by Hannah Ford
The reality was that Caleb looked different. His face was fuller, and somehow a little tired, like life had gotten the best of him over the last four years.
“First of all, I didn’t know Andre was going to pull that crap the other night at the bar,” Caleb said.
“Andre’s been pulling that kind of crap ever since we were kids,” she said. “I don’t think you can keep claiming ignorance.”
“You’re right,” Caleb said, nodding. “The truth is, I’ve always been afraid to leave Andre behind. We were always best friends since second grade. And as we got older, he got weirder and weirder but I didn’t want to see it. I felt like I needed him.”
“I don’t care if you stay friends with him,” Raven said. “But you know who he is, and you’ve known for a long time.”
“I can’t argue that,” Caleb said. “I should have kicked Andre to the curb a long time ago for the things he did, especially to you. You didn’t deserve any of it, Raven.” He looked intently into her eyes and she realized he meant it.
“Thanks for saying that,” Raven whispered, surprised that his words did actually help her a little bit.
“I never meant for that video to get out,” Caleb said. He leaned forward and one of his hands crept forward on the table.
Raven sat back. “You must’ve showed it to Andre.”
He shook his head. “No, I never did. He looked through my phone and found it, sent it to himself and then started passing it around. By the time I realized what he’d done, Andre had already told half the school and made up the whole story.”
“You could’ve stood up for me, told everyone it was a lie. All you had to do was say that I never did any of that,” she told him, her voice starting to shake with emotion.
Caleb looked away from her, blinking. He wiped at his upper lip. “I was scared,” he said. “Andre and the other guys told me if I got them in trouble that they’d fuck me up, beat my ass, all that good stuff.”
“Nice friends you have,” she muttered.
“I never said they were nice,” Caleb said, and his voice betrayed anger for the first time.
Raven stared at him. In all the time she’d known him, he’d never gotten angry. He’d always been mellow, passive, and even when everything had fallen apart amidst the lies and lawsuits and scandal, he’d never lost his temper.
The few times she’d tried to discuss things with him when all the lies first began circulating, Caleb’s blasé attitude had infuriated her. It was as though he’d just refused to see what his silence was doing to her, how he appeared to be backing up the lies his friends were telling about her.
“I just don’t understand why,” she said. “Why did Andre make up all of those lies about me and why is he still doing it?”
Caleb took a deep breath. “Back in high school, I didn’t really know why he did any of it. But I think I’ve figured it out, especially after what happened at the bar.”
Raven saw that he was growing uncomfortable, maybe even nervous. “It’s okay, Caleb. You can tell me.”
He wiped a hand across his face. “It’s weird,” he said, “and pretty embarrassing, too.”
“Sounds like you just described every day of my life,” she joked, trying to lighten the mood. Of course, she was curious, desperately wanting answers as to what had caused all of the madness four years ago.
Caleb met her gaze again, and he seemed determined now to tell her the truth. “Andre and I had a big argument after what happened at the bar with you and Jake Novak. I really let him have it when I was driving him home. For the first time in my life, I didn’t pull any punches. I told him that he was a psycho and I was done being friends with him.”
“Wow,” Raven said, “that must have been difficult.”
Caleb smiled bitterly. “You know it was way past due, Raven.”
She smiled back at him. “I’m trying to be nice.”
“I appreciate that.” He took a sip from his coffee and then put the cup down and spun it idly. Condensation dripped down the sides and pooled around it on the table. “Anyway,” he continued, “Andre showed up at my door later that night, drunk as hell. He was crying, telling me we had to talk and work things out, that he couldn’t stand to have me mad at him.”
Raven’s mouth was open as she listened. “What did you say?”
Caleb laughed. “I told him to get the hell away from me. I said that I was going to call the cops if he didn’t leave. And that’s when he said the weirdest thing yet.”
Raven already had an inkling of what Caleb was going to tell her, but she didn’t want to interrupt him, not when he was finally going to speak the truth.
Caleb shook his head, as if just recalling it was leaving a terrible taste in his mouth. “Andre told me that he was in love with me.” Caleb stared at her with wide eyes. “Can you believe that?”
“Actually,” she said, “I kind of can believe it.” She thought some more. “It explains a lot about why he acted the way he did.”
“Maybe you can,” Caleb said, “but I couldn’t. I told him to go home and sober up, but Andre just kept saying that he loved me, that he’d always loved me since we were little kids. And then he tried to approach me, like…I don’t know…I think he was going to try and kiss me.”
Raven half wanted to laugh, half wanted to cry. It was pathetic and sad and also tragic in a way. She had hated Andre for years, and still did, in many ways. Yet she couldn’t help feel bad for him at the same time.
“I suppose he wanted to break us up because he was in love with you,” Raven said. “And he didn’t know how else to express it. He was jealous of me, and my relationship with you, so he tried to destroy me and run me out of the picture.”
“Yeah, and the fucked up thing is that it worked.” Caleb sat back in his chair, his hands were curled into tight fists. “When I think about what I let him get away with—it makes me insane, Raven.”
“We were kids, Caleb. We were seventeen.”
“Yeah, it’s no excuse.” His face was drawn, his eyes tired, as if the conversation had taken something out of him. “I don’t know why I was so afraid of Andre, afraid of just standing up to those guys back then. And I don’t really understand why I never left, and I just stuck around town and kept hanging with that same old crowd.”
“Maybe you didn’t think you could make it on your own,” Raven said. “I know it was hard for me. Almost impossible.”
“But now look at you,” Caleb said, smiling, his eyes lighting up as he looked at her. “You’ve really done something with yourself. You got away from all the bullshit, and you’re living in the city, living your own life, and you’re more beautiful and amazing than ever.”
She felt her cheeks flush. “It’s not quite that simple.”
“Are you and Jake Novak still seeing each other?” he asked.
She looked away from him, then, not knowing what was motivating his question. “We probably shouldn’t get into all of that,” she said.
“Okay, I won’t push. I was just curious.”
“Funny thing is,” Raven said, “I think you would like Jake. If you two had met under different circumstances.”
Caleb nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, well, I do like him, from the little I’ve seen of him.”
“All you saw him do was fight your friends.”
“Exactly,” Caleb said, and his jaw tightened. His eyes were moist and he looked away, taking a long drink from his coffee, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.
“Listen, I should go,” Raven sighed. “I’m glad you came and we had a chance to talk though.”
Caleb looked back at her again. “I’m actually going to be in town for a few days.”
“Really? Why?”
He shrugged. “I’ve got some job interviews,” he said.
Her eyebrows shot up. “You’re going to move to Boston?”
“Maybe.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “At least I’m going to give it a shot, put myself out there
and see what happens. Like you did.”
She laughed and shook her head. “Caleb, it’s not that simple.”
“Maybe if you have a free minute we can get together again before I leave town?”
“I don’t know,” she said, uncertainly. It felt too fast to already be making plans to see him again.
Caleb seemed to understand her reservations. “Well, you have my number now. Text me if you want. I should be around in between interviews.”
“Okay. Maybe.” She got up and started to leave.
“Hey, Raven,” he called, turning in his seat to look at her.
She spun around and waited. “Yeah?”
“Thanks for being so awesome,” he said, loud enough that the other patrons turned and stared for a moment.
“Oh, well, it just comes so natural to me,” she joked back, and then left the Starbucks, still smiling.
* * *
Raven woke up early the next morning, rubbing her eyes, wondering where she was.
Oh, right. I’m in the apartment that a famous celebrity rock star rented for me after I was hired to be his escort for a few days.
She sat up on the couch, where she’d apparently fallen asleep, and tried to recall how late she’d stayed up. The television was still on, and she vaguely remembered watching some late night PBS special where Wayne Dyer was pacing around the stage and talking about living from a place of gratitude.
She hadn’t been able to fall asleep because she’d been thinking about him again. Jake. Wondering what he was doing. Reading every article about him, trying to see if he’d been spotted out anywhere, refreshing Twitter and Facebook and Instagram for updates. Checking her phone to see if he’d tried to message her, even though she knew he wasn’t going to.
He’s got a show tonight in Boston. Maybe you should go there and see if you can get a ticket from one of the scalpers.
But Raven knew she wasn’t going to do that. She wasn’t going to humiliate herself, stalking Jake at one of his own concerts.
Jake had paid her very well to get rid of her—the least she could do was respect his wish to forget she’d ever existed.
In any case, today wasn’t about Jake Novak, and it wasn’t about Raven’s confusion over possibly having a broken heart.
Today was about Skylar.
Skylar was undergoing chemotherapy for the first time, and Raven wanted to be there for her completely and totally—she wanted to be present for Skylar, not just physically, but emotionally.
You need to get yourself in check. Enough pining for Jake, it’s time to really step up to the plate for Sky. She’s scared and she needs you.
Thinking about Skylar was like a splash of cold water on her face, and Raven immediately felt more alert and awake. She got off the couch and went to the bathroom, jumped in the shower, washed up as quickly as she could, and then got dressed in a comfortable outfit.
She knew from her research that these chemo sessions could last hours, so she wanted to be as relaxed as possible. After getting dressed, pulling back her hair, she applied just a bit of makeup and brushed her teeth.
It was early enough that Raven had time before meeting Skylar at the hospital. She left the apartment and went shopping. There were plenty of stores surrounding the towers, and Raven made use of the time to put together a duffel bag full of things that Skylar might want throughout her treatment.
Raven bought candy, gum, and crackers of various assortments. Brownies, cookies, chips. Then she got goofy stuff like coloring books, magazines (Raven refused to take the three magazines that featured Jake on the cover), a couple of novels, a travel-sized checker board and a travel-sized game of scrabble, crossword puzzles, that sort of stuff.
In the end, the duffel bag was stuffed full and Raven could barely carry it, but she pulled the strap over her shoulder and went out to grab a cab to take her the rest of the way to the hospital.
After the cab dropped her off at Boston Memorial, Raven had to ask for directions to the Cancer Center and then to the Treatment Center. When she arrived, she sat and waited with her enormous duffle bag in the waiting room, next to a fish tank.
An older man sat nodding off in a wheelchair nearby, while a person who might have been his daughter sat and read a book.
On the other side of the fish tank, there were three people discussing all of the different hospitals they’d been to and all the surgeries they each had. Each person kept saying, “Oh, I had that one,” as if they were comparing notes about different appetizer dishes at their favorite restaurants.
Raven texted Skylar and said she was there. Skylar texted back and said she was in the building now, too.
A few minutes later, Skylar showed up with her mother. They both looked stressed and anxious.
Raven waved and smiled, not knowing if she was supposed to act all serious, but deciding that being upbeat felt better.
“Hey, I brought fun stuff,” Raven said, holding up the duffle bag.
“Oh, cool,” Skylar said, but her eyes were darting nervously around the room.
“We should register, honey,” her mother said, putting a hand on her daughter’s shoulder.
They went to check in and Raven waited at her seat, fidgeting. After a little bit, they came and sat down next to her.
“So,” Skylar’s mother said to Raven, “I hear you’ve been quite the busy bee lately.”
“I have?”
“You and Jake Novak?” Skylar’s mom gave Raven a knowing look. “That’s one serious man you landed.”
Skylar put her hand up to her forehead. “Mom! What the heck--don’t embarrass me!”
“It’s not every day someone we know is dating a famous man. I can’t even ask about it?”
Raven laughed. “It’s no big deal.”
“And he’s such a wonderful person,” Skylar’s mother continued, clucking her tongue appreciatively. “He treated us like family, you know. An absolute gentleman.”
“He’s been a lifesaver,” Skylar agreed, but rolled her eyes for Raven’s benefit.
Her mother seemed content to keep talking. “It’s just awful how the news media treats him. I wrote a letter to NBC about it, and another letter to the New York Times.”
Raven nodded appreciatively, trying hard to keep a straight face as Skylar made funny faces while her mother droned on and on about what a saint Jake Novak was.
Of course, it was true that Jake had gone way above and beyond for Skylar. What he’d done was incredible, but there was something about listening to Sky’s mother talk about Jake that was humorous.
Part of it was the situation. You had to laugh so as not to cry.
Every time Jake’s name came up, Raven was acutely aware of the fact that they were no longer involved either romantically or business-wise.
Was it ever romantic, though?
She still didn’t know what Jake had really thought about the whole thing. It had been romantic for her, but if Jake had never truly felt anything for her, than she supposed it really had always been purely business for him.
A nurse came out and called Skylar’s name.
“Can they come with me?” Skylar asked, gesturing to Raven and her mother.
“Of course,” the nurse smiled. “The more the merrier.”
The three of them followed the nurse back to the treatment center. She stopped and had Skylar get on a scale and took her wait.
“Maybe I’ll lose a few pounds, at least,” Skylar joked.
“Honey, don’t joke about that,” her mother said.
“You gotta look at the silver lining,” the nurse replied, taking notes.
Then the nurse brought her to a seat near a window. It was basically one large room and all of the chairs were in rows and separated by curtains, but you could still see everyone sitting in their seats. The privacy was minimal. Nurses bustled to and fro and there were loud beeping noises coming from the different IV stands.
Raven tried not to stare at the other patients, but it was difficult not
to. Most of them were alone, or had just one other person sitting beside them to keep them company. Everyone looked rather bored, and resigned. Some of them wore hats, most wore layers of clothing, and a few were bald.
One woman was so incredibly thin that it hurt to even look at her.
Skylar seemed in good spirits, though. She sat down and the nurse took her vitals, blood pressure, talked to her about what was to come.
If anything, it was Skylar’s mother who was the problem. She was overly anxious, talkative, interrupting the nurse to ask vague and useless questions.
Raven could tell that she was making Skylar more nervous, but there wasn’t much to be done. She was her mother, and that outranked Raven any day of the week.
Eventually, the nurse started to run the IV for the infusion. At first, everything seemed fine, but then Raven noticed that the nurse had gone very quiet and stopped talking and joking.
Skylar was squinting in discomfort and looking up at the ceiling, while her mother was fretting.
“Is she—did you get it?”
“I’m having trouble,” the nurse replied. “Her veins don’t seem to want to cooperate today.”
Raven felt her stomach clench like a fist. She could tell that the longer this went on, the more pain her friend was in.
“Is this normal, to have this much trouble getting the IV inserted?” Skylar’s mother asked.
“I’ve seen it all,” the nurse replied, but her voice was tense.
The time dragged out, and the nurse moved from one arm to the other. Eventually, when that failed, she went and got another nurse, who also tried with no success.
Meanwhile, Skylar was getting more and more upset. She was no longer trying to pretend she was okay. Instead, tears were in her eyes each time they poked and prodded her, she clenched her teeth and looked away.
“I can’t watch this anymore,” Skylar’s mother said. “I’m sorry, this is just too much.” And she walked out of the room.
Raven went and sat closer to Skylar, grabbed her hand. “Hey, it’s almost done,” she said. “They’re going to get it soon, I can tell.”