Chapter 23
MARILYN
The subway is noisy for a Sunday.
The early morning pre-church crowd gathers in each overstuffed car, rubbing up against each other by accident.
I smell the New York on them, the scent of a long day to come.
I miss this scene. Miss this town. The thought that I may never have it again to leave for LA makes my tongue numb and my throat tighten, but nothing—not even the notion of missing Manhattan—makes my chest hurt harder or the insides of my body squeeze more than the idea that I may never be with Jesse again.
It’s why I worked so hard to avoid it, ran from it all my life.
Love, I convinced myself, wasn’t meant for me.
It’s a fear I never saw coming, a fate I’d hoped I could avoid.
There was no heroine in me. I was the scarred. The scorned.
It was only a matte
