatically: "Are you kidding me?" 'I'm serious," my friend insisted. "He's been mumbling your name since he started drinking. He got drunk super fast and keeps demanding that you come get him." I know you guys had that fight and things got messy, but you were together for so long-what can't be worked out?" Just come pick him up, and you can both pretend nothing happened and make up..." I tried to stay polite: 'First, we didn't have a fight-we broke up." 'Second, I'm in Austin and you're in New York. That's like a thousand miles away. If he's dying, call 911." Third, Dashiell has a girlfriend. Stop trying to set us up. Why does everyone act like I'm supposed to be hung up on Dashiell forever?" The other end went quiet. Then I heard hushed whispering. I caught someone saying: "She says she's in Austin. What do we do? Didn't you say she only took five days off and would be back by now?" "Dashiell, didn't you say all you had to do was snap your fingers and Aurelia would come running?" "Don't tell me you actually screwed this up. All that talk about getting closure from your first love' while teaching Aurelia a lesson..." I shook my head. Dashiell was still the same. 16:24 Dear Hubby, Your Biggest Mistake? Thinking I'd Beg Instead of Burn 20.69 Chapter 9 Arrogant, narcissistic, and delusional. He had no idea that I'd already turned the page on him completely. After that phone call, Kieran's eyes had a dangerous glint to them. He kept pretending to casually observe my expressions. After he asked me for the sixth time if I had any travel plans, I snapped: "No! The project's almost wrapped up-I'm not going anywhere when I'm about to get my bonus." Kieran just said "Oh" with this neutral expression. "That's good. Seems like everywhere except Austin has bad weather lately." He glanced at me: "Especially New York. I heard it's going to rain there for the next week straight." I was focused on my laptop, comparing contract details. After a while, I stretched and turned to look at Kieran: "Are you trying to hit some kind of word quota or something?" "If you'd been this talkative in high school, you never would've been that brooding hottie everyone was obsessed with." I was just joking. But seeing Kieran freeze up and look like he was facing some kind of disaster, I stopped laughing. "Wait, listen, I didn't mean it like that-" 'It's fine." Kieran's hands were shaking as he put on his jacket and rushed toward the door. Before leaving, he turned to my confused parents and bowed deeply. Kieran's eyes were red as he said hoarsely: 'Aurelia hates how much I talk. I'll... I'll go work on that." Please give me another chance." By the time I chased after him, he was gone. The door was wide open, and yellow autumn leaves swirled in the air before falling sadly to the ground. Everything felt frozen. Until Dashiell stepped out from under a streetlight. He was dragging Kieran, who looked like he'd just tried to escape. Dashiell looked at me like I was his lifeline: 16:24 Dear Huble Your Plagget Metal DNA. Chapter 9 "Aurelia, I just ran into your brother. I apologized to him about what happened before. Can you please-" 16.24 3