by LJ Evans
Instead, she flew to New York. And now she’s ignored his pleas to come home. And while she’s been able to find herself a little, and forgive herself, she’s still not whole. Just like he isn’t whole. Instead, they are both missing pieces that they need in order to become that stunning shattered plate with all its wreckage outlined in gold. And she wonders now if she’s ever going to be able to fix it.
This Ain’t A Love song
Letter Eleven
“It made me so mad ‘cause I wanted it bad for us, baby… Yeah I’m wrong – This ain’t a love song.”
-Bon Jovi, Sambora, Child
DEAR BELLA,
I’m an addict. I get addicted to things in my life all the time. In my youth, it was alcohol and Cam. Then it was my work and eating healthy. And after you moved into our home, I became obsessed with you. With us. Our life together. And at first you seemed happy. I know I was happy. I was happier than I’d ever been in my life.
But addicts tend to ruin everything in their lives with their obsessions. And that was true of us. I’d obsessed and held on so tightly that I’d smothered you. I’d pushed you away instead of holding you close. And after Michael, after having to go through what you did, it was just more reason to fly away. To leave. How could I blame you? Why would you want to stay and be reminded of the darkness? Because, like Michael, I will always have the darkness in me. I will always battle my addictions.
* * *
The night before you were set to leave for New York and Pratt, Liv and Justice threw you that going away party. I sure as hell wasn’t going to throw you one. I wanted to refuse to attend because I didn’t see anything in it to celebrate. But, I didn’t refuse, because you were going to go either way. To the party. To New York. And I had to hold on as tightly as I could while you were still there.
Your friends were there. The people from the gym were there. Locke and Keith were there. They had beer in coolers and mixed drinks at the makeshift bar, and when you went to help Liv in the kitchen, I stared at the alcohol for a long time. I swear, I’m not telling you this to make you feel guilty. Like I’ve said before, it’s my addiction. My battle, not yours. I tell you because I want you to know why I was such a jackass.
Keith joined me, looking down at the cooler. “So, what did your friend say to do when the now really sucked?”
I didn’t respond. Was fighting with everything I had to not reach down and pick up a bottle. Keith touched my arm. “Hey man, let’s throw some darts.”
I wasn’t very good at darts, but the dart board Justice had screwed to the patio wall would keep my hands busy for a few minutes. I turned away from the cooler and followed him. We took up our places, and I threw the dart with fury, burying it into the board so hard that it was difficult to remove.
You came out, smiling, in that white sundress that accentuated every part of you that I loved. Your legs, your toned arms, your tiny breasts. And your smile made the halo of light around you glow until I knew it would burst into golden pixie dust. You joined me and put your arm through mine. You were happy. Happy to be leaving me. And I couldn’t do it anymore.
I didn’t say anything to you. I just shook you off and left you there. I’m sorry. I should have stayed. I should have used my damn words. I should have done anything but leave, but I am a weak fool, and I didn’t want you to see me dragged down to my lowest.
I was at the car door when Keith stopped me. “Where are you going?”
“Nowhere you want to go,” I barked at him, slammed the door, and left.
He was being the friend I’d never had, trying to stop me, but he couldn’t.
I parked at the bar on the corner of our street and went in for the first time since I’d lived there. I ordered a shot and downed it without even thinking twice about it. If I was going to fall off the wagon, it was going to be far from you and the people that cared about you. I downed two more before it hit me. Not drinking in so long had turned me into a lightweight. I hated that, but I hated that you were leaving me more.
I sat at the bar, head in my hands, when Keith found me. I guess he’d followed me thinking I was going back to the house and had seen the Porsche sitting outside the bar instead.
“What can I get ya?” the bartender asked.
“Coffee. And a water for this guy,” Keith said as he sat down next to me.
When the bartender returned, and I still hadn’t spoken or acknowledged him, Keith asked the bartender, “How many has he had?”
“Three? Four?” he shrugged. He wasn’t keeping count. Didn’t care. All he saw was some big ass guy that he assumed could handle his liquor. I had counted though. I’d had three. I’d had one for every month that we’d been together. We’d only been together three months, and yet it felt much more like three years to me. Like you were so entwined in my life that when you pulled your roots out, mine were going to go with you.
“Why the fuck are you here?” I growled finally.
“Pretty sure I’m the only one who knows what you’re going through.”
“Don’t be nice. I don’t need fucking nice. I’m not nice. I’m an asshole.”
“Maybe.”
“I am. Did you know that I almost outed you back in high school when it was the last thing you wanted?” I could see Keith flinch and try to hide it. “That night I pushed Cam off the cliff? She was taking my dare so that I wouldn’t tell everyone you’d hit on me.”
Keith didn’t say anything, just took a drink of his coffee.
“Asshole then. And asshole now. It’s why she’s leaving,” I said, finishing my last drink, and shoving the glass towards the bartender where it crashed loudly into the other glasses sitting there. The sound like my heart and brain colliding.
“We’re all assholes when we drink. Especially when we aren’t getting what we want, and you were never going to get what you wanted from Cam,” Keith said, accepting what I’d told him and still not holding a grudge.
I didn’t get him.
“No, I wasn’t ever going to get what I wanted from Cam,” I told him. And it didn’t hurt like it used to. I didn’t even care. I only cared about my fairy leaving me.
“But you will get what you want with PJ. She loves you. Loves you like Cam loved Jake and he loved her. I can see it and feel it. It’s tangible what’s between the two of you. Like it was with them.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I wanted to believe it, but you were leaving. I didn’t see a happy fucking ending to that.
Keith pushed the water bottle toward me, I considered it for a moment, and then uncapped and drank the whole bottle as if I could wash away the liquor with the water. Like a priest washing away sins. Too bad it doesn’t work that way.
“Let’s get out of here,” Keith said after a few minutes. I got unsteadily to my feet.
We left the cars and walked back along the beach to our home. It’s our home, Bella. Will always be our home whether you’re there or not. How can I convince you of that? How can I get you to say that word home and feel it? I wish I knew that secret.
We got to the deck, and I sank down on the steps where he joined me. I hated having to say it, but I needed to. To show I wasn’t the asshole seventeen-year-old I had been. To prove that I’d earned his coming after me, so I told him, “Thanks for getting me.”
“You’re going to be okay,” he responded.
“No. I’m not,” I told him the truth as I always tell the truth.
“You have to let her go for now, but she’ll come back,” he told me.
I just nodded. Because I did know that I had to let you go. It was what needed to happen, and yet, I still wasn’t sure how I could allow it to happen because I was at that point like the very first letter I wrote you said, I didn’t have the faith that you would come back.
And the next morning, I drove you to the airport. And you left. And I wanted to bust down the security walls. But I didn’t. Instead, I went back to the studio and ordered the gold and silver that I needed in order to piece
back together your chair that Michael had tried to destroy in hopes that someday you’d be back to see it completed. To see all the pieces of art that were you and me and us.
* * *
And now, it’s been five months, Bella. Five months since I’ve seen you. Since I’ve been able to taste your bubblegum lips and trail my rough fingers over the silk of your skin. You’ve been gone for longer than we were together, and I still cannot get you out of my heart and soul. I don’t want you out. I only want you back.
I can’t help but feel the emptiness of our home without you in a way that I never felt my home was empty before. You never called my place your home, but to be fair, you never called any place your home. It was always the apartment or Liv and Justice’s or the house. But never home. I think your home is still stuck in Seattle with a pair of dead parents who loved you more than anything. I can’t say I know what that feels like, to miss dead parents, because I barely miss anything from my past. Maybe my abuela. Maybe Mac on occasion. But I don’t miss anything like I miss you.
And so I went to New York.
It isn’t what you think. I didn’t go to try to convince you to come back. I went because I’d been asked to go on the Today Show. Ever since the pictures at Dylan Waters’ house hit the entertainment rags, the gallery had been selling my work faster than I could stock it. On top of that, Dylan talked to some producer at the Today Show about me, and they decided they wanted to commission me to do an art piece for their lobby’s redesign. They were doing a whole segment on the construction and wanted to interview me as part of it.
So, I was in New York for that. But let’s face it, I wouldn’t have made the journey if I hadn’t hoped I’d be able to see you. I’d never cared about the publicity. But you. The thought of even a glimmer of a chance of seeing you. That was enough to have me packing my bags and getting on the plane.
As I was leaving L.A.X, I called Liv and asked her to let you know that I’d be in New York. I was hoping that you’d agree to see me. It was almost Christmas and I was hoping that you would grant me this one present, the gift of you. But maybe you were afraid that if we saw each other that you wouldn’t be able to get away, and that’s a fair assessment. Would I have been able to let you go again?
When I landed in New York, Liv had left a voicemail. She said you couldn’t see me while I was there. No explanation. I threw my phone across the airport where it broke into a thousand pieces. I’m lucky someone didn’t call security or the cops. They just saw an asshole being an asshole and let me storm off. I didn’t even have the grace to act like it was a mistake or to pick it up.
I checked into the hotel. It was a damn nice one. Like the one I’d stayed at with my grandparents once upon a time in what seemed a lifetime ago now. It had a mini bar that made me think of the mini bar in their room when they’d gone to make my mom’s funeral arrangements. And just like then, I needed a drink. But this time, I needed something more. I needed you.
I picked up the hardline in the room and dialed Mac’s number. The advantage of having only six numbers in your phone is that they are easy to memorize.
“Hello?”
“Mac, it’s Seth.”
“Hey, kid, how are you?”
How was I? I didn’t have a response for that, so I moved on to what I really wanted to say.
“I’m actually in New York.”
“What for?” Mac asked with uncertainty in his voice.
“I’m gonna be on the Today Show.”
Mac guffawed. “No, you?”
“Dick,” I said, but it was with warmth and not malice. “Would you like to meet me at the hotel later for dinner?”
“I’d love to kid. What time?”
“I’ll give you a shout when I know things are wrapping up.”
“Sounds good,” he said, and we said goodbye.
I showered and changed and left for the show.
Did you see the show? I made such a complete ass out of myself. Ridiculous. Who the hell goes on national television and wrings out their heart? Goddamn wuss. That’s who. I guess I was hoping that it would convince you to come see me. That you’d see it and run back to the hotel that I’d told Liv I was staying at.
On set, I was uncomfortable. Out of any element I’d ever been in. I craved you. You would have held my hand and made sure that I wasn’t an asshole to everyone. You weren’t there, so I’m sure I was.
Carson Daly was the one to interview me. They had me seated on a chair across from him, and just before they panned to me on camera, they zoomed in on him as he introduced me as “Seth Carmen, the sexy junk artist that was taking the world by storm.” I snorted. He tried not to smile.
I wasn’t dressed sexy. Hell, I hadn’t dressed up at all. I was in my normal jeans and a blue t-shirt. Finally, Carson turned to me and the cameras with him.
“Your waterfall is spectacular,” Carson stated while some guy behind the scenes flashed a picture of my waterfall in Dylan Waters’ house, looking like it could take over the whole building.
“Thanks,” I told him with that grin my abuela said was the devil’s grin, but that you know now isn’t my real smile. It’s the one I use for show-and-tell. “It was one of my first pieces, and I swore I’d never sell it, but I guess you should never say never.”
“Didn’t he pay you a million dollars for it?”
I was momentarily caught off guard that he knew how much money I’d gotten. Then I just grinned again and played a long. “A million and a half.”
Carson whistled. “That’s a lot of dough.”
When I didn’t respond, he changed the subject.
“Tell us, what inspires your art?”
And, what could I say to that except… you. You inspire me every single day. And, I wanted to explain that this new wave of art from me wasn’t called trash art or Kintsugi or any word the art world already knew. Instead, it was called Bella because it was all you.
That’s when I went full on wuss. I leaned forward and said something on national TV that I shouldn’t have. More than I normally say at any time. More than I probably said to you.
I leaned forward, hands on my knees and told the truth. “There’s been two women in my life that I gave a damn about.” Carson looked intrigued, so I kept going, “They both inspired me.”
Carson ate it up. “So, love inspires you?”
“Yes. And no. It isn’t just love. It’s the essence of that person. The thing you can’t see but still surrounds them. Like the sparkle on the water at sunset or the shimmer as the water evaporates. It’s there but can’t ever really be captured.”
“Your current inspiration, she here with you today?”
That stabbed me in the gut. “No, I lost both the women I’ve loved. The first because I was a drunken, teen-age prick who hit her. Losing her forced me to see that I’d become the thing I hated most… my dad, and I swore I wouldn’t be that man again.”
No one stopped me, I guess the Today Show just loves its drama. So I kept at it. Spilling my guts like an imbecile in front of America.
“The second I loved more than everything else in my entire life. I lost her because I didn’t know how to love her and not possess her. I’ll never recover from that loss… I’m still secretly hoping that she’ll give me a chance to prove that I can love her without owning her.”
When I paused, I realized that the entire joint was quiet. Even the audience. Like they were waiting for lottery number announcements.
I drew myself back from the edge, put back my cocky grin and said, “But you asked what inspires me. I guess, truth is that life inspires me. All of it. Beauty, pain, happiness, desolation. The world as we see it and the world as we can only feel it.”
Carson took a full thirty seconds, an eternity in TV land, to recover, and then he said, “After a speech like that, I bet you’ll get her back, and if you do, you tell us because we want our stories to have happy endings.”
But, I didn’t believe it even then. I didn’t believe that I wo
uld ever have a happy ending. After all, you’d told Liv you didn't want to see me when we were in the same city for the first time in one hundred and fifty-two days.
There was no message from you at the hotel and disappointment coursed through me once more. Instead of you, my shit-for-brains dad showed up. He was waiting for me in the lobby when I went down to find Mac for dinner.
He was grubby in baggy ripped jeans and a sweatshirt that screamed gang. His hood was pulled over his head, hiding the beanie that was underneath. I was pretty sure he was probably carrying a gun or drugs or both. The slime that dripped off of him wasn’t just because he hadn’t showered in days. It dripped off of him because that was who he was. Used car oil. Black sludge. Nothing that could be redeemed.
The asshole sneered at me in a way that was supposed to be a smile. And I knew immediately that he was high. He only smiled like that when he was high and wanted something.
“Seth!” he said as if I’d be happy to see him. As if he hadn’t let my mom die on his fucking couch and then sliced me up to stop me from helping her. As if I hadn’t testified at his goddamn trial and sent him to jail. As if I’d be happy for a fucking reunion.
“How the hell did you find me?” I snarled.
“Well. You’re worth serious money now, right? All I had to do was call around to some of the swanky hotels till I hit the one that would leave you a message.”
I stared at him. Surprised that he’d have enough brain cells to even think that far. To think past his next hit. It was obvious then that he’d seen the Today show or someone had and told him about the money. That was why he was there. For money.
“I suggest you get the fuck out of here before I do something that we’ll both regret,” I said, trying to contain my anger. I crossed my arms across my chest, tucking my hands under my armpits to stop myself from pounding his face into the ground in the middle of a five-star hotel with plenty of people watching.
Because I wanted to pound his face until it looked like Michael’s. I’ve always wanted to kill my father. Since I was a little kid and he hit me. Or my mom. And when he’d been sent to prison, that desire had subsided some. There was nothing to stop me anymore. No you. No us.