by Linnea May
I'm happy for her, I really am. I never wanted her to pay me back for anything, or feel guilty for the support I was able to give her. What kind of friend would I be if I was this petty?
But there is one thing that bugs me, and it's only adding to my general status of feeling lonely and lost.
Layla found what she was looking for. She's enjoying her job, she found a boyfriend who she's crazy about, and she's found her path in life.
I still haven't.
I still have no idea what to do with myself, and I've lacked the motivation to take any initiative. For me, there was no urgent need to work, and I didn't think that a job was what I needed to begin with. I always thought about going back to college. That's been the idea since I got hold of all that money. But the money is almost gone now. Large chunks of it were used to pay off the debt I was left with after my mother's death. I didn't have to pay it back all at once. They offered to simply let me increase the monthly installment amount I had been paying before, but I declined. I no longer wanted this to be part of my life. I needed to free myself of everything from that horrible time in my life and to be able to finally move on.
But move on to what?
I let out a deep sigh, bobbing up from the bed to make my way to the kitchen. It's only 5 p.m., but I decide that it's never too early for a glass of white wine. My phone vibrates in the pocket of my hot pants jeans. I don't have to check the screen to know it's Steven. He's asked to come over tonight, and I still owe him a reply. My chest tightens at the thought of having to break up with him, not because I will miss him, but because I'm afraid to break his heart. Steven truly cares for me, and he doesn't deserve to be treated this way. I know I'm a coward for letting him down like this. I've been telling myself for weeks that I should keep trying. Maybe I would eventually fall in love with him. Maybe I just need more time. I didn't want to give up on this relationship too early. But at this point, even I have to admit that there's no point in continuing. I'm only hurting him.
I pour myself a glass of white wine and step out on the balcony, squinting as I try to read my phone's screen against the streams of afternoon sun. The text is indeed from Steven, and he's pushing for a well-deserved response from me.
Tonight.
I have to do it tonight. Get it over with.
But I don't want to do it here, in my apartment.
"Let's grab a drink at the Thirsty Crow," I type. "We need to talk."
Chapter 30
Ryan
This must be the most stupid thing I've ever done in my life. I knew it when I began the research, I knew it when I boarded the plane, and I still know it now, as I drive through the city that has become her new home.
Laura never told me where exactly she'd be moving to, and until a few days ago, I diddn't even know for sure whether she actually went through with her plan. As it turned out, it was rather easy to find out everything I needed to know to find her. It may be a violation of privacy in many aspects, but I was able to gather enough information to even find the address of her new home.
She has, in fact, moved to California, only a few weeks after our night together, but it doesn't look like she's doing anything there. There was no employment information and no record of her attending any of the universities. Reading all of this made me worry. I knew that she was in debt and used a lot of the money to pay off said debt, but it looks like she didn't do anything significant with the rest of it. She may just be slowly exhausting her wealth, spending everything on an everyday life that is anything but cheap in this part of the country. Until she doesn’t have anything left.
I worry that something may have happened to her. Is there anything that didn't show up on my research? Did I miss something? Does she have a plan? I refuse to believe this is her plan, just using up all the money until she's forced to work in another low-income job like the one she had when I met her. No. Laura is too smart for that.
I've never wondered about the future of any of my other girls after they received their payment. I never cared to look any of them up to see what became of them. But Laura made me care. She makes me care more about her than what is good for me.
And I'm aware of that. I know I shouldn't be here, I know that I shouldn't have lied to Lemon about the reason for my temporary absence. I know all of this, and I'm a fool for doing this.
Yet I can't help but wonder if this will do it. It's been almost a year since I last saw her. Maybe my memory is tricking me? Maybe I built her up into something that she's not, putting her on a pedestal and glorifying her, when in fact, she was nothing more than any other ordinary girl. An ordinary girl that I spent an amazing night with one year ago.
Seeing her might cure me of that idiotic fantasy. I just need to see her, even if it's from afar. Just to remind myself that she wasn't that special. She wasn't worth losing my mind over. She can't be. It's as simple as that, right?
This is why I'm here, and this is why I'm sitting in a car outside her building, like a fucking creep, watching her door. Waiting.
I made a deal with myself not to approach her, not to talk to her. Just look at her. I arrived last night and I'm scheduled to fly back out tomorrow morning. That's all the time I'm giving myself to get rid of this silly obsession with her.
It's early Monday morning. If she does happen to have a job, I might catch her on her way to work. If she's not home or doesn’t leave her house all day, I'll have to come back tomorrow - and if I don't see her then either, I'll leave empty-handed and admit defeat. I never believed in fate or destiny, but if I'm not meant to see her, I won't. I hate leaving things up to the universe, but sometimes it might be the smarter thing to do.
The door to her building opens several times, as more and more of her neighbors leave for their jobs, dripping out of the entrance like erratic drops out of a leaking faucet.
Every time the door opens, my heart skips a beat, but it quickly returns to its regular pace when I realize that the person was just another stranger. I remain put, my eyes glued to the door, as I sip on my second coffee of the day.
If the next person to leave the house isn't her, you should just leave, I tell myself. This is pathetic. You're wasting your time.
But then the door opens again and the person who walks through it is – for a change – not a complete stranger. It's not Laura, but it's the girl I saw her with at the fundraising event the night I met her. I remember Laura saying that she would move here with a friend, and that must be the friend she was talking about. The girl is wearing a light blouse and suit pants, shielding her eyes against the already blazing California sun with giant sunglasses. She steps outside, turning right and striding up the sidewalk in hurried steps.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me," I whisper, rolling my eyes up to the sky.
Just as I had set my mind on leaving if the next person to leave the building wasn't Laura, the universe sends out her friend and roommate to make sure that my attention is piqued just enough to make me reconsider.
I sigh, trying to brace myself for something that may still never happen. Just because her roommate left for work doesn't mean that Laura is about to follow. It's unlikely that I missed her because I've been sitting here since before dawn. Unless she has to show up to her job in the wee hours, I can be pretty certain that she's still home.
Time passes and I continue to sit and wait, slowly calming down from the excitement her friend's appearance caused for me. It's getting later and the temperature is getting warmer, but I was smart enough to park the car in the shadow of a tree, so that I didn't even have to turn on the air conditioning. Up until now.
The longer I sit and wait, the more I begin to doubt myself again. I set deadlines for myself again and again, telling myself that I'd leave in fifteen minutes, another fifteen, another ten, another twenty to get the full hour. I know there's a chance that she may never appear, but I can't leave now, especially not after seeing her friend leave the house. I'd always wonder what would have happened if I had stayed another
ten minutes, or fifteen, or twenty...
Time comes to a sudden halt when the door opens again, and Laura appears.
My doll.
Her hair is longer, and it’s styled in a cute ponytail. She's wearing activewear, looking incredibly sexy in a pair of running shorts and a white shirt, topped off by a pair of expensive hiking shoes. She doesn't look like someone who's on their way to an office job, but instead as if she's planning to head to the gym for a workout.
Just like her friend, she's wearing giant sunglasses, tilting her head back to look up at the sky. She's smiling, taking in deep breathes as she takes in the beautiful weather.
She quickly heads off to the right, heading for the cars parked next to the sidewalk and jumping into a navy blue mini cooper.
Without thinking about it, I start the engine and follow her as she drives away.
Chapter 31
Laura
Steven didn't take the breakup as hard as I thought he would. If anything, he seemed to be more annoyed than sad about it. He knew something was up, and when I insisted on paying for both of our drinks, he cast me a suspicious look. We sat down on stools at the far end of the bar, and I nervously tried to engage in stupid small talk until our drinks arrived. When I could finally bring myself to say what I should've said a long time ago, Steven just looked at me with an apathetic expression, nodding and taking a big sip from his drink. I was the only one who shed tears about our breakup, at least in public.
I have no idea if it actually hurt him worse than he let on, but based on the way he acted last night, it didn't seem to me as if he was very hurt. He was so composed and serious, talking to me in a matter-of-fact voice but avoiding my eyes. When I told him that I was very sorry about this, he just glared at me, saying, "You should be."
We didn't stay long after that. He finished his drink and told me that I should get my stuff, if I had anything at his place that I wanted back. I couldn't think of anything, but asked him the same question, unsure whether I might have anything that belonged to him.
"I don't think you do," he said. "You never asked for anything. And I never left anything."
His words hurt, not so much because of what he said, but the way he said it. His tone was cold and unforgiving, and when I told him goodbye, he just rolled his eyes at me.
What a waste of time I'd been for him.
I felt awful, and I still do. I went home with my shoulders sagging low and my eyes glued to the ground, feeling lonely and lost. There was a sense of relief, too, but I felt bad about it. He was, after all, a good guy, a nice guy, and he never did anything bad to me. I can't shake the feeling of having taken advantage of him. He was like a test dummy for me, a way to see if I could be attracted to anyone else, to have that same feeling of excitement with anyone but Ryan. I took him for a test ride of some sort, and then I got rid of him as soon as I realized that he was not doing anything for me.
I feel like the worst human being on the planet.
"You're not," Layla assured me when I got home. "You did the right thing."
"Maybe, but I should have done it a lot earlier," I replied, casting her a guilty look over the bottle of wine we were sharing.
She sighed and bobbed her head from one side to the other. "Yeah, you kinda should have."
Her honesty is painful.
It's time for me to get back on my feet. Breaking up with Steven was only the first step in the long journey that lay ahead of me. I need to take a hard look at myself and really focus on finding my place in life.
I decided last night that I needed a timeout from everything to do just that. Be by myself, contemplate, find myself by actively searching within me. No distractions. Just me.
And I know exactly where to go for that.
Griffith Park is one of the most popular destinations for hiking in the area. I've been there several times, but never by myself. It's been a while since Layla and I last made our way up the hill, surrounded by a crowd of other people as it was a sunny day on a weekend. I reckon that the place will be a lot more deserted on a Monday morning, so I decide to make my way up there the very next day after breaking up with Steven.
Layla is surprised to see me getting up before she leaves for work, casting me a worried look as we pass in the hallway.
"Couldn't sleep?" she asked, already dressed and ready to head out the door.
I shook my head no and told her about my plan.
"Finding yourself on a long hike," she concluded. "Very cliché, but it may just work. Good luck!"
She blew me a kiss before closing the door behind her.
Good luck. I may need that.
It's sunny and warm when I step outside, but not yet hot. Summer is still a few weeks away, and I'm glad that my spontaneous self-finding hike idea didn't come to me in the middle of the summer. I take a deep breath, smiling as the sunlight hits my face. I head over to my car. I barely ever use it, mainly because I have nowhere to go, but I love my blue mini cooper. It's the first car I've ever owned, and certainly not the kind of car I expected to drive at this stage in my life.
Traffic is always a hassle in this city, and I'm glad when the streets finally clear around me as I get closer to Griffith Park. There aren't many other cars in the lot where I park mine, suggesting that I was right in assuming there wouldn't be that many people around on a Monday morning. I get out of the car, stretching my limbs and breathing in the fresh morning air before I begin my hike. As I leave the lot to go up the hill, I notice another car coming to a halt in the parking lot behind me, but I don't cast more than a quick look back over my shoulder and keep going.
There might be more people as it gets later in the day, but for now, it's just me and nature. A refreshing breeze travels across my skin, making me wonder whether I should go back to the car to fetch my sweater. I decide against it. Walking will warm me up, and it will only get warmer as the day goes on.
I trudge my way up the hill, following the same path I've walked before, as my mind wanders. I recap the last few months, the last year, trying to remember anything that sparked my interest, any thought or idea that popped up for a few moments before passing into oblivion. I know I have a tendency to forget about things if I don't force my mind to hold onto them. I'm angry at myself for not spending more time with myself, focusing on what it is that I want to do with my life instead of worrying about my pathetic love life. It feels as if I've spent most of my time dwelling on Ryan, trying to get over him by putting out my feelers and then taking the very first guy that comes along. I didn't date anyone else, didn't even flirt with anyone. I've never been good at these things, so it's no surprise that there has never really been anyone but him.
Anyone but the guy who made me call him master. The guy who bought me for a night and then forgot about me.
I wonder if that's true, if he really did forget me? Did he ever think of me again? Did he miss me? Even a little bit? Did he maybe even regret his decision never to see me again?
I doubt it. If he did, he could have contacted me. He was the one who set up those ridiculous rules, which allows him to break them.
It's been almost a year since I said goodbye to him. If it's true what he told me, it should be about time for him to do this again, with another girl. He told me it has to be someone new every single time. For reasons I can’t seem to understand. His strict rule is so hard for me to understand that I'm beginning to doubt it. Maybe he just told me all of this to make me feel special? But why would he do that? And why pay me such an insane amount of money for something I might have done anyway? Even though I'm pretty sure things would have been different if there had been no payment involved. This way, it was clear to me what my role was supposed to be, even if it seemed to come naturally to me. I plunged in at the deep end without spending too much time thinking and wondering about it. I knew who I was to him – and I knew who he was to me.
Or so I thought.
I'm breaking a sweat, fighting my way further up the hill as my breathing acce
lerates. I was so deep in thought that I hadn't noticed how far I’d gone already. I'm nearing a little plateau that I remember is a very nice resting spot. I'm going to stop to rest and take in the view of the city below. It's a clear day and I'm sure the view will be beautiful.
As I walk further, I make my first resolution. I need to work out more often. I'm gasping for air by the time I finally reach that little resting spot and slump down on a bench. I feel as if I just finished a marathon, even though I must've been walking for less than half an hour. I'm not even half way up to the top.
I wipe the sweat off of my forehead and wait for my breath to calm. My eyes wander across the vast valley that spreads in front of me, a smoggy skyline consuming the center of it.
My next resolution is to leave men out of the equation. If my brief and uneventful relationship with Steven has taught me anything, it's that I'm not ready for anything new, anything serious. It's too soon, and it shouldn't be at the top of my list. I should concentrate my focus elsewhere.
Just as I affirm this resolution with a confident nod, I hear a crack behind me. It doesn't sound like a squirrel scurrying through the bushes, but more like a human footstep, which frightens me. I hastily turn around to check my back – and freeze in shock.
There, standing a few feet away from me on the path, wearing a pair of snug dark jeans and a matching polo shirt that stretches around the muscles of his upper arms, is the man who has inhabited almost each and every one of my thoughts for the past year. His hair is tousled, sweaty strands frame his forehead, and his chest is laboring under heavy breaths, as his piercing blue eyes – the ones I’ve seen endlessly in my dreams – are fixated on me.
It’s my master... Ryan Hawkins.
Chapter 32
Ryan
She’s staring at me with such horror in her eyes that I'm instantly flooded with regret. I don't know how I expected her to react to seeing me out of the blue after a year, but the way she's looking at me now certainly doesn't elate me in any way.