Read Online All Eyes on Her by Poonam Sharma - Free Book Online

Raj because there is nothing to tell. We have not broken up. We’re taking a breather.”
    Besides, I thought, reaching for the remote control, my mother always got way too involved with opinions that were completely misinformed when I let her anywhere near my personal life. And as if God didn’t have just the most perfect timing…
    “Hollywood studios are abuzz this week with news of one of the biggest screenwriting sweetheart deals to have been signed by Paragon Pictures in years,” some Entertainment Tonight reporter wearing no less than eight necklaces and an entire tube of lip gloss prattled on.
    And then they cut to the videotape of Alex.
    With that same warm smile. That same humble manner. Those same unmistakable dimples sneaking in an appearance as he sat back and watched the filming from his consultant’s chair on the set of the movie that launched his career.
    “Rumor has it,” the talking head continued, “that the movie studio has just inked a landmark seven-figure, two-script deal with the screenwriter whose first movie, Like You Mean It , was the sleeper hit of last summer.”
    “Oh, honey .” Sheila sat down beside me. “I’m sorry. You know I only watch that for the celebrity stuff. Let’s change the channel.”
    “Come on, Sheila,” I insisted, in a voice that wouldn’t have even convinced a total stranger, “don’t be silly. I can be happy for him, can’t I?”
     
    The first time Alex told me that he loved me was when he came home from a morning run to find me awake and curled up in his dorm-room bed, wearing one of his T-shirts and reading the original version of Like You Mean It. I could tell by the way he said it that he’d startled himself, as much because he’d blurted it out, as because of realizing that it was true. Although my first instinct was to drop the script, grab him by the neck and yank him down on top of me, he held me back, asked me to finish reading first, and made me promise to tell him what I really thought when I was done. Total honesty, he announced with an idealism that only someone under legal drinking age can muster, was the only way that this relationship would ever work.
    So like most young couples we managed to be completely honest with each other for the next two years, except, of course, for those little things that we held back. Harmless things, at first, like my insisting that his snoring never bothered me in the least, and his swearing up and down that I was cute when I was drunk. We knew what we had and we shared a quiet instinct to protect it, even from ourselves. It worked for me because by definition a girl’s first real love is the guy who feels like family. And it worked for him because rather than feeling skewered by my gut reaction to his work, he told me that he finally felt as if he had someone on his team.
    Yes, we kept up a relationship of comfortable truth even through the summer when he tattooed his biceps and bartended on Sunset, while I donned my sensible suit and interned at an emerging-markets hedge fund. At the time, Alex forcing me to admit that I had gone corporate to appease my father only made me love him more. But when the summer was over…
    “What do you mean What am I gonna do after school? ” he asked, while hefting my bookcase into the corner of my new dorm room that September.
    “I mean that people are applying to grad schools or applying for jobs.” I flopped onto the bed and watched him work. “So what are we gonna do?”
    “I’m not sure what you’re gonna do yet, but I’m sure you’ll land on your feet, even if you have to move back in with your parents for a few months.”
    “And what about you?” I rose up on my elbows.
    “Whadya mean?” He blew the hair out of his eyes and looked up at me. “What’s wrong with bartending until I sell my script?”
    There was nothing and plenty wrong with it, but what was I going to say? That was when I realized just how committed he was to his writing, and it