My Favorite Souvenir

by Ward, Penelope

  I shook my head and whispered, “No.”

  “I smiled and admired your work.” Brady laughed maniacally. “I was so fucking clueless that I sat there thinking how talented you are.”

  Brady paused. The way his eyes flashed with anger made me really nervous. He looked down at the photo again, and with a pissed-off flick of his wrist, tossed it to the floor. Then he picked up a second photo—a close up of Matteo. He’d just finished playing a song and was looking at the camera with so much emotion in his eyes.

  “You know what I thought of when I looked at this one?”

  Again, he stared at me, waiting for an actual answer.

  I shook my head and looked down, again whispering, no.

  “I thought to myself, it’s a good thing this guy’s my best friend. Because damn, he’s one good-looking son of a bitch. I remember how he used to play his guitar and sing up on stage in college. A few strums and some lyrics, and the women were lining up to offer him their pussy. But I don’t have to worry about that. My girl is loyal, and my best friend? He always has my back.”

  He snapped his wrist again and whipped the second photo at the floor. Picking up another, he flung them one by one to the ground with each staccato word he spoke.

  “Not.” Toss.

  “My.” Toss.

  “Girl.” Toss.

  “Or.” Toss

  “My.” Toss.

  “Best.” Toss.

  “Friend.” Toss.

  There were three photos left on the counter. He picked one up and waved it around.

  “Then I got to this one. A photo of my best friend with a shit ton of snow in the background. It hasn’t snowed more than a few flurries in New York this year, at least that I’m aware of. But again, I assumed I must be wrong. There had to be some big pile of snow in a parking lot somewhere that I’m not remembering.” Brady flicked his wrist and added the image to the pile on the floor.

  “Then I came to this one.” He held up the second-to-last photo from the counter and showed it to me before staring down at it himself. “Here’s my buddy wearing a T-shirt and shorts, and he’s standing in front of what looks like some sort of southern mansion or something.” Brady turned the photo to show it to me again. “This doesn’t look like New York City, does it, Hazel?”

  I shook my head.

  Brady tossed it to the floor and picked up the last photo. “But even then, after a dozen pictures staring me straight in the face, I still refused to believe it. There had to be some logical explanation as to why my girl would have all of these pictures of my best friend in her camera from what seemed like places that are not New York. So I kept going, in oblivious denial, until I got to this one.”

  The photo was a selfie I’d taken of Matteo and me on the day before we left New Orleans. I was smiling broadly for the camera, and Matteo had his lips pressed to my cheek.

  “Tell me, Hazel. How was I going to explain this one to myself?” He paused and laughed. “I’m seriously such a dumb fuck. A part of me was still holding on to hope that there was some reasonable explanation for all of this. It wasn’t until I saw you walk in the front door with guilt written all over your face that I actually knew.” Brady walked over to my suitcase and lifted the airline’s luggage tag, which I hadn’t thought to detach before wheeling it inside.

  “SEA? If I’m not mistaken, that’s the airport code for Seattle.” His voice cracked as he continued, “How was your trip to fuck my best friend, Hazel?”

  Tears streamed down my face. “Brady…” I shook my head. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

  He tossed the last photo onto the floor, and his shoulders slumped. His anger seemed to dissipate into sadness, and that broke my heart. I took a few steps toward him and reached out, but Brady held his hands up and stepped back.

  “Don’t. Don’t touch me.”

  I shook my head. “We didn’t mean for this to happen, Brady.”

  “How long? How long have you been screwing my best friend?”

  I looked down. “We met when I went to Vail.”

  He scoffed. “That’s perfect. Did you fuck him in the honeymoon suite I’d booked us?”

  I shook my head again. “That’s not how it was. You have to believe me.”

  “Oh I do, do I? Why is that? Because you’ve been so honest with me lately? I spent time with the two of you together. You guys must’ve had a good laugh at my expense. What a dope he is for not catching on.”

  “Brady, I swear, we randomly met in Vail at a hotel, and neither of us had a clue that we had a connection to each other. We had absolutely no idea until Matteo walked in the door at that bar you and I met at for a drink a few weeks ago.”

  “Yeah, that sounds believable. The two of you meet in Vail, where you were both supposed to be for our wedding, and with totally common names like Hazel and Matteo, and it never dawned on either of you.”

  “We…we weren’t using our real names.”

  Brady’s eyebrows jumped. “Oh! Right. Everything makes a lot of sense now. Thanks for filling me in. I understand completely how that could happen. It’s crystal clear.”

  The fact that Matteo and I had used fake names for two full weeks, and we’d never figured out the reason we were both in Vail, were the same reasons it really did seem ludicrous right about now. The story sounded so far-fetched, it was almost unbelievable to me.

  Brady and I stood in silence for a long time. He stared at the ground, at the pictures of Matteo spread all over the floor, and shook his head.

  When he looked up, his eyes were rimmed with tears. “Do you love him?”

  I wasn’t sure if I should be honest or not, but I thought if Brady was ever going to believe any of the crazy story of how Matteo and I had met, I needed to start being truthful right now.

  I nodded. “I do.”

  Brady shook his head. “Athena never meant anything to me. I was just dumb and scared. I might’ve cheated first, but it was just sex, Hazel. Cheating of the heart is much worse.”

  It felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. “Who…who’s Athena?”

  Brady scoffed. “Great. So this wasn’t even you getting even with me? You had no clue I’d screwed up when you went and started fucking my best friend. You know, I always thought you and I were different, that you were too good for me. But it turns out, you’re just as big a piece of shit as I am.”

  I shook my head, still not fully understanding. “Who’s Athena? The woman you work with?”

  Brady waved me off. “You know what? I’m done here. If you want the details of what happened between Athena and me, ask your boyfriend. He was such a trusted friend to me that I told him all about her.”

  Holy shit. Hot anger rushed through me as I realized how long I’d blamed myself for the end of our engagement. And no one had been telling me the truth.

  He caught my eyes one more time, then turned around and walked out the front door.

  Chapter 30

  * * *

  Matteo

  “Come on…pick up.” I paced back and forth in my apartment.

  My mom frowned. “She’s still not answering?”

  I dragged a hand through my hair and shook my head. It had been three days since Brady had called, slurring his words, the night Hazel flew home. My cell phone had woken me at four in the morning East Coast time. No call that comes in at that hour is ever good, but when I grabbed my cell off the nightstand and saw the name flashing on the screen, I knew. I knew.

  I’d been a coward over the last month, sneaking around behind my friend’s back, so I’d answered, steadying myself to take my lumps. But Brady was barely comprehensible in his drunken state. I’d managed to make out that he’d been waiting at Hazel’s house after she landed and found some photos of the two of us on her camera. After that, the rest of the conversation mostly consisted of him rambling and calling me a lowlife piece of shit. He was right. I couldn’t argue with him about that. Every time he hung up on me and then calle
d back fifteen minutes later to yell some more, the least I could do was answer the phone and let him get some of it out. My cell finally stopped ringing a little before six, his time.

  I’d waited another hour to call Hazel, but she didn’t answer. By late afternoon, I’d hit redial at least fifty times and was starting to think the worst. Desperate to know she was okay, I even tried Brady again. But he didn’t pick up either. Entirely freaked out on the other side of the country, I was considering calling the police and having them check in on Hazel. But then I remembered she’d once used my phone to call her friend Felicity, so I searched my call history and dialed her instead.

  After explaining who I was and giving her a quick rundown, I begged Felicity to go over and check on Hazel. The hour it took for her to call me back was sixty of the worst minutes of my life. The crazy shit running through my head was unimaginable. But Felicity eventually called, and she assured me Hazel was physically fine. While I was relieved, I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t have picked up the phone and told me that herself.

  Granted, I was the one who’d suggested we have no contact when she went back home, but this was an emergency. It didn’t make sense. I couldn’t get Felicity to tell me much other than Brady had found out, and Hazel didn’t want to talk to anyone right now.

  It had killed me to not hear Hazel’s voice myself, but I’d given it two days before trying to call her again. But six days had passed now since she flew back home, and I still couldn’t get her to pick up. I’d texted, called, and even tried sending her messages on social media. Last night, on Christmas Eve, I was certain it would be the day she’d finally pick up. When she didn’t, I couldn’t stop myself from calling Felicity a second time. While I couldn’t get her to tell me much more than the first time I called, she did shed some light on why Hazel was ignoring me. Fucking Brady had told her about the woman he’d slept with, along with the fact that I’d known about it.

  This morning, I’d thought about flying to Connecticut. But then my mother had knocked on my door without my father. She sat me down, asking what was going on and if I was alright. And I’d spilled my guts to her, telling her the entire crazy story—from how Hazel and I met, to our road trip, to the shock of walking into a bar in New York City expecting to see my old pal Brady, only to find out that my Maddie wasn’t my Maddie at all. She was my buddy’s Hazel.

  My mom could be a busybody, but today she was there when I needed her. She’d even given me some good advice, had me looking at things from a woman’s perspective. If it weren’t for her talking me down, I’d probably be on a plane on my way to force Hazel to talk to me before she was ready.

  I sat down at the table and blew out an audible breath.

  “I know, sweetheart.” My mother patted my hand. “She’ll come around. You just need to give her a little bit of time. I saw the way she looked at you. It’s not over. Right now, she’s confused and feels betrayed by both you and Brady.”

  “I thought this was supposed to be a pep talk to make me feel better.”

  “It is. But that doesn’t mean we ignore the part of the truth that isn’t pretty. I understand that you were in a tough situation, and I understand your reasons for not wanting to tell Hazel about Brady. You wanted Hazel to pick you because she wants to be with you, not because she didn’t want to be with Brady after she found out he’d cheated. I get it. I really do. But that doesn’t change the fact that you kept something from her. From everything you’ve told me, she was honest with you right from the start—even when she told you she wasn’t sure if things with her and Brady were over when she went home after your trip. That couldn’t have been easy for her to tell you. She risked losing you by saying that. But she was honest with herself and with you.”

  I blew out a jagged breath. “Unlike me, who wasn’t honest. Because I didn’t trust her to make a decision to be with me for the right reasons.”

  My mom nodded. “I’m afraid so. Sometimes the best thing you can do for someone you love is give them the space they need. Although it’s also the most difficult thing you can do.”

  I forced a smile. “Thanks, Mom.”

  My dad came over later in the day, and we managed to have a quiet, but nice Christmas. When my parents left, I thought a lot more about what my mother said. I’d been calling Hazel nonstop just so I could hear her voice, which was selfish and only going to make me feel better. So I decided to stop, to let her have the space she needed. Though before I did that, I wanted her to know that my lack of contact wouldn’t mean I wasn’t thinking about her. So I composed a text:

  Hazel, I’m sorry you’re hurting right now. I’m even more sorry that something I’ve done has contributed to that pain. I know you need some space, so I’m going to give that to you. But please know, not a moment of the day goes by when you’re not in my thoughts. I’d hoped to tell you this in person, but if it’s going to be the last thing I get to say to you for a while, I need to say it now. I love you, Hazel. I think I have since the first moment I laid eyes on you. When I look back, I’m not sure how I lived for so long without you in my life. But then I remember, I hadn’t really been living until you made my heart beat again.

  I was surprised when a few minutes later my phone buzzed. Seeing Hazel’s name light up on the screen made me feel more hope than I had in days. But then I read her text:

  Thank you. Take care of yourself, Matteo.

  And whatever morsel of hope had bloomed inside of me instantly wilted. Her message sounded a hell of a lot more like goodbye than just needing a little space.

  Chapter 31

  * * *

  Matteo

  Seven weeks later

  I arrived a day early.

  The last seven weeks had felt more like seven years. Each day, I got out of bed and went through the motions, but it didn’t really feel like I was living. Thank God my leave of absence was over, and I’d had to go back to work. Otherwise I’d have a Vitamin D deficiency from lack of sunlight. I really hated to compare anything to do with Zoe to my situation with Hazel, but the way this was hitting me might’ve been worse than what I went through after I lost Zoe. That sounds crazy, I know. And in a lot of ways it felt disrespectful to Zoe to even think that. But when she died, I had no choice but to accept that she was gone, and I had to move on. That didn’t mean I wanted to find a new girlfriend or anything. Yet after the shock wore off, I accepted that she was gone from my life forever. What had happened was a cold, hard fact that I couldn’t change.

  I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to accept it was over with Hazel, knowing she and I were still breathing the same air.

  But for the last seven weeks, every day that went by that I hadn’t heard from her made me feel like the chances things would work out in the end were dwindling.

  Sitting in my hotel room, the same exact room Hazel and I had shared only a few months ago, wondering if she would show up tomorrow, was making me stir crazy. So I decided to take a walk. Bourbon Street always had some action. I needed a distraction, even if just for a little while.

  I walked past the little restaurant where Hazel and I had shared jambalaya. Every step I took away from it made my feet feel heavy. It was as if I was trudging along, wearing ten-pound weights on each foot. I passed a bar where we’d shared drinks, then the open mic place where I sang while looking at her beautiful face in the audience. This damn walk was supposed to help me clear my head, but it was doing anything but.

  When I came upon a storefront I’d completely forgotten about, I stopped in my tracks. Psychic and Chakra Balancing. How the hell could I have not remembered this place? Zara had given me a message from Zoe. And she’d also told Hazel she saw a big conflict with a person whose name began with M. At the time, Hazel and I were Milo and Maddie and we’d had no clue about the big conflict we were about to be smacked in the face with.

  I couldn’t resist going in to see if Zara was around. The small, front reception room was empty. A dark purple, velvet curtain separated the adjoining ro
om where I knew she did readings. So I stayed quiet, not wanting to interrupt if she was with someone else. After a minute or two of silence, a familiar voice spoke from the other room.

  “It’s about time you came back.”

  I assumed she was speaking to whoever was in the room with her, so I said nothing. But when I didn’t respond, a minute later, the voice yelled, “Come on, what are you waiting for? I’m not getting any younger, you know.”

  My forehead wrinkled. “Uhhh… Are you talking to me?”

  “Well, I’m not talking to myself. I’m a psychic, not a loony tune.”

  I pulled back the heavy curtain and found Zara sitting at her table alone. She waved at me impatiently. “Come on, come on. Let’s get this show on the road. You didn’t bring your little chickadee this time, huh?”

  I sat down hesitantly, confused. “You remember me?”

  “Mostly I get drunks who smell like day-old beer and girls who want to know if they’re going to find Mr. Right flashing their tits on Bourbon Street. I don’t get many coming in who look like you.”

  I smiled—a rarity these days. “Thank you. You did such a great job last time I was here, I guess I was kind of hoping you could help me out again.”

  Zara extended her hand, palm up. “Of course. That’ll be forty bucks, please.”

  I dug into my pocket and pulled out my billfold. “Forty? Last time it was only twenty.”

  Zara shrugged. “I charge a premium now when I talk to dead celebrities.”

  After a moment I laughed. “You mean David Bowie? That actually wasn’t Bowie, it was Zoe.”