You Look Different in Real Life

enough room for both of us.
    After he settles in, his elbow digging into my side and me not leaning away, letting myself absorb the raw pressure of it, he says, “You can’t make a statement like that and not elaborate.”
    I sniffle back the last remnants of the tears. “I woke up early and started watching all the footage I shot since we left the lodge. And I have to say . . . it’s pretty amazing. In those clips I can really see everyone. Keira and her mom. Felix, facing the big truth about himself. Rory, pushing through things she’s never done before and moving that much further, finally, along her own storyline.” I hold my thumb and forefinger apart, to illustrate what a small but precious amount I’m talking about. “And you . . .”
    I freeze. I’m not even sure how to finish that.
    “Do you really see me too?” asks Nate. His voice catches on a nervous edge.
    “I know I see a different you. Not the one I saw before.” And now, because he is right here and smells like sweat and sugar— Is it apples? Can it be that he actually sweats apples? —I add, “I hated that guy.”
    “Uh, yeah,” says Nate. “I got that. Was that because of what you assumed I did to Felix?”
    I wince. He had to use that word, assume , which onlymakes me think of that “when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me” saying, although he certainly has a right to.
    “Partly,” I reply. “I guess I felt you sold out somehow. Remade yourself, just to look good on film. But who am I to say that? Maybe that’s just who you became.”
    Nate collapses backward so he’s lying on the slide, his feet still planted on the ground. He puffs out a long breath. “Actually, you were right the first time.”
    Now he hooks one arm over his face, smothering it with his elbow.
    “Go on,” I say.
    “After those jerks stole my rabbit and totally humiliated me, on camera , I knew I had to change things. I like to think I did it for myself and not for the films, not because Lance and Leslie would be coming back in a few years and I wanted to show everyone I’d won the game. But that can’t really be true.”
    “I wish I could have changed like you did,” I say, and as soon as it comes out, I realize why I resented Nate for his morphing abilities. I was jealous.
    “Into someone who wasn’t actually you? I’m glad you didn’t.” He takes his arm off his head now, but his eyes are still closed, and even though there’s a decent amount of pain on his face, I can’t help but want it to stay that way because it’s quite gorgeous, really. From an artistic standpoint.
    “Besides,” he continues. “I’m not sure how much I changed at all. There was the version of me I created to show the world, and the version of me that felt like me . . . and I can’t tell where they overlap.” He takes a deep breath, in and out, and shudders on the out . Is he going to cry too? I can’t begin to plan how to deal with that.
    After a few more breaths like this, Nate continues, calmer now.
    “You know where it all started? Lance and Leslie shot some stuff between Aidan and Tony and me. When my grandfather wanted them to share any footage that could prove what was happening, I begged them not to.” He looks up the slide, like he’s worried someone’s going to come crashing down on top of him. “I was such a chicken, it makes me sick to think about it.”
    I try for something positive to say here. Something Nate needs to hear.
    “Getting those guys in trouble would have made your life more difficult down the line,” I offer. “They would have come for payback. What you did was smart.”
    “Maybe. I just know that I wanted that whole episode gone, along with everything people saw and felt about me. I actually asked Lance to destroy the tape that had the footage—they were still shooting on videotape back then, remember?”
    “And did he?”
    Nate shrugs. “He sent it to me.”
    “And you destroyed it?”
    “More or less.”
    “I’m not sure what that means.”
    Nate looks at me, his eyes twinkling. “We got off the subject. Do you really think you might know who I am?”
    “Aside from being an epic snorebeast, I think I might.”
    Nate smiles. It’s the smile I’ve seen a hundred times, the smile I used to want to slap away. Now it’s something I’d just like to hold for a while, cupped in my palms.
    “I think I might know who you are too, Justine.”
    The hair on my arms suddenly stands up straight. I need to