After I Was His

by Amelia Wilde

  Sunny sets the beers on a little wicker table and bends over a little firepit in the center of the patio. Her hand works at a switch and it blazes to life, the flames cheerful in the metal sculpted basin.

  “Nice, right?” Her face looks oddly proud in the firelight. “I thought it was stupid, but Day wanted it. Turns out he was right.”

  She goes back to the table and hands me one of the beers. “What’s up, Wes? Can’t sleep?”

  I crack a grin. We used to run into each other in the middle of the night, two teenage ghosts in the hallways of our parents’ house. It was easier to talk to her then, in the dark, because there was no front to keep up.

  “No. Haven’t slept.”

  Sunny sits in one of the patio chairs and tucks her feet beneath her. It’s warm enough not to need a blanket. I’ve just let my ass hit the wicker when Dayton comes out and takes the third beer, falling into a seat next to Summer.

  Now it feels awkward.

  I’ve hauled them out of bed in the middle of the night like a lovesick asshole.

  Dayton opens his beer and takes a long drink. “You know,” he says thoughtfully, tilting his head back to look at the orange city sky, “if you wanted a night out of that fucking hotel, you could have come here earlier.”

  I rub my free hand over my face. “I worked late. It...wasn’t a problem until later on anyway.”

  Until later, when the traffic noise was enough to drive a person insane, when someone started a fight in the room below mine, when all I wanted was a breath of Whitney’s shampoo and all I could smell was the reek of musty carpet.

  “Couch is open. But”—a yawn stretches his face—“maybe I’m an old man now, but I don’t have all night to listen to you bitch and moan.” Summer gives him a playful slap on the shoulder. “I mean, we’re here for you. Tell us all your problems.”

  I look at them, sitting there in their happiness, with their cold beers and bedhead, and I’m at a loss. What the fuck am I supposed to say? I want what you have, and I could have had it with Whitney? It’s all so viscerally pathetic that I have to hunt for the words.

  I open my mouth.

  Dayton tenses, his back coming to attention, and he and Summer both turn their heads toward the house. The backs of my hands tingle with adrenaline. What’s going on? What are they doing?

  The sound hits me a moment later—a thin, high wail.

  Day doesn’t hesitate. He gets up out of his seat, taking his beer with him, and strides into the house. Summer relaxes back into her seat, her blue eyes flickering along with the fire.

  “You could get her back, you know.” She raises the beer to her lips and drinks, the movement delicate somehow.

  “I will wait for dawn if it means having this conversation with Day instead of you.”

  “I appreciate the vote of confidence, asshole.” Summer’s eyes sparkle at her own snappy comeback. “It’s an easy choice, Wes. You can either suffer, or you can listen to me.”

  “It’s all suffering.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Fine. I’m happy to let you dangle on a hook of your own misery until—”

  “Just say what you have to say. It’s late.”

  “Says the man who woke me up in the middle of the night.”

  “You were never supposed to be part of this.” In every way possible, she was never supposed to be part of this. I was never supposed to be part of this.

  “You made a bad mistake with Whitney, but you can fix this. And you should, because she keeps calling me for emergency lunches, and I can see she’s been crying underneath her makeup. It’s terrible, Wes. She’s devastated.”

  The heat rises in the pit of my gut. “It’s never going to work out. She doesn’t understand that I’m trying to—”

  “Beat the world into submission with your bare hands?”

  Summer looks at me steadily over the fire. She radiates an obnoxious calm. There’s probably no question in her mind that Day is going to come back and sit right next to her, and here I am, aching for Whitney to be curled up in the next chair over. Her absence is a visceral wound, and I caused it myself.

  “You know you can’t do that all on your own.”

  It’s not a question.

  “I know.”

  “Wes...”

  “I fucking called, okay? This morning. I called the VA. I’ll go talk to whatever shrink they want. Okay? I get it. I fucking get it.” One phone call doesn’t release the pressure in my mind. It can’t. And not even tomorrow’s emergency appointment will do that. Because the pressure has a shape, and a name. Ben Powell’s voice had the ring of truth to it, and it hasn’t stopped ringing yet.

  Sunny presses her lips together, and her eyes shine brighter in the firelight. “That’s—” She nods, her fingertips rising to her lips. “I’m proud of you.” She could go farther. She must know that Dayton tried to convince me it would be a good idea to do some talk therapy at the very minimum. But Summer isn’t a little girl anymore, needling me to get attention. She’s an equal.

  “Don’t be fucking proud of me. It took losing her to figure it out. The price is a little steep.”

  She gets up from her chair, leaving the beer on the wicker table, and comes around to me, leaning down to wrap her arms around my neck. Her touch tears at the wound around my heart, scraping and bleeding, and I swallow back a painful lump in my throat.

  “You can’t stop me. I’m still proud. I know—” She breathes in and I see it then, how close she’s been to Dayton’s own hurt all this time. How she carries the weight of it on her own shoulders to lessen his burden. “I know.”

  I see how Whitney, in her own way, tried to do that for me.

  And I see the chasm between us, now that I left her. Now that I did her fucking bidding and left her, and wrenched myself away from the one person that made this life seem worth fixing.

  Summer straightens up, wiping at her eyes. “Listen to me.”

  “I’ve been listening. What do you think—”

  She drops into the chair next to me and looks me in the eye. “In all the time you’ve been with Whitney, haven’t you ever stopped to think about why she is the way she is? God knows it can be tiring. And...over the top sometimes. But you know why, right?”

  I take another swig of beer and pull myself together. “I assume she’s always been that way. I’ve always been on top of my life, and she’s always been—I don’t know, flighty.”

  “She is that way because of her dad.”

  Whitney’s face comes back to me then, red-eyed, desolate. “She told me about her dad.”

  “How much did she tell you?”

  “That he was—” The conversation seems like a million years ago. “That he was kind of an asshole, and he was killed by a drunk driver.”

  “From what she told me, he wasn’t a very good dad. He was the kind of man who always wanted to have a good time, and he hated it when Whitney had different ideas about what that meant. They’d fight. But they were alike in ways, you know? When things were good, they were good. That last fight—” Summer shakes her head. “It must have been awful for them both.”

  “It must have been, but I don’t see what that has to do with this.”

  “Everything, Wes. Whitney took that to heart. She knows the clock is ticking. On life, I mean. Which sounds morbid and totally depressing, but she knows it can all go away in an instant. And I think, on some level, her dad felt that too.”

  We’re silent for a moment.

  “It’s obviously a complicated situation, but I think that Whitney is the way she is because she’s trying to live up to an idealized version of what he would have been like. She’s trying to seize every moment she possibly can. Make it all magical.”

  She’s got that right.

  “And then...you know, if one of us were in a Broadway show, Mom and Dad would be in the front row.”

  “Of course they would be. It would be embarrassing as fuck, with how Mom can get.”

  “Whit’s mom has n
ever been in the picture. And her dad won’t be in the front row on Friday. And even if they fought—”

  “She’d still want him to be proud of her. Jesus Christ.” I drop my head into my hands. “Well, that settles it. I need to pack up and move on. I took that pain and dug into it with my own nails.”

  “Oh, stop, Wes. Have you talked to her since you two split?”

  “No.”

  “She’s a mess. And she misses that you cooked dinner at the same time. That’s”—her mouth drops open while she searches for the words—“unprecedented. The Whitney I know and love would never allow herself to get excited over something as pedestrian and predictable as dinner at the same time. You were good for her.”

  “Yes. That’s why she wanted me to fuck off.”

  “Maybe she wanted you to fuck off because she was pissed. And hurting. And maybe she regrets it.”

  “I’m not waking her up in the middle of the night to find out.”

  “Ah, the courteous prince. No, don’t wake her up in the middle of the night. Don’t do anything in the middle of the night. It’s almost always a bad idea.”

  “Then what do I do?” It’s a pathetic question, and one I would never say out loud in broad daylight. I would never ask my younger sister for this kind of advice. I’m only skating across the edges of complete humiliation because of the hour. And because every inch of me is on fire with pain. With missing her.

  “She’s never going to stop looking for you, Wes. Show her that she’s been found.”

  “Jesus, Sunny, that’s the most cryptic thing you’ve ever said to me. How the fuck am I supposed to do that?”

  “I know exactly how. All you have to do is follow through.”

  I lean my elbows on my knees and look into the fire. “This is fucked up. I shouldn’t even be asking you for help. I shouldn’t be asking anyone.”

  Summer sighs, then reaches over and pats me on the back. “No. You should have asked a long time ago. Get used to it, buddy.”

  She unfolds herself from the chair and makes her way back toward the house. “Turn the fire off when you’re done staring into it. There’s an extra blanket in the closet.” She’s quick, light on her feet, and at the back door in a heartbeat.

  “Hey, Sunny?”

  “Yeah?” She pauses with her hand on the door, looking back with her expression open, the hint of a smile on her face.

  “Thanks.”

  She blows me a kiss with her fingertips and goes inside.

  31

  Whitney

  The show can’t go on.

  I stare at myself in the bright-ass lights of the mirror in my dressing room. The words ring in my ears. The show can’t go on. I can’t go on.

  For one thing, I am abjectly unqualified to play the lead role in even an off-Broadway show. Rowan made the biggest mistake of her life when she cast me. Though, in fairness, she couldn’t have known that my life would become a complete train wreck a week before opening night.

  The world is empty without Wes. I’d take the sight of his shoulders in the streetlight over the nothingness that is my apartment. But what the fuck am I supposed to do? I can’t bring myself to text him. I can’t bring myself to send that message out into the void, knowing that something inside me has broken us irreparably.

  God, it’s making me stupidly nostalgic for all those little things about him. The way he’d check the lock on the door before we went to bed for the night, even when he’s the one who locked it when we came in. The way he always insisted on walking on the outer edge of the sidewalk, even if we were separated from the street by planters and trees. He was always on the lookout, and being in that sphere of the things he cared about—it was breathtaking. I watch my stupid face contort in the mirror.

  There’s a knock at the door. “Whit, five minutes to curtain.”

  “Okay, great!” Can Rowan tell how fucking false I sound right now? Can she tell how miserable I am? I can’t bear it. I can’t bear to see that empty seat in the front row.

  I take a deep, steadying breath. This is what acting is. Even though my heart is a wasteland of pain and regret, I will still play the part I’ve been hired to play. This is my dream coming true.

  The victory is pretty fucking hollow, I’ll tell you that. It’s a terrible realization, to find out how much I was counting on Wes. On that strength. Even if that strength was getting the better of him.

  “It’s for the best,” I say, right as my dressing room door swings open.

  “What’s for the best? Oh, my God, you look so good!” Summer is all sleek blonde hair and black date night halter top and joy, and for the smallest moment, I hate her.

  Then she throws her arms around me, careful to keep her own face out of my stage makeup, and I love her again. “How’d you get back here?”

  “I gave the guy at the door a big smile. And I told him you had to see me before you went onstage.” She takes a step back and looks me up and down. “Whitney, this is so Broadway.”

  “Off-Broadway.”

  Sunny laughs. “Are you good to go? I just came down to tell you to break a leg. You’re a star, you know that? You’re a legitimate star.”

  A couple of my castmates go by the door outside, chanting their last warmups together. I should be out there with them, and there’s a tug at the base of my spine—go, go.

  “I’ll be good once I get out there.” With every moment that Summer stands in front of me, the evening comes into sharper focus. I’m about to step onstage on opening night. In front of real people. My stomach twists. “You might want to stand farther away. Now that you’re here, I want to throw up.”

  “Oh, don’t do that. Your makeup is flawless.”

  I glance back into the mirror. “My makeup is stage makeup. Sunny, I know you say these things with love, but I’m really going to be okay.”

  “Okay? You’re going to be amazing. I’ll be right there in the front row, cheering and clapping way too loud.” She takes my hands in hers and squeezes. “I’ll get out of your face. But I hope you know you’re my best friend. And I’m so proud of you.”

  It sends a warm glow through my chest. “Thanks, buddy.”

  Summer precedes me out of the dressing room and we almost run into the stage manager, Joe. “One minute,” he barks at me, as if I’m not the star of the show. “Let’s move. Move.”

  I move.

  The moment I’m in the wings, in the dark backstage, clasping hands with Jason, all the jitters go out of my soul.

  I sit there in it—the ache. The ache of knowing he won’t be there. The ache of knowing that Summer and Day still came out to see me, to cheer me on. And the hope. God, that little dancing flame of hope. I can’t stamp it out, even though I know it’ll only end in desolate crying on my bedroom floor later tonight.

  The announcement about cell phones plays over the loudspeakers. Jason squeezes my hand. The music swells from the orchestra pit and I breathe in the dusty backstage, breathe in the air, weighted with anticipation.

  Three, two, one.

  That’s my cue.

  I step onto the stage, into those lights, and I’m not Whitney Coalport, recently abandoned and smarting with pain. I’m Holly Hamilton, a woman about to set foot in the big city, destined for love. In fact, it’s a love that prevails, despite some real fucking low points in the show. That’ll show me. Someday, someday, I’ll have a love that doesn’t leave me wrung out and ragged, desperate for more.

  We move into the first act. Singing. Dancing. I feel completely dropped in. I’m in that magic space when the play is real. When I see Jason’s face for the first time, it’s really the first time, and I gasp a little at the sight of his cut cheekbones in the spotlights. To Holly, he looks like an angel sent from heaven. He lights her on fire and I feel it down to my fingertips. Down to my bones.

  It’s so real, even the singing, that I don’t look out into the blinding lights. I don’t look down into the audience, even at the first row, which is about all I can see w
hen the stage lights are up.

  I just don’t look.

  Not even at intermission, when the curtain drops down beneath me and I’m abruptly shoved back into the real world.

  Twenty minutes of the real world, anyway. I can hear Summer screeching her cheers on the other side of that thick velvet curtain, but not Wes.

  “That was fucking amazing.” Jason’s face swoops in close, a fine sheen of sweat over his features. “We gotta bring it for the second act.”

  Rowan rushes in too, her eyes wide and shining. “This is going very well. The critics in the third row nodded several times during Act One. Whit—come with me. There are a couple things I want to tweak…”

  She talks for the next twenty minutes. I don’t even have time to pee. Ah, but what are human bodily needs when there’s a show to put on? What’s a full bladder when it comes up against the eternal glory of getting a good clip in tomorrow’s Post?

  One moment, I’m singing the opening to the second act and the next moment, we’re breaking up. Jason and me. Our characters are breaking up in the show, and God, it hurts. It hurts. His words burrow into me like spears and my throat almost tears on mine.

  “Don’t you see what I’ve done for you?” My own arrow flies true, wounds him, and I get a strange satisfaction from it. I wanted to wound Wes that night for walking away from me, and I never got the chance.

  But Jason doesn’t walk away. “What you’ve done for me?”

  “Yes. Everything I’ve done. Don’t you see?” I raise my hands to the city set around us and take a big breath, cheating toward the audience. “Don’t you see how beautiful we’ve made it?”

  “You want to know the truth?”

  “What’s the truth? Tell me, now, before I walk away.”

  “All I see is you.”

  He kisses me.

  It’s the most romantic fucking thing in the world, except for the fact that he tastes like stale Trident and nerves, and the shape of him is all wrong. I lean in anyway. I lean in and there’s a collective gasp from the audience, and then the clapping starts. Whooping. Cheering. The sound breaks into the fantasy I’m living in here onstage.