Chapter Three Just When You Think It Can’t Get Worse
Chapter Three
Just When You Think It Can’t Get Worse
Waking up the next day is not peaceful nor is it gentle. It’s bolting upright in bed with a pounding headache and enough misplaced
adrenaline in my body to flip my stomach upside down. What did I do last night?
I groan as the memories come back into focus, the thousand TikToks I forced on my friends, the superglued fingers . . . the
text. The text!
“Oh no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no!” I say, scrambling through my comforter to find my phone. Please, gods, goddesses, universe,
whatever’s out there, let my memory of texting Nikki have just been a horrible, horrible nightmare. My hands shake as they
wrap around the cold glass of my cracked iPhone and flip it over—the screen is flooded with a string of notifications. I flop
back on my pillow and squeeze my eyes shut when I realize they’re mostly from Nikki.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit!” I yelp, tangling in my sheets as I rush to get out of bed and fall hard on my ass in the process.
Gouda looks on from the doorway, unimpressed.
I’ve barely gotten myself to sitting when the phone rings in my hand.
I drop it in terror, watching it vibrate beside my naked thigh—I must have shimmied out of my sweats at some point last night in my drunken haze.
I take a deep breath and flip over the phone, praying it’s not Nikki.
I breathe a sigh of relief to see it’s Regan calling instead.
I fall back against the hardwood floor, knocking my already sore head against the ground in the process, and accept the call.
“Hey, Regan,” I say, my voice gravelly from disuse, my throat more than a little sore after last night’s unfortunate episode
while brushing my teeth. I’ve always had a sensitive gag reflex.
“Are you okay up there?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I ask, my voice squeaking up an octave, because I am not about to tell Regan what I did. No. I need to block Nikki and pretend like none of this ever happened. Ever.
“Because I just heard banging? What was that? It sounded like you dropped a ton of bricks on the floor.”
“Oh, that was me!” I chirp, relieved to have an easy explanation at the ready.
“Did you faint? Or pass out or something? I knew I should have stayed, but Johnny had to get to the garage, and it was getting
late—are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I tripped getting out of bed. Wait, what time is it?” I ask, noticing for the first time the way the sun is blazing
through my bedroom windows. That only happens in the afternoon. Did my alarm not go off?
“It’s about one fifteen,” she says.
“Oh my god, Regan, I am so, so, sorry I’m”—I do the math quickly in my head—“three hours late?! You should have woken me up!”
Regan chuckles into the phone. “You looked like you needed the rest when I checked in on you. You were happily snoring away
and I didn’t have it in my heart to wake you. Besides, it’s been so slow here lately anyway. Are you still on the floor?”
“Maaaaybe,” I say, drawing out the word.
“In that case, if you haven’t noticed, there’s water and ibuprofen on your nightstand. We fed Gouda for you before we left,
so don’t believe her when she acts like she’s starving. I was going to make you breakfast but Johnny thought cold pizza might
be the best start to your day.”
“Don’t ever let me say that man isn’t brilliant,” I reply. “Cold pizza sounds heavenly. Give me like fifteen and I’ll be down.”
“Why don’t you take thirty?” She laughs. “You were pretty ripe this morning when I walked into your room.”
“Rude! But also yes, I probably could use a shower.”
“That’s my girl,” she says, and I hear the bells over the front door ring. “First customer of the day, gotta go!”
She hangs up on me and I frown. The first customer of the day showing up three hours after opening is never a great sign.
Gouda stomps over and sits on my chest, her tail twitching as she stares down at me.
“I know you had breakfast,” I say, narrowing my eyes. She meows in response, looking put out, before hopping off me and wandering
away.
I stick my phone into my pocket and head toward the kitchen. I’m just about to shove that first slice of delicious, perfect, hangover-curing leftover pizza in my mouth when my phone vibrates again. I pull it out and hit answer with a grin. “It’s been five seconds, Regan, what’s up?”
There’s a sudden catch in the breath of the person on the line and I rip my phone from my ear, staring down at Nikki’s name.
Shit. I disconnect and it starts buzzing again. I send it to voicemail, and thankfully, it stops. I stare down at it like it’s
a viper about to attack, and maybe it is. It feels like it is. The voicemail alert burns through my veins as sure as any poison
would.
This is bad. This is so bad. What am I going to do?
I’m struck by the sudden realization that I desperately do want to hear her voice.
Not her stage voice or her TikTok voice or her stupid interview voice that’s always an octave higher or lower than her real
one—depending on if she’s trying to seem feminine and coy or serious and important. I want to hear her real voice, her lazy-mornings-in-bed,
just-for-me voice. I shut my eyes like I can push that desire away that easily. Like I can shore up my willpower as long as
I don’t have to see the alert flashing on my screen for another second.
But I’m weak. I’ve always been weak when it comes to this girl.
Even if my heart is lined with more hate for her than love, I still can’t stop wondering what she has to say now, after all
these years.
I hit play and press the phone to my ear.
“Andy,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper.
There’s a hint of wonder to her tone, and warmth blooms inside me.
I am instantly dragged back to the last time she said my name like that.
We had just made love for the first time in a long time—most of our hookups had long ago turned to baseless fucking as our relationship deteriorated—but that night I had been crying over losing out on a role I really wanted.
She had come home with yellow orchids, not caring that they meant new beginnings when I felt like my world was ending. She
never did listen when I talked about the language of flowers. She thought it was cheesy, could never stand how often my mother sent me books about it—or how those books pulled my attention away on our mandated
set breaks.
Still, Nikki had held me that night, covering me with gentle kisses and going down on me until I forgot my own name. She could
always pull orgasms from me so sweetly, like plucking a too-ripe peach from a branch and reveling in every juicy bite. I’ve
never been with anyone so in tune with my body before. I probably never will be. That’s a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing.
We fit together like soulmates should, Nikki and me. Her bones and mine, her tongue and mine, our fingers intertwined with
gasping breaths and cresting waves of pleasure—my name on her lips like a prayer, her name on mine like a gift to be cherished.
In that moment, despite all the other bullshit and drama going on, it felt like we had both remembered that we held something
precious between us, something important. I might have started the night upset, but I ended it with Nikki crying and kissing
my face over and over while whispering how much she loved me.
It was, unfortunately, one of the best moments of my life. I felt so loved, so safe that night . . . but moments—like relationships and life and everything else—must come to an end.
I take a deep breath, forcing myself to drag the phone away from my skin. To not let myself be undone by a single word called
out across states and cell tower air. I need to remember what came before that, and after. To focus on all the nights spent dragging her out of bars and parties, begging
her to come home with me, to not let us be another TMZ headline, to just be us for a little while—safe and cocooned in our
little apartment with Gouda.
Soon after that perfect night came the reveal, a betrayal much bigger than anything she had ever done before—bigger even than
the stains other people’s lips left on her skin and the mean gossip rag headlines about me that I long suspected Nikki’s team was behind.
The role.
The Oscar-winning role.
The future she ripped right out of my hands. It didn’t matter that I was already feeling disillusioned with things and questioning
whether I even wanted to act anymore. There was no coming back for us after she stole my role. That audition was the last
gasp of hope for my Hollywood dreams—the last chance I was giving myself to prove that I was more than just Nikki’s sidekick,
both on set and off. Nikki knew that, and she still took it from me.
“Come on, Gouda,” I say, grabbing my pizza and reaching for another can of cat food. “I know you already ate, but at least
one of us deserves an extra-good day after this lifetime of crap we’ve had thrown at us.”
I skip the shower—instead washing up quickly and dragging my hair into the neatest bun I can pull off with greasy hair—and head downstairs just over a half hour later.
I’ve reblocked Nikki’s number and deleted her many texts without opening them, but I still feel raw and exposed in a way I’d rather not. Being naked and wet and alone and sad
in my shower seems like a recipe for disaster, a risk I’d rather not take.
This is me, dealing with it the best way I know how.
I step into the flower shop with Gouda trailing me, laughing when she darts forward to weave between my legs before running
off to her usual perch in the sunny windows lining the front of the store.
“You gave her a second breakfast, didn’t you?” Regan asks, cutting down some stems and shoving a bunch of blue hyacinths and
white orchids together into some semblance of a bouquet. It looks a little chaotic, if I’m being honest.
“What’s all this?” I ask, rearranging the flowers in a bid to make it at least slightly more cohesive. She passes me the ones she’s just finished trimming and shrugs.