by K. A. Linde
She heaved in a deep breath and entered her apartment. She stopped in her tracks at the living room. How had she forgotten that she was tearing the place apart? She and Frederick had gotten into a lover’s spat last week, and the place was still only halfway back to normal. She had threatened to take it back to its earlier form of distaste, but now, it felt dramatic. Staring at her messy apartment only made all the fresh memories wash over her.
What had she been thinking?
She had a lot of work to do.
As she waited for Adam, she placed the take-out in the refrigerator and did something she should have done a long time ago. She walked through her living room and back into her massive closet. Hanging in the back, hidden behind hundreds of other garments, was the million-dollar dress.
She removed it from the hanger and carried it back into the living room. She grabbed an empty box from her latest purchase that was discarded on her floor and placed it on her black leather sofa. She smiled forlornly at the dress as she fingered the precious material. That part of her life was over, and it was time to let go of the past. She sighed heavily, letting it all out.
Carefully folding the dress, she placed it into the box, sealed it, and wrote Marco’s address on the shipping label. Once she mailed it tomorrow, that would be the end of it.
Satisfied with her decision, she went about actually cleaning her apartment before Adam’s arrival. It wasn’t dirty. She still had housekeepers after all, but she was tired of the clutter in her life. She took the bamboo blinds and a few other random environmental pieces she had acquired on a whim and hid them in a side closet. She would get rid of them properly later. She grabbed a stack of old framed black-and-white photographs from the same closet, happy to place them back on the wall where they belonged.
The collage she had built over years from collecting pictures of obscure locals finally came back into shape. She hung up the next one, adjusting it to make sure it was straight, and then grabbed one of the last pictures. As she stood up and glanced at the picture, her breath caught, and she nearly dropped the picture.
She had completely forgotten that she had brought back framed photographs from Milan. When she had returned to New York, she had been furious for even using all that space in her suitcase for them, so she had hidden them in that closet. She was a collector, and even then, leaving the pictures had seemed like a waste.
But, staring at the pictures now was a reminder of what she had given up by leaving. She sighed, tracing the outline of the frame. Maybe she needed them now to remember how far she had come.
The first one that she was holding in her hand was of the Naviglio Grande canal. All she saw when she looked at it was a blue Bugatti. She placed it on a nail in the wall, wanting to cling on to the remaining happy memories of Milan. The second one was from the coast in Genoa. She didn’t remember which day Marco had taken this one. She just remembered the happiness of spending time with people whose company she enjoyed. That one followed suit, and on the wall, it went. The final one she picked up was a photo shoot she would forever remember. It was taken from the window of Marco’s bedroom with the city skyline captured perfectly. He had hated it because it blurred around the edges, but she loved it because it illuminated the stars.
She swallowed hard, deciding she couldn’t hang that picture. It wouldn’t be right. She had left her star in Italy, and now, she looked at a new night sky. Marco had made that as blatantly clear as her letter, and she was returning the dress. Her last link to him.
The picture was replaced back into its hiding place in the closet where it belonged, and she finished up the rest of the cleaning. When the doorbell rang an hour later, the place wasn’t a hundred percent back to normal, but it was as close as it was going to get by herself. She had threatened to tear it apart to upset Frederick, but all she had done was put it back together herself. She needed to do that to the rest of her life now.
Chyna opened the door and immediately burst out laughing. It felt good. “Is that Chinese?”
Adam shrugged, clearly not understanding her laughter. “I thought you might be hungry.”
She rolled her eyes with a smile on her face. “I am. Come on.”
Adam followed behind her and placed the food on the island just as she pulled Chinese take-out from the refrigerator.
Seeing that they had ordered the same thing, Adam burst out laughing as well. “Guess we both wanted the same thing.”
“Well, yours is still warm,” she said, snatching a box of rice and some chicken concoction out of his hands. “So, I’m calling dibs.”
“I assumed so,” he said, taking a seat on a bar stool and popping open his own take-out boxes.
Chyna ripped open the chopsticks provided and dug into her meal. She was surprisingly hungry after such an exhausting day. Oh yeah, she hadn’t actually eaten her salad during her meeting with Cassandra. No wonder. Had she had anything today?
They ate in silence for the most part. He chatted briefly about work, and she told him about Alexa’s plan in Atlanta. They both laughed at that one, knowing how her plans normally went. It was nice. Normal. Comfortable.
She swallowed as much as she could eat, happy to be eating real food again. Her diet had been delicious but small, very small, and specific in Italy. Plus, they didn’t have Chinese take-out like this.
Neither of them seemed ready to move on with the conversation. Even after they were both stuffed and Chyna had put the leftovers back into her refrigerator, they seemed hesitant as to where the conversation should go…where it should even begin.
“So...” he said, trailing off.
“Yeah. So…” she copied.
“How was Italy?” he finally asked.
Chyna chewed on her bottom lip and fiddled with her chopsticks. “A dream come true.”
“Hey, it’s just me,” he said, reaching out and extracting the chopsticks from her grasp. “You can talk to me.”
“No, really,” she said, dropping her hands onto the island. “It was a dream come true. Everything I wanted and more. I was actually great at something…beyond great at something.”
“Then, why do you seem so down? How could it be everything you wanted?” he asked softly.
She looked down and away from his probing eyes. She didn’t want to tell him, but isn’t that why she had asked to talk to him? She had been thinking about him before she even left Marco. And she had been an emotional wreck after they had broken up. At the time she couldn’t even figure out why. She still didn’t know why…not really. Nothing had ever hit her so hard. Except this. Maybe worse than this.
“Because I messed it all up… like I always do,” she whispered the last part glancing up nervously into his hazel eyes.
“Why do you always say that? You don’t mess everything up,” he told her placing his hand on hers reassuringly.
“Well, I messed this up. I can’t model anymore,” she told him. The words felt tragic coming out of her mouth. And every time she thought about it, she felt like someone had punched her in the gut knocking the breath out of her.
“Why not? I thought you said you were great at it. Won’t people notice that? I sure noticed your picture all over the city,” he said with a fake cough to break eye contact.
“Because I…I, God!” she cried dropping her face into her hands. “That picture is the whole problem!”
Adam sighed, reaching across the island and raising her chin with his hand. “I wanted you to be happy when you left. You thought it was the right thing, and I wanted to believe you. I thought when that picture was up all over the city that it had all happened for a reason. Now, you’re telling me that it didn’t?” he asked, trying to put the pieces together.
Her bottom lip quivered as she stared up at him. How could she make him understand what had happened? “It did until I left.”
“Why did you leave?”
She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to admit the truth. “Because I was scared.”
His resolve crumb
led at her admission. “What could scare you? You’re fearless. You charge into every situation head on ready to conquer the world.”
“You think so?” she asked feeling very small in that moment.
“I know so. You scare me sometimes with how you react to situations,” he told her. “And sometimes—I want to be more like you.”
“You do?” she asked her brows furrowing.
“Yes, Chyna. So what were you afraid of?”
She swallowed trying to absorb everything he had just told her. He thought she was fearless. He thought she conquered situations. She had always thought the opposite. It was easier not to get attached, not to have anything she obsessed over, not to feel anything really. That way, at least, she never felt this.
She turned her head away from him and looked out in her living room. Taking a deep breath, she finally answered him, “Failing.”
“Everyone fails.”
“Not me,” she told him.
“Never?”
“No. Never,” she said. “I’ve never put myself out there to fail. So I left, because I didn’t want to face the alternative. Then when I got here and saw the ads, I started seeing how much I messed up by not giving it a chance. Now I can’t model anymore. He blacklisted me,” she whispered the last part.
“He?” Adam prompted.
“Marco,” she said, meeting his probing gaze.
“Ah, the fashion designer,” he said as if he knew where this was going.
She took a deep breath and plunged forward. “We were together in Italy.”
He nodded, pursing his lips. “I figured.”
She cringed slightly at his reaction. She knew it would be there. “And, I left him without a good-bye.”
“But, you think you made the right choice?” he asked.
She bit her lip, thinking about the question. Leaving Marco, in the end, was the right thing, but the consequences…that was a different story. “I know I did.”
“And, it’s over?” he asked the loaded question but the easier one for her.
“Yes,” she told him without hesitation. It was very over. “But, now I can’t model. All because I left.”
Adam sighed, standing and coming around the island to wrap his arms around her. She turned to face him, burying her face into his shoulder. He stroked her hair back as she nuzzled into him, and he gave her the moment she needed to just feel.
“Now,” he said, keeping his arms around her but pulling back so that he could see her face, “you are not a failure. Even if you were, it would be okay because you’re resilient. You bounce back. You are a beautiful, confident, accomplished young woman, and this one pitfall—because that’s all it is—will not break you. I promise.”
A smile slowly returned to her face. “You think I’m beautiful?”
“Was that ever a concern?” he asked, poking her in the sides playfully.
“Maybe.”
He gave her the look, and she giggled.
“Fine. No.”
“Are you feeling any better?” he asked.
“Yes,” she admitted. She was actually feeling much better with him around. He alleviated so much of the weight that had been on her shoulders. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“I’m glad you want me to be here…especially after the way I ended things,” he said sheepishly.
“I thought you said it was…mutual,” she said. She hated that word.
“You and I both know it wasn’t,” he admitted, dropping his arms from around her
25
Present
Chyna followed Adam the living room. She was surprised at how easily he had admitted that it wasn’t mutual.
She had been beating herself up about the break-up since it had happened. She had felt backed into a corner, having agreed with him accidentally. Yet, she couldn’t have imagined being in Milan with Marco while dating Adam. Things would have been very different, and maybe she needed her time away to see how she felt about him.
The silence lingered between them. Chyna stood back and observed him before the photographs she had put up. Her heart ached as she watched him. Why had it taken her so long to see what was standing directly in front of her all this time?
“New additions,” Adam mused, staring at the collection on her wall. “I’m guessing you got these in Italy.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I did.” She was prepared to tell him about them if he asked. She was ready to move on.
“They seem to fit the wall,” he said, staring at them with his head cocked to the side. “The lines in Italian architecture are just stunning.”
She chuckled softly. Of course, he would always bring it back to architecture. It was his job and his life. When he looked at the pictures, he saw only well-constructed buildings, a beauty that few others could really appreciate. Where he saw the beauty of a well-crafted building, she saw only memories—memories of a past that she had left behind after boarding the plane to New York. Such a sharp, determined decision had changed everything.
“Hey, you,” he said, turning to face her. “Come here.”
She walked up to him, not hesitating for a second. “Yes?”
“I really am glad you’re back,” he said, his arms circling her waist as he pulled her into a hug.
“Me too,” she whispered against his chest.
She loved the feel of his arms around her. It felt like home. It felt like the only home she had ever known…the only one she had ever chosen. It was comfortable and relaxing, and she could have laid her head against his shoulder, breathing in his familiar scent, all day.
Just when she was getting comfortable, he pulled back and stared down into her face, memorizing every inch of it like a blueprint. “So, why those two pictures?” he asked softly, bringing her out of her reverie.
She knew she had to answer him, and she figured she had a response. Taking a deep breath, she answered him, “Because they are the memories I want to remember from my time in Italy.”
He nodded, not needing to ask anything further. She figured he could guess that they had something to do with Marco. He would forever be intrinsically linked with Milan to her. The memories were not something Adam would ever want to know about, and she was glad that he didn’t push it.
“You know,” he began, staring back up at the picture like he was trying to find the answers hidden within the still frames. “I found out how you got those tickets.”
“What?” she asked, surprised by the change in direction. He must be talking about the tickets to Marco’s grand opening. She had never discovered their origin. “How did you find out? They were dropped off at my front door.”
“I know. I didn’t really believe you at the time, but I found out that you were right,” he said, looking a bit sheepish.
“Of course, I was right. I wouldn’t lie to you about something like that,” she told him. Oh, those tickets were the key to her ending up in Italy!
“Sorry. It didn’t seem very plausible at the time,” he admitted.
“Well, who sent them, and how did you find out?” she demanded, curiosity getting the better of her.
“John,” he said, glancing into her green eyes for the shock that immediately registered there.
Her stomach felt a bit queasy. She couldn’t believe what he had just said. How? Why? What the…
“Apparently, the big deal that he had negotiated with Global was for Marco’s clothing line to come to New York, and the designer gave him two complimentary tickets as a thank you of sorts.”
That son of a bitch! She wasn’t sure if she could form coherent sentences because she was so furious. Of all the fucking people to gain her access to Marco Moretti, it had to be the one person that she despised for his very existence in her life. Stupid, fucking hot, tattooed man! Why the hell did he send her tickets? Hadn’t he done enough damage?
“He told me that he would have given them to you in person, but you were out, and he had a flight to catch. He wanted to apologize, and I guess this was the o
nly way he knew how. Not sure how he knew you wanted to be at that opening.”
Because she had told him…or at least told him about how she wanted to model. She couldn’t believe this. She just couldn’t.
She knew that she should be happy with John. He had given her the means to model in Italy all through his supposed apology, but she just couldn’t be happy with him. Not only had he ruined her relationship once by kissing her at the Hookah Lounge, he had then sent her the very tickets, introducing her to Marco, that forced the untimely destruction of her relationship a second time. Unforgivable!
She didn’t care what his supposed intentions were. All she cared was what had happened because of his interference.
“Pretty nice thing for John to do to apologize. He didn’t have to give those tickets to you and look at the direction it took your life. You got a job modeling in Italy,” Adam said, trying to sound more excited than he had two months ago when she had suggested the opportunity.
Stop it! She didn’t want to hear about how nice he was! He was disgusting, a pig, the scum of the universe! What kind of guy hits on his brother’s girlfriend? Terrible kinds!
She wanted to hate him! She didn’t want to think that…perhaps he was actually a nice guy who had made a mistake. She didn’t want to think about him apologizing. Then, that would just be one more thing that she had gotten wrong and one more thing that she would have to change her perspective on.
No, she was determined that he was a bad guy. He saw what he wanted and took it. Plain and simple. None of this apologizing. Nothing more than a set up.
“At the time, he said to me, ‘Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.’ It’s an Oscar Wilde quote. Kind of stuck with me.”
Chyna shook her head. She didn’t want to think about him or his Oscar Wilde quotes. She didn’t care that they made sense.
“I don’t want to talk about him,” she said, knowing she was being short with Adam.
“All right. I just thought you would want to know.”
She didn’t, but she didn’t say that. She didn’t have to. It was written all over her face.