The Big Mistake

by Lexie Ray

  Faith sucked in a breath. “That rotten son of a bitch.”

  “He started out really nice,” I said, resting my face against the cool glass of the car window. “I really thought he was the one. He made me think…no. I wanted him to be the one. If there were warning signs, I ignored them. I didn’t want to see them. I wanted my happily ever after, Faith, just like you have yours. Like Sol has hers. I wanted the perfect guy.”

  Faith pulled the car into a parking spot at a café I’d never been to before and turned off the engine before speaking.

  “Jennet, no one deserves a happy ending more than you,” she said. “But there’s something you need to understand about love. It’s never perfect. No guy is perfect — and none of us are, either. There’s no absolute Prince Charmings and no absolute villains. There’s a little bit of both in everyone. You just hope you can get along well enough with the villainous bits that the charming parts keep winning you over.”

  We settled in at a table, halfway between the late night and early morning crowds, hovering over our steaming cups of coffee.

  “I didn’t hear from Nick,” I offered, taking a sip from the coffee and doctoring it with another packet of sugar.

  “Did you leave a message?” she asked, stirring a creamer into her own coffee mug.

  “No,” I said. “His voicemail was weird. Just that robot message.”

  “That is weird,” Faith agreed. “He loved making up those voicemail message songs.”

  “So I don’t know what to think anymore,” I said, taking another sip and nearly scalding myself. “I think I’m just done, really. I don’t know. I don’t want to know. I don’t care about it.”

  “Don’t you want to know why he lied to you?” she asked.

  “Why who lied to me?” I still felt stupid, still felt gutted. “Why Greg lied to me? Because he’s a manipulative asshole. Why Nick lied to me? Because who the hell cares?”

  I pushed the heel of my hand against my forehead and Faith made a clucking sound.

  “This has just been a really rough day,” she observed. “I’m so sorry this happened, Jennet.”

  “I was stupid,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Stop.” She took my hand. “No one deserves to be lied to. You didn’t ask for any of this, and I don’t want to hear you saying that it’s your fault. It wasn’t, and it’s not. I don’t know what possessed Nick to lie to everyone, and if you don’t want to think about it anymore, then don’t. You don’t deserve to hurt anymore over this if you don’t want to. You tried to contact Nick. If he didn’t answer you, and you’re done with it, just wash your hands of it.”

  I blinked several times. Could I just do that? Just turn my back on a person and forget about them? I’d have to try to do it with Greg. Should I go ahead and lump Nick with him, sweep that whole pile of lies under the rug and forget about it? Was it even possible?

  “You’re right,” I said finally, looking up at my friend. “You’re absolutely right. I just need to forget about all of this. I didn’t deserve to be treated like this. Nobody does. And Nick lied to us all — you, me, Luke, Adam, Sol, Xander, everyone. Everyone he knew, he lied to. We don’t need to know the reasons for it, do we?”

  “We absolutely do not,” Faith agreed, toasting me with her mug. “Jennet, fuck him.”

  “Fuck him,” I said a little too heartily, earning stares from people coming in for the morning caffeine fix before work. I didn’t care. I felt the best I had all day. “Fuck both of them.”

  “Hear, hear,” she said, pounding her hand against the table.

  “This is probably behavior more suitable to the shots of tequila than shots of espresso,” I observed, trying not to laugh at all the dirty looks we were getting.

  “Fuck them, too,” Faith said succinctly. “We do what we want. We don’t take shit from anyone.”

  We left swiftly after finishing our coffees. It wouldn’t do to get banned from a café around rush hour. If I was going to get kicked out of somewhere, it was going to be for something truly epic — not raising my voice around a bunch of commuters.

  “Where do you want to go?” Faith asked. “We’ll go wherever you want to go. The beach. Disney World. Key West. Tell me which direction to point this car in so we can leave everything behind us.”

  “Just take me back to my apartment,” I said, laughing at her. “You have to work in like an hour. I don’t know how you’re going to survive.”

  “I can sleep when I’m dead,” she said, serene. “Are you sure you want to go back to the apartment? Want me to stay with you?”

  “It’s been wonderful to see you,” I said. “It really has. I’m sorry that it’s under such terrible circumstances, and that I worried you by not returning your calls all evening, and that you had to drag yourself across town in order to attend my pity party.”

  “I would never miss a pity party,” she said, pulling up to the front sidewalk of the apartment building. “But seriously. Remember what I said. Call me for any reason at any hour. I mean it, Jennet.”

  “I know you do,” I said. “And thank you for everything. Go home. Try to grab a nap. Apologize to your bosses, and give them my number. I’ll tell them my sad story and distract them from you sleeping at your desk.”

  “Give me a big hug,” she said, and I obliged, reaching over the center console to do so.

  “You’re not a millionaire in disguise, are you?” I muttered into her hair.

  “I’d cut you in by now,” she said. “You’re not a millionaire in disguise, are you?”

  “I’d have bought St. Anthony’s for Luke and a Ferrari for you,” I said, then laughed.

  “What’s funny? I want a Ferrari.”

  “I just remembered that I told Nick he should get a Ferrari one time,” I mused. “He said they weren’t that great of a car.”

  Faith guffawed. “What an ass.”

  “Right? Who turns down a Ferrari?”

  “It’s not that good,” she reasoned, then burst out into laughter.

  “The clues were probably all right there,” I said, shaking my head. “He probably told us details all the time that we could’ve used to figure it all out. That same conversation with the Ferrari — he said that money wasn’t everything.”

  “Don’t torture yourself, Jennet,” Faith advised. “Just let it go. Of course there are going to be clues if you look back and analyze every single conversation you had with the guy. You know what to look for, now, but none of us had a clue what was going on. And you know what?”

  “What?”

  “It’s not anybody’s fault but Nick’s.” She raised an eyebrow. “And you know what else?”

  “What?”

  “Fuck him.”

  “Fuck him,” I repeated, nodding my head. “Now that I can sleep on.”

  “Have a good night,” she said. “Rest well. Call me when you wake up. I don’t care what time it is.”

  “All right,” I said. “Thanks for everything.”

  “No thanks required.” Faith gave me a sassy little beep from her new car before speeding away. The sun was just coming up, and I inhaled the humid morning air. It was going to be a hot day, and I was completely at peace with that. I wasn’t quite at peace with Greg and Nick, but that didn’t matter right now. I was able to redirect my mind to other things, like the flying V of pelicans cruising to the waterfront overhead, or the way that the wind had finally picked up, rattling the palm fronds in the sound I’d grown so accustomed to in Miami. This was my town. I didn’t have to leave it if I didn’t want to. I could stop running. There were people who loved me here, and people I loved. Faith had my back more than anyone ever had, and I’d never leave her as long as I thought I might be able to help her with anything, like she’d helped me tonight.

  I made my way up to the apartment, my very bones tired in spite of the coffee I’d had. I didn’t so much as glance in the direction of Nick’s apartment as I unlocked my own door. He wasn’t there. He’d never be there again.
And it was fine. That was something I didn’t have to worry about right now — or ever.

  I turned on the lights just as I heard something crunch underfoot. Looking down, I noticed a single white envelope on the floor. It had to have been scooted under the door, but when? I hadn’t been home at all yesterday.

  I assumed that the envelope could contain nothing good. Envelopes simply slipped under doors were usually nothing but bad news. I could just forget about it for tonight. Go lie down in my own bed for once and leave it for tomorrow. Or I could just dump it into the trashcan and never have to deal with it again.

  But would I wonder about it in the future? Would I torture myself over what the envelope might have contained?

  At the very least, I wouldn’t get anything close to rest knowing this stupid thing existed.

  I decided to get whatever it contained out of the way. I wanted to be able to get some sleep before I started at the snack shop this afternoon. Sighing deeply, I stooped down to pick up the envelope.

  I wasn’t sure what I was expecting. What else could go wrong today? An eviction notice? A subpoena to appear in court? News of the death of a distant relative who’d cut me out of their will long ago?

  None of those, as it turned out. It was a plane ticket to go to New York City in two hours, and a notecard with a few words written on it.

  Please let me explain. Nick.

  Chapter 11

  There was no sleep for the wicked, I supposed. I should’ve left the envelope where it was, should’ve just tossed myself into bed and ignored whatever prickles of curiosity there were inside of me. Then, I would’ve woken up too late to redeem the ticket and would’ve sent a strong message to Nick that I wasn’t to be trifled with. He could’ve explained everything to me when I called him this evening. I didn’t need a plane ticket to New York City — or a summons — to make sense of this.

  In fact, after talking to Faith this morning, I decided I didn’t need to make sense of this at all.

  I let the note, ticket, and envelope all flutter into the trashcan and marched myself right into my bedroom. Flinging myself down across the bed, I stuffed my face into a pillow and willed myself to sleep. All I wanted to do was sleep. I just wanted all of this to go away. I wanted to wake up a completely normal person with no secret millionaire friends or lying ex-Prince Charmings. I just wanted to be Jennet, the Corn Queen, the friendly neighborhood DJ at the club, solving problems for other people, not wallowing in my own. Couldn’t I have that? Couldn’t I squeeze my eyes shut and open them again and have all of that come true?

  I just wanted my old life back. I didn’t know why I’d been so dissatisfied with it. I’d been bored, maybe, but being bored was better than being emotionally devastated, left without the ability to trust a single man ever again in my life.

  I laid in bed for exactly one hour, wide awake despite being exhausted. I figured it was probably the coffee and hoped that Faith was feeling as wired as I was. It would be more useful for her, of course. She was at work. It was much less useful for me, as I was in bed and trying to forget all of my problems. It was so quiet in my apartment that I heard the bells from the church toll several blocks away.

  Would I regret this for the rest of my life if I didn’t accept Nick’s invitation to go to New York? Would I wonder just what he wanted to explain to me for all of time? Would I truly be able to let go of what had happened over the last two weeks?

  I didn’t feel like myself. I hadn’t felt like myself since I ran into Greg in the hallway. And maybe to get that groove back, to feel comfortable in my own skin again, I needed to go to New York and confront the problem instead of running away.

  I rolled out of bed, grabbed my purse, grabbed the planet ticket out of the trashcan, and walked out the door, not a change of clothes on me, still wearing the exact same thing as yesterday. I wasn’t going to New York to win a beauty pageant. I was going for some much needed closure on several doors in my life left wide open.

  I texted several people in the cab on the way: Jared, to let him know his Corn Queen wasn’t coming in for a couple of days; Faith, because she’d asked me to keep in touch and she deserved to know; Sol, because she needed to pick up my DJ duties while I wasn’t there; and Parker, because she was my boss.

  Everyone responded fairly positively, and I felt like I was doing well at the whole responsibility thing. I couldn’t just drop off the face of the earth without telling anyone, like I had the previous evening. I didn’t like to picture Faith frantically combing Miami for me. She’d suffered enough drama in her life to last several generations.

  “Be careful,” she texted back. “I would go with you, if I could.”

  I made it through security and to my assigned gate just in time for the final call for boarding. It was lucky, a little bit miraculous, and just maybe meant to be. Maybe this was the universe smiling down on me, telling me that on this plane was where I was meant to be, flying to New York to wring the truth out of Nick and get over stupid Greg. It would be an adventure. That’s how I’d view it. I’d never been to New York, after all, and at the very least I could snub Nick and take myself around to see the sights. That thought made me feel better about this impromptu trip. It didn’t have to be a drama fest. It could shift very quickly into a wonderful and adventurous vacation. After all, I’d simply left my apartment on a whim after only an hour’s thought on it. That was exciting and impulsive.

  I slept for the majority of the flight, only waking up at the end to style my hair and apply some fresh makeup. I wasn’t trying to look good for Nick or for anyone. Makeup was war paint. Makeup meant I was all about business.

  Walking through the busy airport, my stomach started churning with anxiety. I tried to keep my chin up and ignore it, but it was all but impossible. This was unknown territory for me. What was Nick going to say that would make his lies any more tolerable? What would I say to him? Would I see Greg?

  I stopped short of the escalator to the exit.

  “You can do this, Jennet,” I muttered under my breath, turning away and grabbing a magazine to hide my face from the casual passerby wondering why some crazy girl with magenta hair was talking to herself. The last thing I needed was a talking to by airport security personnel.

  Oh, no. My magenta hair. My eyes darted around, hoping against hope that I could find some kind of product to turn my hair color back into something demure, something less noticeable, something more normal…and then stopped myself. I needed to stop. I’d never wanted to be demure or normal. Greg’s remarks had cut deeper than I thought, but I didn’t need to listen to him. He was a manipulative psycho. What value were his views on my hair color?

  The only voice worth listening to was the one that had directed my life thus far. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t perfect, or that I had made mistakes and continued to make mistakes. It mattered that it was my voice, my drumbeat, my life, and I was going to be in control of it. I was in New York because I wanted to be. And I had magenta hair because it looked gorgeous.

  I shoved the magazine back into a rack and marched onward, down the escalator, scanning the crowd for Nick’s face until I spotted a sign that simply said Jennet. A man I’d never seen before was holding it, and his eyes were pinned on me. My feelings were a little hurt that Nick hadn’t come himself for me at the airport.

  “There can’t be many Jennets in the world, but this is New York City,” I said, approaching him. “Weren’t you afraid of getting the wrong one with no last name on there?”

  “I was told this particular Jennet has pink hair,” the man said a little cryptically, his face expressionless.

  “Well, I better move along,” I said. “This hair color’s magenta.”

  I made a move to leave the airport, but the man seized my elbow.

  “Mr. Mason showed me a photo,” he said. “You’re the correct Jennet. Do you have luggage you need to collect?”

  “All the baggage is right in here,” I said, tapping my head and trying to wrap my mind
around the fact that Nick wasn’t just Nick anymore. “We can go.”

  I was afraid that a limo would pull up outside and I’d be whisked into it — it reminded me too much of the surreal nightmare I’d had in the hotel after Greg had left. Instead, a very nice Rolls Royce stopped at the curb and the man opened the door for me.

  The backseat was empty, so I slid in. Once he saw I was safely inside, my collector shut the door and got in the front seat, beside the driver. Then, we were off — and silence reigned inside the car.

  I guess I’d expected Nick to be there, to at least be in the car, waiting for me, if he was the one who wanted me to come to New York in the first place. As it was, I sat in stung silence, staring daggers into the backs of my keepers’ heads. Finally, unable to stand a moment more of being ignored — and unable to enjoy the buildings towering around me — I broke the silence.

  “Aren’t you at least going to tell me where we’re going?” I demanded, probably a little too vehemently.

  “Oh, do you know New York?” the driver asked, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. “Have you been here before?”

  “No,” I said, brightening minutely. “It’s my first time.”

  “Then the streets and intersections and boroughs don’t matter to you,” he said briskly. “You’re in New York City at the behest of Nicholas Mason. That’s all you need to know.”

  They talked about Nick like he was some kind of king or something. It clashed so strongly with the way I’d known him — literally, just the guy next door — that if I’d been in a better place emotionally, I’d laugh it off. Nick was the absolute opposite of imperial, and I could hardly imagine him commanding anything greater than a guitar, let alone an army of people at his beck and call.