Lose Me: (New Adult Billionaire Romance) (Broken Idols)

by M. C. Frank

  It was basically stand up comedy. They kept stepping on each others’ foots and falling off the boat into the water with ridiculously sloppy back flips. At one point Ollie put about ten nails in his mouth, wanting to save himself a second trip to the tool-box. Then he walked carefully to the top deck, looking to nail a pair of boards on the wall.

  But Wes had left a hole on the floor, and Ollie’s foot went right through it. He fell to the deck below, swallowing every one of the nails.

  I roared with laughter at the expression on his face, and Katia was crying right next to me on the screen, hiccupping as she tried to breathe through the laughter. The boys ‘finished’ off their work by springing a huge leak in the bottom of the boat, as they threw a humongous champagne bottle on it to christen it, and the boat started slowly sinking. By the end, my stomach hurt from laughing.

  I can’t describe it, you had to be there.

  The credits at the end said: ‘Wes Spencer as Stan Laurel and Oliver Sikks. . . as himself.’ The script was written by Wes, too.

  As soon as it ended, Katia tapped on replay without even asking me. We watched it five times.

  “It’s gone viral within less than twelve hours,” she yelled at me from Jamie’s laptop as soon as we could breathe again. “You do realize it’s for you, right?”

  I didn’t know you could go from laughing to utter horror in a split second. I felt the blood drain from my face.

  “What?” I croaked.

  “Yeah, look here,” she pointed. “GreyRibbon? The name of the channel, that’s the color for brain tumor awareness.”

  “C-could be anything,” I said.

  “And the description,” she went on, tapping the page down button. I squinted at the screen, even though I knew I’d regret reading it.

  “Crap,” I said as soon as I did.

  Day Fourteen

  I’m feeling much better today, fever-wise. Otherwise, I’m feeling like dirt. There have been two more videos since yesterday. Seriously, how fast are these boys uploading them?

  And what are they doing still in Corfu? Shooting wrapped more than a week ago.

  The first video has about five hundred thousand comments now. On the very top (stop looking at them Ari, stop reading them. Yeah, like that’s going to happen) a single comment from the channel ‘GreyRibbon’ has gotten nearly a thousand likes.

  And this is what it is:

  “I am most seriously displeased.”

  It’s a Lady Catherine de Bourgh quote, one of her last ones in the book. I don’t even know why people are liking it, surely no one gets the reference but me. It’s put there for me. He put it there for me.

  And then there’s the descriptions.

  I wish I’d listened to my brain and not read it. It was really short and simple.

  “For Ph. Hope it makes you laugh.”

  Ph as in Phelps.

  The second video is titled ‘How to pick up a girl’ and it’s Ollie, Wes and Anna (Anna?!) in a fat suit. (Only Anna is in the suit). It’s even more hilarious than the first. They are on the M&M now, and both Ollie and Wes try to flirt with her in the wood-paneled narrow gallery Wes had carried me in that first day. She picks Wes. Duh.

  Then she and Wes are on his bed, having a wild (and hilarious) make out session, while on the pier Ollie is struggling with a tower of her suitcases, wrestling with their ridiculous weight, and trying to manage them all at once, until of course, her (Anna’s) delicate little lingerie thingies end up strewn across the street, a couple of her pink set of expensive brand handbags sinking in the water.

  The skit ends with Wes discovering one of Anna’s tiny panties and going bananas over her sex-appeal. It zooms out (pretty romantic) on her chubby hand in his, Wes brushing the hair from her face tenderly and telling the audience in a heavy American accent that he loves himself a ‘real woman’.

  That one has already reached a million views.

  In the description they’ve added a disclaimer, stating that this is ‘a poor attempt at a remake of Laurel and Hardy’s movie ‘Our Wife’ and a link on where to find more info about it. Under that it just says:

  “Wish we were there, with you.”

  There was a similar disclaimer on the previous video, explaining it was a remake of the film The Finishing Touch.

  The third one is ‘How to sleep with other people’. It says it’s supposed to be a remake of a Laurel and Hardy film called Berth Marks in the opening titles—I didn’t read the description at first. It’s Ollie and Wes in a tiny cabin inside a ferry, trying to sleep in bunk beds, Ollie on the bottom one, Wes on the top, his tousled hair touching the ceiling.

  They fight over the blankets, even though they are nowhere near each other, but still somehow they manage it, they fall on top of each other, they dismember the mattress, feathers flying in a white cloud around them. Then Ollie starts listening to his ipod too loudly and Wes tries to hit him, but he misses and falls down from his bed. And so on and so on. Finally a booming voice on the speaker announces that they’ve reached their destination and to please start disembarking. Ollie and Wes, of course, don’t make it in time, and end up having to stay on board until the ship’s next destination. They decide to try and get some sleep until then.

  There’s virtually no plot, and it’s like two minutes in total. But the expressions on their faces. . . priceless. I was shaking with laughter by the end.

  Finally I scrolled down to the description.

  It was lengthier this time, but as soon as I started reading I knew what it was. I shut the laptop down with an abrupt snap of the screen, and moved my leg out of the way, letting it drop on the comforter as though it had burned me.

  “. . .to her utter amazement, she saw Mr. Darcy walk into the room. In an hurried manner he immediately began an enquiry after her health,”

  That was all I read, but I didn’t need to continue to know what it was. I recognized it at once.

  It’s the beginning of page 133. The scene of Darcy’s first proposal to Elizabeth. The scene Wes and I had filmed in the beginning, when he’d kissed me and I believed him.

  When he’d told me it was no lie.

  He must have copy pasted the whole page on YouTube.

  Katia had logged off skype by now. I reopened the laptop to see whether I had damaged the screen in my haste, and everything looked okay. I placed it carefully on the chair next to my bed for Jamie to find when he next came in, and I covered my face with the blanket, pretending I was asleep.

  Pretending the tears weren’t coming.

  Day Fifteen

  The next morning, dad came in and flung the covers away from my face. I had officially been under there for approximately twenty hours.

  “Enough,” he said and he sat down next to me. “You look awful,” he added.

  I sniffled.

  “Are there. . . ?” I started asking, but I had to stop and clear my throat. “Are there more?”

  “Videos?” he made a ‘pffft’ noise with his mouth. “Two new ones since yesterday.”

  “How are they making them so fast?”

  “It’s their job, Ari,” he said, but I knew what he was thinking. It isn’t their job. Both of them have really busy schedules as soon as they left Corfu, and that means they left other things, important things, to do this for me.

  “I can’t, dad,” I said.

  “I know,” he replied. “I can see that you can’t. . . go on like before. But I’m your father, Ari. I nearly lost you once. I can’t lose you again, not now that the danger is finally over. So tell me what you want to do and we’ll do it, okay? Anything you want. Don’t think of anything else, or anyone else but yourself for once.”

  We sat there in silence for a few minutes.

  He was staring out the window, and I was thinking. Real hard.

  “Daddy?” I said in a small voice. “I need to go to sleep for a few more hours. And then I won’t be a baby any more. Promise.”

  “I never said you were a baby,” dad said
, smiling, and grabbed my waist, hoisting me onto his lap as though I was five years old. He sighed and I saw that his eyelids were red and wet. “Koritsaki mou,” he whispered against my ear, rocking me gently back and forth. ‘My little girl.’ “What would I have done if I’d lost you?”

  His chest shook with a sob, but the next second he was calm again. “You’ve been through much more than anyone should have to go through in an entire lifetime. You can sleep if you want to. You can take all the time in the world. Just get well again, that’s all I want.”

  He was swinging me back and forth across the chair easily—too easily. He didn’t have to struggle at all in order to shift my weight. Suddenly I saw how thin I was. I saw myself through his eyes: my unfamiliar, bald head, that unrecognizable face that stares back at me in the mirror every day, the pronounced lines across my collar-bone, the blue veins popping out in my wrists, my forehead, my neck, and my heart constricted.

  I think that was the moment, right there.

  The moment I realized I wanted to get well.

  I want to get well.

  Badly.

  More than anything else.

  And so, that’s what I’m going to do.

  After I finish writing this, I’m going to bury myself in the covers and sleep for as long as I need. I told Jamie too, so he won’t bother me until I get up and open the door myself. He started to say something, but I told him he was only allowed to wake me up for my medication and meals, like any normal nurse is expected to do.

  He nodded and turned his face away, but I saw that his eyes had darkened.

  “I was the first to tell you,” he said. “You do whatever you gotta do.” And he left.

  Now I’m alone. They’re both gone (dad and Jamie) and I’m finishing up today’s pathetic diary entry.

  I’m not sure sleeping is going to solve anything, though. Actually, scratch that. It’s not going to solve anything, I know it.

  I just . . . I just need to not be thinking for a bit, you know?

  Day Sixteen

  Here’s the thing.

  The thing I’ve been ignoring all this time, the elephant in the room. (Well, besides me. We did me yesterday.)

  So, the thing.

  Ollie and Wes did this amazing thing with those videos. They must be working their asses off non-stop . . . Can you even write and film a short video in five days? Let alone edit it. Let alone edit so many of them.

  Anyway, the point is, they did it. They uploaded these videos, maybe not especially for me, but they did dedicate them to me. He dedicated them to me. It’s plastered all over the internet by now, that he’s the one who created the channel and produced the films. He’s trending on twitter, as well as the name of the channel #greyribbon, and there’s about a hundred blog articles about him. (Katia told me as soon as I woke up. I hung up on her. She called again, to tell me that YouTube was already filling up with ‘obnoxious reaction videos to his videos’ that kept getting on her nerves. I told her she was getting on my nerves, and she said, Ari, you know what I’m trying to say here. I said yeah, I know, and then she had to go out.)

  So, anyway, the question is: if he did this thing for me, this beyond amazing, beyond all imagination, this huge thing for me . . . If he broke the internet for me, and I still can’t call him . . . Then when I be able to?

  When will I feel l can?

  It’s two hours later.

  I’ve just been pacing up and down my room like a caged animal, and I’ve only just sat down because my head is splitting and I’m getting light-headed from all the movement.

  I don’t know what happened. How it happened. I was so careful. I did everything I could to avoid something like this.

  Man, I can’t even—

  Okay, Jamie just walked in and ordered me to bed. So, I’ll just have to vent on this page. He took his phone back, too.

  I decided to call Ollie.

  That’s where it all started.

  Isn’t that what big brothers are for? To help you decide whether you’re actually insane or not? I was going to talk to him about the videos and ask him about Wes maybe. . . Or maybe try to figure out why the hell I still can’t muster up the nerve to freaking call him.

  Sorry for that. But I told you I’d be venting.

  So, anyway, genius that I am, I asked Jamie for his phone, because I still haven’t turned mine on. Dad isn’t here. Anyway, I was sure that I was safe, calling from an unknown number. Even if they’re still together in Corfu, and Wes happens to see the number flashing on Ollie’s screen, he won’t know it’s me, right?

  Wrong.

  This is how it went: I dialed the number, and waited as it beeped in my ear. Then, a voice answered. Only it wasn’t Ollie’s voice. It was a familiar, smooth, cocky drawl. Just the sound of that bored baritone was like a slap. It brought a rush of memories: waves swelling, lips meeting, warm skin touching.

  “Hello?”

  I just stood there, frozen, trapped in the sudden onslaught of emotion that overwhelmed me at the sound of Wes’ voice. I’d always thought that when I heard him again it would be on my terms. That I’d have had time to prepare myself, somehow. But this. . . this was out of the blue.

  “Hello?” He said again.

  You would think he’d repeat it impatiently, as though someone was wasting his time. I’d seen him do it countless times when talking on the phone to his assistant or someone else who annoyed him. But his voice didn’t sound like that on this second ‘hello’.

  It sounded as though he was sitting up, lowering his voice, putting his guard up.

  As though he was preparing himself for something hard.

  “That you, Ar—?”

  And that’s when I finally woke up and ended the call.

  I remember just sitting down and staring at the phone in my hand, as if it was a bomb that had suddenly gone off and destroyed the entire planet.

  And then.

  The stupid phone beeped. A text.

  Say something.

  I stared at it, horrified. I wanted to throw the phone in the bushes. Honestly, that was my first reaction. My only reaction. To run away, to leave. I’m not ready for this, I kept thinking. I’m not ready for this. What do I say? What do I say? Sorry? Not yet? Wait? I can’t stop thinking about you? I need time? I’m not myself? I can’t deal with things?

  What?

  Then it beeped again.

  Say something.

  There was a typo or something, I think it actually said ‘say somthing’. That’s how I knew he didn’t just resend the text, he’d typed it again. And his fingers may have been shaking, because he’d never once texted me anything with a typo in it.

  I can’t remember how I got back up to my room, but an hour later Jamie found me pacing about, about to faint. I can’t even remember whether I deleted the texts or not. He’ll think I’m crazy. Jamie, I mean.

  Wes doesn’t think I’m crazy, probably. He must hate me now.

  I hate me.

  Day Seventeen

  Trying to forget everything else, just focus on getting out of here. Calling pappou and yiayia, Katia, every day, although I still don’t feel like opening up to them, trying to eat, trying to coax myself back into a normal existence.

  Why is this so hard?

  Is it supposed to be this hard?

  Day Twenty

  Freedom! (sort of)

  Today I’m out of here! Yippeeeeee

  Exchanged emails and stuff with Jamie (already have his number memorized). I don’t know how I’ll be able to leave him behind. They might as well ask me to leave a leg or an arm here, it might hurt less.

  He brought me a bunch of colorful scarves for my head and sat with me for twenty minutes, trying them on with me. They looked better on him, actually. I cried when I hugged him goodbye, and these weren’t tears I need to be ashamed of.

  This guy I’ve leaned on when I was walking out of death towards life. . . (I don’t care how overly dramatic this sounds). It feels like I’m
leaving here with my heart ripped in two.

  Also, I can’t walk more than a hundred steps without having to sit down to catch my breath, or I’ll feel like throwing up and dying, but that’s cool, doctors say, it’s normal.

  Cool my ass.

  Anyway, Freedom.

  yay

  Day Fifty Two

  This is going to be the last entry in this journal. After I finish writing this bit, I’m planning on locking the notebook up and putting it somewhere out of sight. It does not help when something reminds me of that period of time in my life, which already has started drifting away from me, fading into memory. Into the past.

  I’m getting better.

  First of all, physically—two days ago was the first time Coach said he was satisfied with my performance. He said I was almost as good as I’d been before the summer. I told him he was a pain in the butt and he slapped my back so hard I almost toppled over. That, coming from him, was the biggest compliment ever—the back-slapping, I mean. Not everyone stays upright after it, trust me.

  I’ve put on tons of weight; almost all of my curves are back. Until Spiros is satisfied with my appearance, I have free pass to every pie and sweet thing grandma can cook—and she cooks a lot these days. She and grandpa can’t stop smiling.

  I’ve started smiling a bit myself.

  I plan on doing much more of it, and closing this journal is part of that process. After a week in Corfu I went back to New York. I stayed in Jamie’s place and he took me to a hockey game. Then I went to his therapist. (He made me).

  That’s not an experience I plan on repeating, EVER.

  Not that there was anything wrong with the lady, but sitting on a couch in complete silence and being asked about my feelings is not what I’d call having a good time.

  Anyway, she said that within five days we ‘did wonders’—in therapy lingo.