by LJ Evans
He made a strangled noise in his throat, and she plowed forward through her story, determined to get it all out.
“After that, I moved through a whole series of boys. I chose them, so I thought it was okay. Until Locke caught me. He came in... The boy was…”
PJ flushed at the memory.
“And even though I’d always used protection, Locke still made me get tested, and had me go on the pill. And then he and Justice sent me to a therapist.”
“I’ve seen my fair share,” Seth said as if to make it okay. That she’d needed therapy to tell her why she was trying to fill the hole in her life by sleeping with boys.
Seth was standing, arms crossed, watching her, as if he was waiting for her to finish.
“I made a promise to myself after that. That I wouldn’t have sex anymore when it was just sex.”
“We’re not just sex.”
“I know that!”
“Do you?”
Finally, he didn’t wait anymore. He had her in his arms and caught up against the workbench like he had that first day they were together.
“I do know, Seth. I do. But it’s just that feeling I had then. Of being frustrated. And pissed. And lost.” PJ trailed away.
“It’s how you feel now,” he finished for her.
She nodded.
“Not being able to see the ground is not the same as being lost,” he told her, and one hand went to her waist and another to her chin so that she was forced to look into his smoldering eyes.
“I know you, Bella. Do you know how?”
She shook her head.
“Do you think you are the only person to blow through people because they’re searching for love? For someone to finally see the real them with their fucking torn up soul? For them to think that the shreds that are left are beautiful? I see you. I see you because it’s like looking in a mirror.”
His fingers caressed her cheek. She closed her eyes and leaned into it.
“When you touch me…I forget where I was going,” PJ breathed.
“Maybe it’s because you’re already where you need to be,” he said quietly. She didn’t know how to respond to that. She didn’t know how to tell him that even though he was trying to make her feel better, she felt like she was in a new hole of her own making. One that was just getting bigger.
♫ ♫ ♫
PJ hugs his last letter to her chest. Her memories bring tears to her eyes. She used to be so good at keeping tears at bay, but since everything that happened, since leaving Seth, since coming to New York, it’s hard to keep them in check.
She thought she’d feel better in New York. Not better about leaving Seth or her family. But she’d thought she’d stop feeling like she was drowning in waves of regret and shame. She thought she’d be able to find some peace again.
Her therapist said that her own inability to forgive herself for her mistakes in high school had her overreacting to Seth and their relationship. That what had happened with the stalker just accentuated everything that had already been twirling unconsciously in her brain.
The doctor said the words that PJ wouldn’t. That she’d felt like Seth’s live-in mistress because PJ still saw every sexual encounter as an exchange instead of a simple act of love. It wasn’t Seth that had made her feel that way. He’d acted like he wanted to give her the world and keep her by his side forever. It was only her own messed up head that had made it feel temporary. As if she was a momentary fixture in his life that would someday be replaced with a kiss on the cheek and an envelope.
It was why she’d overreacted to every gift he gave her. To the car he’d tried to buy her. To the office he’d redone for her. To the gold and silver beads dangling from her wrist. She hadn’t wanted the gifts because she had twisted it into a payment. It was why she tried to force the money on him and was upset when he left it unused in the cookie jar.
It was crazy. Her head knew it was crazy. And her heart was slowly getting there. Slowly.
If the whole debacle after the party at Dylan’s mansion hadn’t happened, maybe it wouldn’t have pushed her over the edge, and maybe she would have been able to get to a place of acceptance on her own, but she isn’t sure.
Because she also knows that their relationship wasn’t healthy for more reasons than just her own baggage from her past. Seth had been dealing with his baggage too. It was what had made him possessive and silent. It was what made him walk a dangerous line where he couldn’t let her out of his sight. He’d never crossed the line. He’d struggled with it. But it was yet another thing that had made their relationship a well of troubled waters.
Waters that they should have been able to traverse because they loved each other. Waters that could have been traversed if she’d only stayed. She’d thought that leaving him had been a moment of strength, but really, it was weakness. It would have been stronger to turn and face both their demons. Both their pasts. But she’d been afraid to do it. Afraid of herself. Afraid of him. Afraid of them.
The truth is that even with all the therapy and space she’s now had, in some ways, she feels worse than she did before. She feels less whole. And she’s torn out his heart and her own in the process.
Letter Nine
SCARS ON THIS GUITAR
“She’s the place I go
When there’s nowhere left to run…”
-Bon Jovi, Falcon, James
Dear Bella,
The night I found the Pratt letter, and I realized you were actually considering it…the night you told me about the guys from your past…it made me want to kill a whole crapload of people. It made me ache because I understood the self-loathing in your voice now, but it didn’t make me think less of you. I know you’d thrown it out at me because you were trying to do that: make me hate you so that you could run away to Pratt without regretting it.
I couldn’t ever hate you. Instead, the things you told me made me want to show you even more just how beautiful you were. How having the strength to deal with all that shit when you were so young, having to deal with the shit you were now, how it just made you exactly the Ninja Warrior you laughed about being. Maybe a Ninja Fairy Warrior because you must have a bit of magic in you to have survived everything you did.
But it also made me want to keep you even closer, while it really should have been a flag to give you room to breathe. I didn’t like you going anywhere without me. It was easy to keep you near while the fucking Bug was in the shop. It was as if by just being there, I could force you to make the decision to stay.
At Otis, I had spent some time studying the Japanese art of Kintsugi. It had felt therapeutic that the Japanese embraced flawed and imperfect pieces as if they were more treasured than a newly formed object. That they could highlight the breaks with gold, and make them the most valuable part of an object, made me feel like maybe the scars on the inside and outside of my body could be my most valuable pieces.
Now, you have some physical scars to add to your emotional ones. I hate that, but I also know that it has made you even stronger, and I wish you were here for me to show you that because you never believe it on your own. Instead, you hate yourself more because of them. I’ve come to believe deep in my soul that broken can be beautiful.
Too bad we don’t live in Japan because then you might believe it too.
After I dropped you off at work the day after you told me about Pratt, I headed back up the coast. I hated that I still needed the meetings, but I also knew it was stupid to try it on my own when I was on the edge of everything collapsing.
On the way there, I thought about you, and I thought about how you felt trapped by what you were going through. I thought of a cage I’d built once upon a time that now sat on my shoulder, and I wondered if I could somehow recreate it in a way that would reflect the powerlessness you felt now.
I was a little late to the meeting. They were already letting people talk when I eased into a chair at the back. I didn’t recognize the guy leadin
g the session. That was okay by me. I wasn’t there to make friends. I was there to get calm. To be able to head back into life without a drink in my hands.
A guy stood a couple rows up from me, and I immediately sensed the familiarity. “Hi, I’m Keith, and I’m an alcoholic,” he started. And then I knew and groaned.
“Hi Keith, welcome,” was the response.
“I’ve started dating someone,” Keith said.
“That’s good, right?” the leader replied, and I watched as the back of Keith’s head bobbed up and down.
“It is. He’s really good for me.”
“But?”
“I just keep waiting for it to fall apart. I’ve always messed everything up in the past, and…I just don’t want to mess this up too. It’s making me itch,” he answered.
I knew he didn’t mean anything having to do with his skin. I understood the depth of that itch and how it was likely to overcome his thoughts as he tried not to scratch it. While I wasn’t quite there yet, thinking constantly of a way to ease the itch, I was close.
I listened as the people around us tried to reassure Keith that everything was going to be fine if he trusted his boyfriend, if he was honest about what he was feeling, and if he got through one day at a time. Again, I could hear Mac in their voices: live in the now. Don’t worry about the future. Don’t regret the past. Keep going.
The meeting ended, and I hadn’t spoken. I didn’t really need to. Keith had pretty much said it all. I wasn’t sure how Keith would feel knowing I’d heard his discussion about his relationship with Locke. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about Keith knowing I was there. There was a damn good reason I’d driven up the coast. I definitely wasn’t ready for him to hear my doubts and fears about you. About me. About us.
As I was trying to duck out, Keith turned and saw me. We both stared for a moment. I’m sure his brain was running through all the same curse words mine was. Shit timing.
Now I couldn’t go. Because I knew he’d fucking want to talk.
We helped stack the chairs against the wall without acknowledging each other and then walked out into the California sunshine shoulder to shoulder. Summer had hit, but this close to the coast it almost always felt like spring.
“Grab a coffee?” Keith asked. He looked at me with unsure eyes. Needing reassurance, so I just nodded.
We walked down the street to a diner on the corner and squeezed into a booth. He got a coffee. I got an orange juice. We sat there in silence for a long time.
“How long?” Keith finally asked once the waitress had disappeared.
“Almost six years,” I replied.
He eyed me. “That’s pretty much since Tennessee.”
It didn’t need a reply, so I didn’t give him one.
“Does it get any easier?” he asked.
That didn’t need a reply either, but I gave him one, “No.”
He sighed and looked down at his coffee.
“It was pretty hard being gay in that town. I think Cam was the only one who made me feel normal,” he said with a tone of confession. I hated confessions. People always wanted one back for every one they gave up.
“I know,” I told him back. Because Cam had made me feel normal even when I hadn’t been.
“I didn’t realize that I had a problem with alcohol until I came to L.A. I blew through a whole series of one-night stands drunker than a skunk. But you get denied something for so long, you kind of go crazy when it’s an open bar.”
I just watched as he twirled his coffee cup.
“Last year, I got involved with some pretty messed up stuff. Almost screwed up my job with Dylan, but I guess he’s been in Hollywood long enough to see all kinds of addiction. He got me help.”
“Does Locke know?” I asked, wanting to get to the point of the conversation before I was expected to reciprocate.
“Yeah. And he doesn’t seem to care, but…”
I nodded. I got it. You didn’t seem to care about the fact that I was an addict either. You took it in stride and never let it become an issue, but I also understood the added pressure of not wanting to slip up for more than just yourself.
I didn’t really want to be the one giving advice to Keith. Wasn’t sure he’d even accept it since I was the asshole who’d tried to out him back in Tennessee when he’d just wanted to fit in like all the other cowboy football players. But he didn’t know that, and so I gave the advice anyway.
“My first mentor, he told me to live in the now. Not to think about the ifs. That the ifs will torture you.”
“Does that work for you?”
“Some days more than others.”
“What brought you here today?” Keith asked, looking at me. I looked away, out the window to the ocean peeking through the colorful stores on the opposite side of the street. It made me think of shades of color and slivers of shattered glass.
Reciprocation bites. “I’ve found the thing I want most in the world, and we’re both a little damaged. I don’t care. I think I can meld us together into something beautiful like Kintsugi. Do you know it?”
He shook his head in the negative.
I brought up an image on my phone and showed it to him. A gorgeous blue glazed ceramic plate that had been fragmented, and a Japanese artist had welded it back together with gold. The piece was breathtaking to me. I’d had the picture on my phone for a long time, but I hadn’t really seen its place in my life until recently. Until you.
Keith whistled quietly.
“They take broken and make it art,” I said quietly. Keith nodded, and I kept going. “But some people only see something that should be thrown out. They only see the damage.”
“You’re afraid that PJ will just see the broken and not the art.”
I didn’t even respond. Because, you were already seeing all the shattered pieces. And you saw how we meshed together too, but I wasn’t sure if you could see the art of us yet. The beauty that we made together. Or maybe you just hated the thought of being welded to something more broken than you. Even if the welding was done in gold.
♫ ♫ ♫
After we got the invitation to Dylan Waters’ open house, all the doubt and pain and issues in our life seemed to collide and ended up with you getting broken in new ways that still tear at me today. That still make me hate myself, and your brother and your rusty Bug, and that shithead. But mostly, myself.
Dylan Waters had finally picked up the waterfall. Locke was ecstatic. You seemed awed, and somehow tortured, by the number in my bank account. Like you didn’t deserve to be with me because I had that number of zeros behind my name. That was the furthest from the truth. I was the one still struggling to deserve you.
Because I’d been reluctant to sell the waterfall, and Locke had communicated that to Dylan, Dylan sent me an invitation to a party he held at his mansion after it was installed inside it as the main attraction. As an A-list director, you were sure that the party would have gorgeous, A-list actors there that you could write about in your blog. You were excited for the first time in a long time, and so I conceded to going when it was something I normally would have slammed the door on without a second thought.
You took me shopping. I bought a tux. You bought that sexy-as-sin slate-gray dress that shimmered like stardust and clung to you. The slit up the right leg made me want to reach inside it and touch you.
The day of the party, I was cooking us grilled cheese when Locke called. I asked you to get the phone. It was sitting on my old sketchbook, and when you picked up the phone, you froze. I wasn’t sure why, until I saw that my sketchbook was still on the page where I’d drawn a picture of Cam and the gilded cage in what felt like a different lifetime.
I’d flipped to that page because I’d been thinking about the cage again. I’d been trying to think of ways to recreate a different version of it. A version that fit you. Fit us.
But all you saw was another girl and the cage that you knew I’d built for her.
/>
After I hung up with Locke, I turned to you at the counter where you wore that shuttered look you were picking up from me. The one I hated.
“Bella.”
“What?”
“Do you want to talk to me about this?” I waved my hand at the sketchbook. Your face was dark and stormy.
“About why my boyfriend, the man I live with, has some other girl drawn on his sketchpad? No, can’t see why I’d give a shit,” you said and turned back to your own phone.
But you had cussed, and you did that mostly when you were pissed, so I knew this wasn’t going to go over easy.
“That’s Cam.”
“I figured.”
“It isn’t a new drawing. It’s old.”
“Okay.”
“Do you want to know why I was looking at it?”
“Not particularly.”
“I wasn’t looking at her. I was looking at the cage.”
“It’s the same thing, isn’t it? You said the cage was her. Or the bird in the cage. Whatever, I gotta go,” you said as you headed toward the door and picked up your bag.
“What? We’re going to the party.”
“I know, but Justice has to take the baby to the doctor, and he’s asked me to cover his shift for him.”
“Don’t run away from me mad.”
You turned and stared at me. “I just need some space. I’ll meet you at the party.”
“I’ll pick you up.”
“No, I won’t be done in time for the pictures you need to take with Dylan. I’ll just meet you there.”
Dylan wanted me before the rest of the crowd so the press could take pictures of me, him, and the waterfall. I tried to get you a driver. Hell, I’d even resorted to Uber, but you refused. Said it was stupid when you’d be close enough to take your own useless car. Hank had sent it back to you with the starter replaced. I wanted to do a complete overhaul, but you kept the repairs at a minimum to save your bank account. I hope you can see now that that was not the best of decisions. I know. I’m a jerk to bring it up after everything that happened, but I can’t let that lie. You do realize that I will never let you make that kind of decision again?