Chapter Nineteen Sometimes Lies Are Better #3
of the other stuff had even happened yet.”
“It’s hard to feel solid when your partner chooses a party over you. The one that your producers are at. For the show we were
both on. How did you not see how differently they treated us?
You were always made to feel like the next big thing, and I was always treated like I should be grateful for being there at all.
Do you know how that felt?!” I’m ranting now but I can’t stop.
“No, how could you? Because you were too busy being young and hot and rich and snorting drugs off famous actors while I was home feeding our cat and running lines because I always had the early calls. I always had to be on set first thing. I—”
“Maybe I didn’t want to be home back then! Maybe I didn’t want to be feeding the cat and acting like somebody’s wife! I was
barely twenty! I was a baby!”
“So was I!” I shout.
“Don’t act like I never invited you to those things once I was allowed to,” Nikki says quietly, as if she’s trying to balance
my loudness. “Half the time you turned me down.”
“Are you talking about the network Christmas party? Because that’s the only one you wanted me at and I was already invited to it!
Or wait, do you mean the Vogue party when you called me blackout drunk and then forgot?
” I shake my head. “Even if you did invite me, which you didn’t, I was doing twelve-hour days on set by then to cover for you always being gone!
I was up at like five in the morning! Then
you got that recurring role on The Flash on top of it and were around even less!”
“We got a new apartment with that money! I paid the mortgage that entire year and never asked you for a penny! You can’t be
pissed that I didn’t do things exactly the right way when I was taking care of both of us.”
“Exactly the right way?! You were going out every freaking night! When you did bother to show up on set, you were hungover!
I don’t even think you were sober that entire last month we lived together! And Eliza was right there, cheering you on and
trying to convince you that I was holding you back. You want to talk about when I left? Why don’t we talk about that last
fight where I begged you, I begged you, to get help—to stop listening to Eliza—and you defended her! Do you even remember that?”
“Not really, no,” Nikki says, swallowing hard as she slumps back in her seat.
“You told me to make sure I knew what I was doing because if I kept trying to make you choose between me and Eliza, I wouldn’t
like the answer.”
“No!” she says, looking at me as stunned as if I just slapped her. “If I said that, I didn’t mean it. I would never mean that.
I was so screwed up by then. I hadn’t slept in days when we had that fight and I—”
“You still said it, though, Nik. Doesn’t matter if you meant it, because you thought it and you said it.”
“I . . . I’m sorry,” she says, and we both go quiet for a minute. “I hate that I said that to you and I hate that I hurt you
and I hate that I don’t even really remember doing it,” she says, finally, her entire body painted freshly pink from shame.
“I’m so damn sorry, Andy.”
Any validation or vengeance I have from finally unloading all of that pales in the face of how gutted she looks right now.
I needed to say it, or I wanted to say it—I don’t even know anymore—but it didn’t have to be like this. It didn’t have to
be angry and loud and awful . . . did it?
“I’m sorry too,” I say. “I shouldn’t have exploded on you like this.”
“No, it’s . . . fine. It answers some things.” She pinches at her eyes as if she can hold the tears back with her fingertips.
“Excuse me for a second,” she says, nearly knocking over her chair in her rush to the bathroom. The sound of running water
picks up behind the now closed door.
The first thing I realize as I stare at the door is that I’m a jerk who handled this so, so wrong. And the second is that I would do anything to fix that. To just be Nikki and “Ducharme” again, eating Chinese food and laughing over something ridiculous.
It needed to be said, sure, but not in anger, not with the intent to hurt.
I start reboxing the food, at a loss for what else to do. I’m just putting it all in the fridge when the bathroom door opens.
Nikki watches me, looking pitiful. “Are you leaving?”
“No,” I say, moving closer until we’re face-to-face. “But do you mind if we table all the heavy stuff for the night? I . . .
I just want to be happy you’re back right now. Is that okay? I know I’m the one who brought it up in the first place, but . . .”
“Yeah,” she says softly, sadly, brushing my hair back. “Yeah, we can do that. You already put the food away, though, so . . .
how?”
“I’m not hungry anymore,” I say, pulling her into my arms until she tucks her head against my neck. She smells like fortune
cookies and her favorite perfume, and I press a gentle kiss behind her ear. And then another. And another. Until we’re both
nipping, kissing, biting, panting—desperate to forget what just happened and remind ourselves that we’re here, grown now.
We’re not those screwed-up children playing at adulthood.
Her hand trails down to my thigh and I laugh against her skin. “Think we just figured out how.”
“I want to . . . god, I want to. But do you think we should?” Nikki asks, dropping her forehead against my shoulder. Her fingers
squeeze tighter against my thigh before trailing to my center, the pressure delightful even through the denim of my jeans.
“I don’t want to think right now,” I gasp. “Let’s not think . . . please? Let’s get out of our heads. It’ll feel so good.
You always make me feel so good.”
Nikki leans back, watching me as I slowly slide my hands under her shirt and unsnap her bra.
What were we so upset about again?
She bites her lip and pulls back. I think, for a second, that I’ve lost her now, just like I lost her then, but then she’s
pressing me against the nearest wall as she flicks open the button on my jeans and slides her hand inside.
And yeah, yeah, sometimes the lie is better.