Vicious Circles

by Leann Andrews

  “I can’t wait to go home,” I complained to Lynn as we lounged around the hotel suite, flipping through clothing magazines.

  “Why don’t you just go? Mason’s done filming in a few days anyhow.”

  My stomach clenched at the suggestion. “A few days is a long time, that’s why. Mason asked me to fly home with him.”

  She eyed me suspiciously. “You two are like yin and yang; it’s scary. I’ve never seen Mason act like he does around you.”

  “Is that a bad thing?” I closed the magazine and shoved it away from me. “We like spending time with each other.”

  “Don’t you think it’s odd that you two don’t venture out of the Fallyn/Mason bubble you have going on? It’s not healthy.”

  I sighed and stood to stretch my muscles. “I don’t think it’s odd, Lynn. There is nothing odd about wanting to spend all your time with someone or wanting to keep a private life. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do? Would you rather I end up on TMZ with a bad outfit on while Mason and I suck face?”

  She giggled and tossed her book away. “That’s not what I meant and you know it, smart ass. I’m going. I’ve got a five-thirty call time. Have fun doing private things in your private life.”

  I threw a pillow at her as she walked away. “Shut up!” I yelled. I laughed as she stuck her tongue out at me and then closed the door.

  Lynn was becoming a good friend. She didn’t know a damn thing about me except that I was living in LA and Mason was my world. She never questioned me on the status of things between he and I, which made me joyful. Her intentions toward me were genuine; she truly wanted to be my friend for all the right reasons. The only thing that bothered me was her thoughts on the amount of time Mason and I spent together.

  I sat back on the couch and with the book of new cars Lynn had brought over. I had mentioned half heartedly to her about wanting my own car. Apparently, she thought it was a great idea. There was dread in the pit of my stomach as I flipped through the flashy book. Owning a car was a huge step.

  “Hey,” Mason came through the suite doors grinning.

  “What are you so smiley about? It’s creeping me out.”

  He laughed and started to shed his clothes. “We’re going to dinner with everyone tonight. I’m going to take a shower.”

  “What? Dinner with who exactly?” I followed his trail of clothes and picked up each piece as I passed.

  “You know everyone. Tom, Jamie, Lynn, and Alex…Chris.”

  What a Mason thing to do. “I barely know those people because you’ve kept me hidden away in your trailer like a redheaded stepchild. All of a sudden I’m going to dinner with them?”

  “That was your choice,” he called over the hum of the shower, “to stay in the trailer.”

  I moved closer to the bathroom door. “My choice? OK, Mason.”

  “It’ll be fun,” he assured me. He sounded positive but I could never tell.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I murmured under my breath. I wanted to meet his co workers properly and I had since I first arrived. I’d said hello in passing but I hadn’t spent any amount of time with them. It made me a little nervous.

  ***

  The restaurant wasn’t crowded, which worked in my benefit. The feeling of dread from earlier was still lodged firmly in middle of my stomach. I felt like throwing up all over Tom which wouldn’t go over so well. He kept eyeing me from across the table as if I were on the menu. I sat strategically between Lynn and Mason. Mason’s right hand was rested high on my left thigh. Every now and then he would squeeze and smile.

  Everyone was talking at once and I couldn’t make out a thing they were saying. By the time dinner hit the table my stomach was screaming and it felt like my throat was closing. I could vaguely hear Mason talking to Tom and Jamie about some song he’d been writing. To my right Chris was asking me a question.

  “So where are you from Fallyn?”

  “Los Angeles,” I said in a tiny voice. The walls seemed to be closing in on me and it was making me paranoid.

  Chris laughed and took a drink of water. “No, I mean where are you really from? No one is actually from LA. You don’t look the type.”

  It was a harmless question and he meant nothing by it but the words went in one ear and bounced around in my brain violently as the stress from the whole trip to Vancouver came crashing in on me. There would always be questions and I would never be able to answer them. My breath started to catch and it felt like my heart would explode.

  “Excuse me,” I wheezed and pushed away from the table. I ran for the bathroom.

  No one followed me right away. I entered the last stall and slid down to the floor with my foot propped against the door. I wheezed and choked through tears as I tried to calm myself down. The world was ending and my chest was collapsing in on itself. My strangled cries were frightening and would have scared everyone from the restroom anyway.

  Five minutes or so passed before the door opened and two sets of shoes hurried in. Lynn and Mason. Mason smacked him palm against the stall door, startling me.

  “Fallyn, baby…are you OK?” He sounded worried. I knew all his tones and that was the worried one.

  “I’m…fucking peachy.” I sounded like a dying cat. There was no way he would buy that.

  “Open the door…just open the door for me and we’ll leave.” He shuffled his feet and I could tell he was getting anxious.

  “I should have stayed in the room. I’m not ready to meet all your friends. I thought I wanted to but I can’t. I just want to leave.” I sounded like a pussy.

  “Maybe you should let me talk to her,” Lynn suggested quietly. Her feet moved closer to Mason.

  “No, Lynn…I’m not going anywhere.” I imagined the look on his face. He didn’t like to be told what to do when I was involved.

  “Mason, come on.” Lynn sounded calm as ever.

  “I said, I’m not leaving!” His hand collided with the metal of the stalls. The noise echoed around and I jumped at the sound. It only made me cry harder.

  “You’re making this worse; this is the ladies room,” she said coolly. “Go on and finish dinner. I’ll take Fallyn back to the hotel.”

  Mason’s shoes disappeared without further contact with me. I was shocked that he’d just left me without another word. My stomach twisted. What if I’d just messed things up?

  “Come on Fallyn. Let me in.” Lynn tapped lightly on the metal door with her fingernails.

  I let my foot that was holding the door slide to the floor. The door swung in slowly and revealed a very worried Lynn. She stepped in, not caring in the slightest that we were in a bathroom and I was wedged in between a toilet and the tiled wall. She studied me and I hid my face, totally embarrassed.

  “I’m really sorry, Lynn.” It was all I could say.

  I thought she would pull my sorry ass out of there, but instead she slid to the floor next to me.

  “You know…when I was younger, before I grew into myself, I hated the way I looked. I spent so much time trying to impress other people and look the way I thought I was supposed to look that I never really found myself.”

  I let her admission sink in. “I don’t think I really know who I am. My life is completely defined by Mason at the moment.” I smiled when I said his name even though it wasn’t such a positive thing I’d just admitted.

  “It’s all right to search for yourself. That’s the point of being in your twenties.” She laughed. “I do think that you and Mason have this super intense thing going on that surpasses anything I’ve ever experienced.”

  I turned my head to look at her. “I don’t even know if I’m doing the right things. I didn’t have any direction growing up, you know?”

  “Fallyn, you can’t let your past define you and I say that with my whole heart. I don’t have any clue what you’ve been through but I do know that the person I see in front of me has her head on straight.”

  The door to the bathroom opened and a woman clicked in with her high heels on.
She looked down at us in disgust before choosing a stall furthest from us. “Maybe we should take this conversation elsewhere,” Lynn said.

  I agreed with a nod and lifted myself off the floor. I washed my hands and face and began the walk of shame through the dining room. Lynn shielded me from the watchful eyes of everyone at the table I’d just run away from. Her hand stayed firmly in mine until we reached the front door. We separated and I pulled a cigarette from my bag as we exited the restaurant at the same time.

  Flashes bombarded me from every angle. I stood in shock for a minute with my lighter in one hand and unlit smoke in the other. Paparazzi… I wasn’t expecting them and it caught me off guard. They were all men and they yelled different things at me as Lynn and I walked down the sidewalk toward the hotel.

  “Fallyn, you were great on CSI.”

  “Are you and Mason dating? Are you friends?”

  “Lynn, who are you dating?”

  My mouth was dry and I didn’t know what to say to the voices yelling at me from behind the cameras. Lynn just smiled politely and pretended they weren’t there but I found it hard to do. I’d never been in a situation where people hounded me and actually knew who I was. It was scary. I wanted Mason.

  ***

  Mason didn’t come right back to the room after I left dinner. I sort of figured he wouldn’t. I was okay with that but I was also scared that I’d screwed things up with him and with his friends. Lynn assured me no one would even think of it again but I knew she was wrong. I would be the odd girl that Mason spent all his free time with.

  Around midnight, Mason still had not returned. I’d cried for at least an hour, lying in the middle of the bed. My heart hurt and I was scared because I hadn’t felt so lost in years. The exterior of me was fixed. I had the right job, the right lover and the right best girl friend but something was off. I didn’t feel fulfilled, I felt hollow. I grabbed Mason’s laptop and powered it on, determined to keep my mind from dumpster diving in the depths of trash in my brain.

  It was then something occurred to me. I hadn’t ever looked Mason up on the Internet. I felt like a stalker just considering it but that errant thought led to the next. I hadn’t ever looked myself up. First, I tried searching with my true, given name and nothing came up. I breathed a sigh of relief. When I searched my stage name, a few pages of shit appeared.

  “I’m on Google, holy shit,” I told myself in awe.

  The second link in was TMZ and I instantly recognized the tiny picture from earlier that night. Despite my best judgment I opened the picture and stared at myself walking alongside Lynn. She looked amazing but I looked like a deer in headlights with a nicotine addiction. My hair was disheveled and my eyes were swollen. What the fuck, Fallyn?

  Curiosity had me at that point and I went further to see who they caught leaving the restaurant after Lynn and I did. There were photos of Tom and Jamie, one of Chris and at the very end, two of Mason. He didn’t look at all like he wanted to be there, even though he had his smile on for the paparazzi. I could tell the difference. Maybe he would keep me around after all.

  I fell asleep long before Mason came back and when I woke up the next morning he had been there and left again. The car book Lynn had brought over for me to look at was lying next to me on the pillow with a note tucked inside.

  Come to set when you get up. I’m not mad about last night; I know you think I am. See you soon.

  M

  P.S. You’re not buying a car, are you?

  Chapter 11

  I can look back and see all the things I did wrong along the journey to where I am today but I’m afraid to say I would change anything. The risk of not having Mason in my life is far too great now and it was far too great then, despite the downward spiral we were on.

  September 2009

  The last couple of days in Vancouver were awkward on the set of Mason’s movie. Lynn spent time with me as usual and we made sure not to bring up the incident at the cast dinner around Mason. Lynn thought it was because he was embarrassed but I knew better. He was afraid it would upset me. The other’s kept their distance from me which was embarrassing. Mason didn’t seem to notice. He held my hand on the way to location and held it on the way back. We spent the last moments in Canada together, just like we always did.

  For some reason, stepping into LAX made me feel normal again. I breathed a sigh of relief as we exited the gate. Mason’s arm was around my shoulders and some people were checking us out, but it was nothing like the last two weeks. Mason was right. We were different. The way he held my hand and always had his arm around me was different. He was…protective.

  “I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed,” I said with a yawn as we walked toward the long term parking lot where I’d left his car.

  “I can’t wait to sleep in your bed either,” he replied.

  “What’s wrong with your own bed?” I laughed. “I don’t even know why you pay rent at a place you never stay at.”

  “I like to keep my options open.” He grinned at me. “So, what are the big plans you and Lynn were whispering about yesterday?”

  “Nothing really. We’re having lunch and probably some car shopping…”

  “Car shopping? I thought we discussed that.” More like he’d discussed the fact that he liked driving me around and I could use his car anytime.

  “Mason, I can’t rely on you forever. That’s just ridiculous.”

  We’d finally reached his car and he lifted our suitcases into the trunk. “I just don’t like the idea, Fallyn. That’s all.”

  “Let’s not talk about it then. Let’s talk about what we’re eating because I’m starving.” My stomach growled loudly.

  He turned to me as I got into the passenger seat and smirked. “In and Out?”

  I laughed and put my seatbelt on. “Sounds perfect.” It was good to be home.

  ***

  “You absolutely need a car in Los Angeles. That’s just common knowledge, Fallyn.” Lynn had both my hands in hers, trying to talk some sense into me.

  “Can I really afford this damn thing? What if I don’t get any more work after this movie? Then what?” I stared at the bright blue car with lust in my eyes. It was perfect for me.

  “This better not be because Mason thinks it’s a bad idea. You can’t listen to him!”

  OK, maybe part of my hesitation was Mason’s reaction to the whole idea. “No, well…not exactly.” I ran my fingers along the smooth metal of the hood.

  “Think about this. Mason is prepping for a tour and you’re about to film your first movie. You two are both busy and he can’t possibly drive you around everywhere. He’s being unreasonable.” She narrowed her eyes at me and I knew she meant business.

  “Lynn, I don’t know what I would do without you.” She and I hadn’t been friends long but I was thankful for her. Compared to Jill, Lynn Taylor was a saint.

  “You would be relying on Mason Chance to get around which is the equivalent of taking the city bus.”

  We both giggled and I got the salesman’s attention. I bought my first car that day and the payments were crazy but I had my very own car that I could park at my very own apartment. Mason actually liked the damn car so we ended up driving it around more than his. He seemed content with the fact that we were still inseparable even though we both had our own transportation. When I started filming for my movie, he started band practice for his tour. Neither of us could complain about the time apart because by the time we got together in the evening at my place, we were tired as shit.

  Lynn claimed the time apart was healthy for us as she was sticking to her original observation; we spent too much time alone together. Everything seemed to be balancing out and it seemed like I was happy but I still questioned myself. It seemed too easy.

  I had never missed a day of filming, but a week or so after I got my car, I called in sick. My head was pounding and there was a dull ache in my stomach.

  “I feel like shit,” I admitted to Lynn over the phone. “I could just
throw up right now.”

  “Well, wait until I hang up. Then feel free, by all means.” I could hear the LA traffic through her Bluetooth. “I bought you something last night. I was on Rodeo and I saw this scarf that will go with that cute pink top you found in Vancity; you’ll love it.”

  The pain in my right side started up again and I groaned. “There’s this pain in my side that won’t go away. It’s like my insides are clawing their way out.”

  “Fallyn, do you have a fever?” She sounded worried all of a sudden.