Unplugged II: Unplugged, #2

by Sigal Ehrlich

  Tyler tips his head, bringing our faces closer, our breaths nearly mixing. “What do I say? I think you know the answer to that. I want the world to know you’re mine.” He licks his lips as though about to taste me. “Ivi, this relationship is so important to me, I don’t even know if you understand how much.” His stare deepens. “But it’s not about me. We come before me, you come before me. You decide.”

  My hands around his neck caress the back of his shorn hair. I stretch on my tiptoes, and deliver my decision by touching my lips to his.

  And the world stops.

  Finding out what I’ve done, Tyler’s embrace on me tightens in harmony to his mouth fusing with mine as we float into our own universe.

  It’s all Tyler. All I taste. All I feel. All I could possibly want. And I don’t hear the gasps around us, nor the whispers or the clicks and flashes that follow. I don’t hear the avalanche of reactions our kiss has erupted, nor do I hear my anonymity being brutally ripped away from me.

  “Brooklyn Mars Storms Out on Tyler Lee Adams Over His Hot Lip-Lock with an Unidentified Burnette.”

  “Kiss of Death’ for #Brookty’s Relationship?”

  A couple of “sensational” headlines, out of countless others, on a slew of entertainment news outlets reporting The Kiss.

  “Nope. Never! Not happening. No contact sports for this guy!” Jeremy points his pointer finger at his chest. “Contact sports can damage your retina!” He huffs with frustration while advocating his choice of “tamer” after-school activities. “It’ll mess up my vision for life!” And the kid goes on and on. “Did you know that there are over twelve thousand sports related eye injuries a year among kids up to fourteen. It’s crazy, I’m telling you.”

  About to lecture Mr. Statistics on the importance of regular physical activity, and that there’s risk of injury in almost everything in life, I turn to him with a frown of my own. “Hold up, how do you even know these numbers?”

  Jeremy sends his tongue to the ice cream cone he’s holding and grins at me in his adorable smarty-pants way. “Research conducted by Prevent Blindness of America.”

  I shake my head, lapping up the plump, pinkish drops trailing down my cone. “Research conducted by Prevent Blindness of America,” I echo in a mumble. “Why would you — ” I give him another side—glance. “What on earth prompted you to look it up in the first place?”

  “Do you even know what lack of proper due diligence and risk assessment can lead to?”

  I can’t help the smile stretching my lips which is a preamble to an elated snort. I shake my head with so much fondness. This afternoon with Jeremy is exactly what I needed to make it all go away. Bring back normalcy to my life. Bring back innocent little moments of joy. Back to enjoying simplicity and silly, uncomplicated fun.

  I know I should have listened to Tyler when he suggested I stay clear of all social media platforms and entertainment news outlets. But I didn’t. Curiosity took over me and I just couldn’t steer clear. It was there like a healing scab that you’re itching to scratch although you’re well-aware it’ll end up hurting you, or possibly leave you bleeding and scarred. And oh Lord the tailspin it threw me into. I never knew the extant people will go to express their displeasure. Never knew how mean people can actually be. Living my life as I do, I’ve learned quite fast just how vicious nature can be, how harmful, merciless. I never imagined that some human beings possessed the same qualities. Merciless viciousness.

  The media and some (okay, many) of Tyler’s, and countless of Brooklyn Mars’ fans, simply putting it, are chopping me to pieces. And for the life of me, I don’t know why. Or how to handle it. It’s not something I was able to prepare myself for. I don’t possess the emotional arsenal to defeat it, or avoid it, for that matter. In a way, I’m in an existential panic, lost against this wave of crazy. Of hatred. Why would someone go to the trouble of posting a photoshoped image of me with a knife stuck in my chest is beyond my comprehension.

  Funny, I feel so invisible and visible at the same time. I’m everywhere. Literally everywhere, including places I didn’t even know existed. Everyone has an opinion about me, but no one knows me! That doesn’t deter them from making me someone I’m not or ever will be. All of a sudden, I’m carrying all these labels applied by others. By people who don’t know the first thing about me. No, I’m not a Russian plus size model, and no, I’m not that woman Tyler Lee Adams had a kid with, and no, I’m definitely not the reincarnation of everything evil in this world.

  I’m just a girl who’s very much in love with a man.

  Jeremy kicks a pebble we cross on our walk by the shallow water, bringing me back from my bubble of contemplation and brief self-pity party. “Ivi, what’s wrong?” empathetic brown eyes regard me.

  “Nothing.” I muster a smile.

  Jeremy shakes his head a little, indicating that he’s not sold on my attempt to dismiss it.

  “Everything’s great.” I bump my shoulder with his.

  Jeremy twists his mouth, his features contorting. “Is it because of what people are saying about you?”

  This kid. Not only is he the smartest little human I’ve ever met, his emotional maturity is overwhelming. “It’s silly, I shouldn’t be paying attention to what some people think. They don’t really know me, it’s just — ” I gesture with my hand in dismiss. “It’ll go away soon.”

  “Trolls,” Jeremy grunts. A small side-smile touches his lips. “You know I asked my followers on Twitter and Instagram to comment on the mean twits. Check out the hashtag #Iviisthebomb.” I look at him in dismay. He grins in return. “I came up with that, cool ah?”

  My ribcage expands to contain my swelling heart. “I genuinely love you, kiddo.” I give him a side hug, planting a noisy smooch on his temple.

  Jeremy pushes his glasses up his nose with one finger. The apples of his cheeks take a rosy hue.

  As night descends, peeking through dimmed windows, it finds me wrapped up in Tyler’s warm embrace, head blissfully rested on his warm, comforting chest. Tyler’s fingers leisurely stroke my hair as we watch The Tonight Show. In a low, raspy voice Tyler teases me about having a crush on the show’s host. The one time. The one time I mentioned he’s cute, Tyler will never let me live it down. I push his chest and look up at him, feigning a frown.

  Tyler’s lips tip up at the side. “Just keeping track of my competition.”

  “If I have to keep track of my competitors I’ll have to make it my day job, and even then.” I give him a cheeky smile.

  Tyler doesn’t return my smile; his eyes deepen into mine. “You have no competitors, Kiisu.”

  Sometimes when he says things like that he makes my heart hurt, in the most wonderful way. I inch up to bring my lips to his. Fluttering my eyes closed, I immerse myself in the feeling of being cherished in a slow, soft, sweet kiss. The English word love and its equivalent in Estonian, armastus, meld, becoming one in a slow dance in my head.

  A tiny snore from the sofa next to us prompts us to break the kiss with unified smiles. We tilt our heads with matching adoring expressions to look at Jeremy in his pajamas as he scrunches his nose and lets out another cute snore. I sit up and gently pull his glasses from his nose, fold them, and set them on the low table.

  “I’d better get him to bed,” Tyler says still adorning a magnificent caring expression.

  I pull my pink knee-high socks up and hug my thighs to my chest as I watch Tyler carry Jeremy up the stairs. Jeremy’s head is slumped over Tyler’s shoulder, Tyler’s strong arms around him, and the duet of words expressing love in my head take on brighter colors.

  Brushing his teeth, shirtless and absorbed, Tyler watches me through the bathroom mirror. With my own toothbrush stuck in my mouth, I give him a questioning look. He spits out into the sink and wipes his mouth with a towel. I can’t believe he makes even this banal act . . . sexy. I really need to have my head examined, normal people don’t swoon over spittle!

  Tyler is focused on me. “Am I going to lose you
over this?”

  “Wha?” I ask with the toothbrush still in my mouth. I take it out, confused. “Lose me? What are you talking about?”

  Tyler takes a couple of steps to reach me. He sends his hand to my hair, moving it behind my shoulders. He cuddles my cheeks, crouching a little to align our stares. “You haven’t been yourself since it all began. Should I be concerned, are you going to run away?”

  I sigh. “Yeah, it’s too much in a way. I feel like I’m becoming someone I don’t want to be, someone who cares about what other people are saying. Someone vulnerable. I need to be me, and this situation makes it hard. I feel like I’m in a show. I hate pretending. I hate what’s running through my head. I hate that I let the situation seed a sense of insecurity in me.”

  “Look at me, Kiisu,” he says in a gentle voice. “After all, it’s you and me, everything around us is just noise. You and me, nothing else matters. I’m yours completely. I belong to you with everything that I am. Please don’t get side blinded by this chaos. This life, in a way, cost me too much already. I lost some good years with Jeremy, you . . . I’m not letting you get away. I don’t want you to be my one that got away.”

  I bite on my lip and softly shake my head. “Tyler, I’m not running away. All of this doesn’t change how I feel about you. I’m not going to lie and say that I’m not affected by it.” I blink. The intensity of his stare is overpowering. “It’s not what I expected, and I feel a bit . . .” I take a deep breath. “A bit lost. A lot overwhelmed. It’s hard to compute this thing when you’re not used to it. I guess I’ll get used to it somehow. . . eventually. And there’s nothing I want to be more than yours.”

  Tyler regards me intently. “I’m sorry.” He sighs.

  I shake my head once more. “You don’t have to be. I’m not sorry, I wouldn’t change a thing. If this is a part of the package of having you then I’ll take it as it is.” I can’t help but wonder, for how long as I hear the words leave my mouth? For how long can I endure so much negativity and. . . hatred.

  His response is holding me tight to his chest. Tilting back to look at me, he leans in to softly kiss my lips. Breaking apart, Tyler stays with me as I apply my night lotion and brush my hair.

  “There’s a — ” He starts, winces and sighs. I search his eyes via the mirror. His brows pinch. “There are a few public events, with the release of the movie, the soundtrack and all — ” He scratches his neck over the tattoo I love dearly. “Do you want to . . . you don’t need to, but, will you be joining me?”

  I stop, the brush halting halfway down my head. “Umm. I guess?” I can’t mask the agitation the idea brings.

  Tyler bites on his cheek. He nods a couple of times, contemplating. “How about you join me at the last two events, in Europe, after you’re back from Nepal.”

  I nod. When his words actually sink in, I gape at him. “Nepal?”

  He rewards me with a soft smile. “You wanted to be there for the school’s opening thing, didn’t you?”

  I blink at him, holding my breath.

  His smile widens. “Got you a ticket.”

  I squeal and jump at him. Tyler catches me with a chuckle. I pepper kisses all over his neck and amused face. “Wow. That means so much! You have no idea. How can I ever thank you?”

  He tips back to grin at me with enough naughtiness to melt my insides. Grabbing a hunk of my butt, he rasps, “I have a few ideas. No better time to show your appreciation than now.”

  I giggle, planting another kiss on his lips. A kiss that gathers momentum like wildfire . . . sparking gasoline.

  “An over-indulgence of us, even though it’s magical, intoxicates me, baby.”

  “Remove the Spell” One of Tyler Lee Adams’ old, instant hits that Ivi has lately been obsessing over.

  Little tingles of excitement fizz around in my chest, rapidly increasing as I see some familiar faces light up with joy at the sight of me as I make my way up the path to the camp. An ear-piercing yelp has us all turn to a wildly grinning Renata who’s running my way with arms open wide. In less than thirty minutes or so I feel like I never left, reconnecting with some of the volunteers I met before and new arrivals. Genuine friendliness transpires from everyone, people I’ve known for a while and complete strangers that within the shortest time become new friends. It never ceases to amaze me how these missions tend to bring together people who’d never had a chance to meet in any other circumstances and make them friends for life. Form an incredible bond, its significance hard to put into words.

  Renata, not so stealthily, drags me away from the joined lunch break to catch up by ourselves. How easily she manages to elicit carefree laughter out of me is something that comes as a surprise. The last couple of weeks have made me a little more guarded, a little more closed-up, a whole lot un-me. It feels wonderful to be in a place where no one judges you, where no one looks at you through a magnifying glass, where you’re not media sensationalism. A sudden epiphany startles me, leaving me utterly baffled. Why am I this glad to be away, from L.A., from gossip, from the circus around me? Maybe after all . . . it’s not the right place for me?

  Taking a huge breath to clear my mind, I focus back on my friend. I play along with an amused smile, collaborating with the third degree about my life in L.A. She gives me a bit of a hard time about keeping the whole Tyler thing quiet on my last visit, but it’s all in good spirits. When Renata jokingly, or not, asks if I have naked photos of Tyler on my phone that’s where I draw the line and put the kibosh on the “friendly sharing,” declaring, “Enough about me, what have you been up to?”

  And the dam breaks.

  I’m flooded with information, poured at me in a sing songy accent and an abundance of Brazilian sass. I’m having a hard time keeping up with the tidbits torrent, that is until Renata’s line of thought seems to short, followed by a softening in her entire demeanor. I frown at the rose hue climbing up her sharp cheekbones. I turn back, following her gaze, to encounter a fine looking golden-haired superman. Short seconds later I’m introduced to Mikael Sandström, the camp’s latest Swedish delight addition. Not missing a beat, Nordic Superman reaches Renata and plants a far from being arctic kiss on my utterly swooned friend.

  Mikael turns out to be a soft spoken and, simply put, great guy. Mikael, who seems to have been glued to Renata’s right side, tells me about how they met, shy of a month ago. “I swear, I was sure she was about to bite my hand off.” He laughs, kissing her temple along the way. I listen with an amused expression as he elaborates, telling me how innocently he’d taken Renata’s dinner bowl by mistake, an incident that almost cost him his life.

  “I was famished.” She shrugs. “It was the longest day, we worked through lunch to finish the wood floor in the school, and like I said, I was famished.” She gestures cheekily at Mikael. “And this one comes up and takes my dinner.”

  Mikael makes a frightened expression. “She was scary.” Renata rolls her eyes. “Until I smiled at her.”

  “No, sir, it wasn’t until you gave me back my food.” Renata frowns at her boyfriend. Turning to me with her hand next to her mouth, she loudly whispers, “It’s was totally the smile.”

  When night descends over the camp to the soundtrack of crickets’ chirping, I’m standing by the fire, handing out bowls of steaming Kitchari. My muscles ache and I can smell the day’s labor soaked in my clothes as I take a seat on a makeshift bench made of a piece of wood and a few blocks, next to some new volunteers. Renata and Mikael join when I put down my bowl to cuddle a mug of tea in my hands. Blowing on the hot beverage, I listen to my friend as she tells me about some short and long-term plans.

  The long one involves a road trip she’s planning with Mikael right after the opening ceremony of the school. The shorter one, which apparently includes me, is visiting another camp, an hour away, tomorrow. “They need some extra help to prepare stocks of medical equipment for the Doctors Without Borders mobile clinics.”

  I immediately agree even though a long ride up th
e mountains in one of the old trucks we have at our disposal is not something I’m eager to repeat.

  I’m exhausted when I finally lay my head on the hard, slim pillow, but not tired enough to try and call Tyler after missing four calls from him earlier. Reaching his voicemail, I decide to call it a night. However, my curiosity gets the better of me, and I use my satellite phone to check the web for the latest on me, hopping with all my heart that the hype has subsided, even a little.

  The first result that catches my eyes has my heart skip a beat. Under a headline stating that Tyler and I broke up and something about Brooklyn Mars’ fans thrilled at the “unification” there’s a photo that makes my stomach drop like there’s no gravity. I’m having a hard time swallowing as I study the photo of Tyler and Brooklyn walking out of a theater venue together. Tyler’s in a tuxedo, his blazer draped over Brooklyn’s lean shoulders. Her face is tilted upwards with a soft smile trapped between her teeth while Tyler, his lips set in a warm smile, gently kisses her temple. What pains me the most, besides them looking perfect together, is Tyler’s expression is identical to the way he looks at me . . . or used to look at me. They look happy, and intimate, and connected, the exact way some of my deepest fears have concocted this nightmare, that Tyler would be just like that with someone else.

  He’s never even told you he loves you, my spiteful insecurity mocks me. Jealousy is a beast of an emotion, one that’s hard to eradicate, especially when it stretches its malicious claws to grab every sensible cell in your brain. Even though it pains me to look at the photo I can’t make myself stop. It feels like a betrayal, the way he looks at her, the gentleness in his features as he touches his lips to her hair. I’m confused and sadden as I finally switch off the phone and toss it inside my bag. Tyler might be an amazing human, after all, he is a human, however sometimes the best of intentions simply aren’t enough, right?