by Tasha Fawkes
Kim pushed the hair back from my forehead with a troubled expression. "But what they did to you..."
I shook my head. "They didn't do anything. They babysat me overnight and sent me on my merry way. I would rather forget all of this ever happened."
"If that's what you want, love," she replied. "You know I'll support you no matter what."
"Thanks, Kim." I dropped my head down to her lap and let out a great sigh. "I miss him already. Is that crazy?"
"No, that's not crazy."
"I always knew it was going to end like this. Well," I chuckled, "Not quite like this. But at least with us going our separate ways. I didn't expect it to hurt so fucking much though."
"I should have never encouraged you to go. I'm so sorry." She smoothed a hand over my cheek. "I thought it was going to be relaxing."
We looked at each other, then burst into laughter. Hindsight was a bitch.
"I'll order us some pizza," she said, scooting me off her lap and onto the couch. "Extra pepperoni."
"Great," I said. "I'll pick something to watch."
Kim returned a second later with her phone and one of the take-out menus from the drawer while I scrolled through Netflix's offerings. I didn't feel much like an action movie tonight. I settled on Pride and Prejudice and hit play. At least even when the world got me down, I would always have Mr. Darcy.
Eighteen
Chad
"Lori, you look great," called Martin. "Just try to angle your body more toward the camera when you jump."
Lori approached the ledge, arms clutched tight over her chest. "How much longer are we going to do this for? I need to go to the spa this afternoon."
"Need?" I questioned.
She gave me a flat look. "It's been a long week. If I don't get a massage, you're not going to have a good time."
She looked away so she didn't see me roll my eyes. She'd had a long week? She was a long week. We only had a few days left in Hawaii, and I was losing my mind.
"Okay, jump!" Martin instructed from below.
Lori pasted on a smile the second before she leaped and then she was gone. I looked out at the ocean stretching far into the distance, but even this beautiful vista couldn't bolster my mood. A second day of cliff jumping wasn't even supposed to be on the agenda, but Lori had insisted. She didn't like cliff jumping, especially climbing back up, so I knew it had to be because she'd seen the video of Brin and I doing it and needed to one-up my "ex-girlfriend". It was precisely the kind of petty move I would have told myself was cute before. As I'd found out over the past week, there were a lot of things I used to forgive her for or had willfully forgotten.
"Lori's on her way back up," Martin called up. "Let's get one of both of you going over."
I walked over to the side of the cliff and looked down. Lori was climbing up slowly, swearing the whole way. When she got close enough, I reached down for her to help haul her up.
"You were great," I told her.
She adjusted her tits in her bikini top and slicked back her wet hair from her forehead. "What's new?"
I laughed, but it came out hollow sounding. Not that Lori noticed.
"Did I see you checking out my boobs, Saint Chad?" she purred, running her fingers up my chest.
She knew the answer was no, but since the entire move had been engineered to make me look, she would pretend she'd achieved the desired result anyway. Lori could try to titillate me all she wanted, but while I was still pining after Brin, she was just going to have to wait.
"They're great boobs," I replied. "Let's get this last jump finished so we can get you to the spa."
She pursed her lips in irritation but allowed me to lead her over to the ledge.
Saint Chad. Who would have ever thought that I'd garner the nickname "Saint Chad"? It was Lori's way of reminding me every time she could that we still hadn't slept together since we'd gotten back together. I ignored it. When she came on to me, I always gave some excuse for why we couldn't, and it was easy enough to avoid her attempts when we were staying at different properties.
It just didn't feel right. Not yet. And Lori wasn't putting me in the mood. I still couldn't get Brin out of my head. I was trying to make things work with Lori, but it was getting harder by the day. I lived in a constant state of guilt for what I did to Brin, for how I used her. I didn't know why she ran, but I didn't blame her. I just wished I'd had a chance to say goodbye.
"Don't make that stupid face on the way down," Lori said, grabbing my hand as we stared down into the pulsing waters.
The words "shove it" lined themselves up on my tongue but Martin saved me from what would have ultimately been a mistake by telling us to jump whenever we were ready. I was ready.
Lori and I counted to three and leaped off. I made the stupidest face I could, hoping that when she saw the video she took it as the silent "fuck you" it was.
We hit the water and plunged down like arrows. I let go of her hand.
Don't make that stupid face.
I should be telling her not to make that stupid face, the one that read how she thought she was the prettiest girl in the whole world and everybody knew it. How could I forget how unreasonably critical she was to me all the time? Everything was The Lori Show, and if you weren't making Lori look good, you didn't deserve to be on it. This week reminded me of too many things she did that I used to overlook—like all I needed was a comparison to see how truly fucked she was.
I surfaced, bobbing in the water and getting my bearings. Lori came up beside me, sputtering.
"I hate the ocean," she muttered.
I ignored her and started swimming back to the cliffs. Martin was looking at the camera screen, frowning. No doubt the camera had caught how unhappy Lori and I were on the way down. I didn't care and wouldn't be reshooting it. It wasn't worth it.
"That was...fine," Martin said, offering me a hand up. "Maybe we could do one more?"
I shook my head and clambered to the top of the cliff. "I want to go back to the hotel. I'm thirsty."
"That's the best thing you've said all day," said Lori from below.
It was a busy night at the hotel bar. All the better to lose myself in. I was on my third beer and had no plan to stop anytime soon. Instead of enjoying myself naturally, getting shitfaced and trying to forget my problems would do the trick.
Martin and Russell were sat on either side of me at the circular table, though Martin was turned so much toward Lori on his other side that I could barely see his face. Russell was always a quiet drinking companion, so I didn't expect much from him. I didn't expect much from anyone tonight, certainly not myself.
Lori caught my eye from across the table. "How about a shot, baby?" She batted her lashes, leaning down a little to put her cleavage on full display.
A month ago, this would have been enough to send me into a frenzy. Tonight it was just a pathetic attempt at seduction that missed the mark by a mile. Nonetheless, a shot sounded like a great idea.
I nodded, and Lori signaled for the server to come around. She ordered a round of vodka shots for the table and another round of drinks. Though she came from billionaire stock, it was rare to see Lori spending lavishly on other people. She must really be trying to get in my good graces tonight if she was willing to booze up my two friends and me to do so.
A shot and another two beers later, the room started to take on a blurry, dream-like quality. Lori and Martin were still bent low together talking. She'd tried to come around the table and sit on my lap a beer ago, but I'd shut that down. Now she was ignoring me, trying to make me come to her. It was a textbook Lori Bagley move.
I was too occupied trying to chase out the demons in my head to worry about Lori. It occurred to me somewhere in the back of my mind that I shouldn't be so dismissive and cruel to her just because I fucked up my chances with the girl I really wanted, but I was in a foul mood, and those kinds of thoughts got relegated to the "later" pile.
I needed some air.
I rose from the table
suddenly, receiving startled looks from the others.
"I need to get some air," I told them. My eyes couldn't focus on anyone in particular, so I settled for a sweeping glance. Then I was off.
I headed for the nearest exit, which thankfully happened to be the one that led out to the beach. Tiki torches illuminated the path down to the sand, casting flickering shadows over the scrubby bushes around the restaurant patio. A few diners were sitting enjoying their evening meal. They were mostly couples. I had dinner with Brin on the patio only once, and she wore a white dress that night that flowed around her like gossamer silks.
I hit the sand and walked about three feet before plunking myself down to sit. The ocean churned ahead of me, hissing and crashing like tumbling snakes.
I'd never missed someone before like I missed Brin now. I felt it in my whole body, this aching hollow that reminded me every second of every day that she was gone. I barely knew what I was doing when I found my phone in my hand, Brin's number on the screen. I pressed talk and held it to my ear, pulse pounding.
I didn't even get a dial tone. The call ended. Brin had blocked me.
What did I expect? I should be leaving her alone anyway since it was her choice to go and I needed to respect that. Easier said than done when it felt like she'd taken a part of me with her.
Crunching footsteps behind me warned me that my solitude was about to be interrupted. I readied to stand in case it was Lori who'd followed me out here.
"What are you doing, man?" asked Martin, settling down next to me. "Staring pensively at the ocean under starlight is not exactly your jam."
"I try new shit all the time."
"Still. Something bothering you?"
I looked over at Martin, at the man I'd been confiding in since I was old enough to have secrets. He knew me better than anyone. If I was going to tell anyone, it should be him.
"I fucked up, man." I scrubbed a hand through my hair and sighed. "I fucked up big time."
He frowned. "How so?"
"Brin," I replied. "I lost her. I waited too long to tell her how I felt and now she's gone forever. I just tried to call her..." I chucked my phone a few feet ahead of me. It jammed halfway upright in the sand. "She blocked me. And I fucking deserved it."
"Hey, you didn't do anything," Martin assured, patting my shoulder. "And anyway, don't you think you're better off with Lori? You guys were together for two years. Isn't that worth more than a three-week fling with some burlesque dancer?"
"Honestly man I have no idea what the fuck I was doing with Lori for those two years, but it wasn't a real relationship. It wasn't equal. Brin was more supportive and good to me in our short time together than Lori ever has been."
Something flickered over Martin's expression. It could have just been a shadow, but when he spoke next, his tone came out more grave than I'd ever heard him.
"You really like this girl? Brin? I thought Lori..."
He trailed off, but I caught his meaning.
I whistled through my teeth.
"We all thought Lori, didn't we? But there's a difference between loving someone for who they are and loving them for what you want them to be. I question the extent that I ever really gave a shit about Lori, which makes losing someone I did care for that much harder."
I sighed and shook my head. "I'm sorry, man. I'm just drunk and pissed off."
"At Lori?"
I laughed. "No. At myself. I ruined what could have been the best thing that's ever happened to me, and now there's no going back."
He fell quiet beside me. The quiet suited me just fine. It wasn't like there was anything Martin could do to help, and if we kept talking, I'd only get sad and pathetic.
"I'm gonna head up to bed," Martin said finally. "You good out here?"
"Sure thing. See you in the morning."
"Yeah," he said, standing and brushing off his jeans. "Sure thing."
Nineteen
Brin
I took the whole three weeks of the trip off work, and though I probably could’ve been slotted back into the lineup early, I didn't even try. There was nowhere I wanted to be less right now than on stage wearing barely anything. There wasn't a cave dark or deep enough for me at this stage, so I settled for cycling between curling up under the covers in bed or doing the same thing on the couch. Kim didn't approve, and she took to coming over lots to check in on me. Since she still had to work, however, I got hours each day where Kim's disapproval couldn't reach me.
It was sad, but I was sad, so it seemed to fit the bill. I thought about trying to reach out to Chad so many times, whether through email or repeated comments on his YouTube page, or a freaking skywriter for all I cared. Sometimes the desperation gnawed so deep in my gut that I had my finger poised over send before I remembered that if I did that, something bad could happen to Kim. No risk, no matter how small, was worth it when it came to protecting my best friend. So I stayed away like those goons back in Hawaii told me to do, and I quietly broke.
The one urge I'd been militant about ignoring was the urge to look at Chad's most recent videos. I didn't know what I would be looking for or what I hoped to see, but I knew it was probably a mistake in any case. Even if my departure had shaken him, he presumably wouldn't show it on camera. He was good at putting on the skin of the man his fans wanted to see. Come rain or shine, Chad Harlan always had a smile on his face and a witty comment poised at the end of his tongue. That was just how he worked. It was why he was so good at what he did. And it was what would break me if I opened up his latest video and saw him having the time of his life.
I never imagined that the worst case scenario for this trip would end with my heart broken and a threat of harm hanging over my head. It was funny, in a way, because when I signed on, I thought worst case was that maybe I'd come back with a bit of a sunburn and vaguely unpleasant memories. I didn't realize I was going to have the time of my life, fall in love, and then have my heart broken to smithereens while simultaneously having the shit scared out of me. It was enough to make me never want to leave the house again.
Too bad the bills still needed to get paid. I had a few days left of leave, and then it would be back to shaking my ass for all of Vegas, and I'd have to paint on a smile and make it work. I could do it. I knew I could do it. But these few days of wallowing misery were mine to take as I pleased, and goddamnit, I was going to take them.
This was what I spent most of my time under the blankets doing: Being miserable. Thinking about Chad. And being one of society's least productive members. After a few days, when my heart felt raw from the constant abuse and my brain was exhausted from all the thought spirals, I began to wonder how to get myself out of it.
The answer, of course, was to do the thing I'd been dreading most. To rip that Band-Aid off and, whatever the result, move on with my goddamn life. I had to go to Chad's channel and see what he'd been up to since I left.
I poured myself a glass of wine, hunkered down on the couch, and cracked open my laptop on my knee.
Chad's YouTube channel was hard to look at first. I hadn't seen his face since I left and I'd nearly forgotten how handsome he was, how he glowed with life. I'd nearly forgotten how his smile sent butterflies careening around my ribcage like ricocheting bullets.
He'd posted a video four days prior, and I clicked on it with baited breath. The familiar upbeat music played through my speakers, and I chugged down a mouthful of wine as landscape shots of Oahu flashed across the screen. Then there was a shot of Chad driving, laughing and looking back at the camera. The seat beside him, the one I'd occupied for the first half of the trip, was occupied by someone else. Not just anybody, either.
Lori was back.
I watched the rest of the video in immobile horror. Shots of them were spliced together cliff jumping, hang gliding, sharing a beer while the sun set in the background. Each time I saw her face part of me died a little, and it was the specific part that had hoped that besides the obvious things holding us apart, one day Chad and I mig
ht be able to find each other again.
He'd replaced me. He'd replaced me the second I left. Had he called her up when he noticed I was missing? That didn't seem like something Chad would do, but if this video showed me anything, it was that I'd never really known him at all. I could barely sit through it and see the great time I was supposed to be having, the great guy I was supposed to be spending that time with, but I forced myself to make it to the end.
When the end credits rolled, I was tempted to slam the lid of my laptop down and try to forget the name Chad Harlan forever. Something stopped me though, a niggling feeling that something was off in the video. It was enough to make me chug the rest of my wine and press the replay button.
There he was laughing again, cruising down one of Oahu's many scenic drives. He spoke into the camera, describing what they were going to do that day. This was normally the part where his animation shined through, where he got the viewer just as excited about the adventure as he was. Something was missing.
I paused the video and pulled up the last one I was featured in, playing the first couple minutes of it.
How had I missed it? In comparison, there was a stark difference between how Chad looked in the videos. In the earlier video, he was bursting with light. With life. His eyes crinkled at the corners, his lips seemed eternally tipped up in a grin. In the later video, the only time he laughed was at the very beginning, and even that was nothing in comparison to his laughing in the other video. His eyes were dead. At least, they seemed dead to me. Their glassy stare reminded me of a shark's, and while I knew I could just be seeing what I wanted to see, it felt real.