26. Chase #2
The note makes me feel like I’m wrapped up in him all over again. Clouds pass over the sun again, draping the suite in the dim, grey light it must have been in all morning.
I pick up my phone for the first time since my shift last night, and the most recent notification catches my eye first.
And my stomach drops when I check the time.
“Holy fuck,” I say out loud.
I slept until two o’clock in the afternoon.
I can’t even remember the last time I did that. It had to have been long before I quit drinking.
And then a spike hits my chest as I remember what I had planned this morning.
There are three messages from Xander, spanning the course of the last two hours.
Xander Rousseau
Still going to come to our studio today?
Chase?
No need to bother. Thank you.
My mind shatters, like a pool cue hitting a cluster of billiard balls.
After everything I talked about with Logan last night, and after he broke down, I completely forgot that I had a meeting with Xander today.
“Shit. Shit.”
He’s been my favorite photographer in the city for years. I’d gone to art shows of his, and I once considered saving up three paychecks to be able to pay for an original framed print of his, before I realized I couldn’t possibly afford it.
I screwed it up.
Through my forgetfulness, my one-track mind, and because this is just what I do.
Last night, I could have set an alarm on my phone for this morning.
But I forgot.
I could have told Logan about the appointment, and he would have known to wake me.
But I forgot.
Just like I always forgot to do homework back in school, and it got so bad that I just stopped trying to do it altogether even though I knew I had the ability. And just like things used to slip from my hands when I took too many drugs or drank myself into oblivion.
Now there’s no excuse.
Chase Cameron
I am so sorry. Something serious came up, and I wasn’t able to make it. Can we reschedule for a later time?
Xander Rousseau
No, thank you.
Something feels dirty inside me, like there’s sludge coating me from within.
I navigate to my email in a flash and rapidly tap out responses, one after another, to other photographer opportunities that had arrived in my inbox last night, saying that I’m interested even in offers that I don’t investigate.
I’m grasping at straws.
None of the other offers are at the level of Xander. Nothing close. They’re smaller firms, and even a couple of event photography places, but at the moment I feel like I’d do anything.
Yesterday, at the end of my shift in the restaurant, I had been wondering if it might be the last time I ever had to work there. I had thought that I’d finally gotten a break. That I could start to make money in the creative field that I love.
Now I feel desperate.
My stomach still feels sick. I get up off the couch and head to the shower, letting the hot water beat down over me.
When I’m out, I scan through my email, and my gut twists again.
Not one, but multiple people have replied, saying they no longer have interest.
What the fuck is going on?
I already have to get ready to go to work. Luckily I still have a clean uniform here in the suite from when I was staying here, and I toss it on, heading downstairs to the restaurant.
When I walk into the kitchen, though, David turns to look at me, his expression grim.
“Chase. Could you come with me into the office?”
The only other times he’s asked me into the office, it was to pick up my paycheck. But I know today isn’t payday.
I follow after him like I’m walking the plank.
I start to think I actually might puke.
He sits down in his office chair and I sit across from him, running a hand through my hair and bouncing my leg.
He swivels his computer screen toward me, and starts playing security cam footage.
The footage is of me, on the top floor, entering Logan’s suite. It flips to another clip, where I’m doing it again, but the time and date are a bit later.
More clips play as he starts to talk.
“Another worker told me that they were aware of you using your access card to get up to the top floor. And the interesting thing was that we were informed the VIP in the penthouse suite was not in town that week.”
“David, he gave me permission. He was well aware—”
“And then I found out that you went up one day during the middle of a busy shift, outside the hours of your break.”
I forgot I had even done that.
Logan had messaged me, asking if I could check if he left a charger on his couch, and I stepped out of work for three minutes at most to go upstairs.
“David, I’m sorry. I can work for a week with no pay—”
“We are going to have to let you go, Chase. I don’t want my ass on the line. I’m sorry to see you go, because you have been a good worker, and the customers like you. But it’s just policy.”
It feels like my insides are being wrung out.
“Can I ask who told you?” I say, trying to stay calm on the outside.
“I won’t be sharing that.”
Don’t tell me it was Julian.
Please, please don’t say my brother did this to me.
I get up and head for the door, then turn on my heel.
“You were a good boss, too,” I tell him. “Best of luck.”
I’m about to leave when he speaks. “Um, Chase? Your access card.”
I pull in a long breath, reaching in my pocket for my Bellwood card. I place it gently on the desk, and then I leave.
When I walk out through the lobby, I feel like the ground isn’t stable beneath me.
I step out onto the street into the beating sun. A truck whizzes past me on the street as I take out my phone.
My fingers are unsteady on the screen as I text Julian.
Chase
Why did you do it? Deep down? Do you just want to see me get punished?
I shove my phone away.
I don’t know where I’m going as I walk down the street.
The city feels like a pressure cooker. It never usually feels overwhelming to me, and I always enjoy how busy it is, but right now I can’t take it.
How am I supposed to escape when the thing I want to escape from is myself?
I walk aimlessly and at some point I realize that I’ve ended up near my studio.
I head up the stairs, walking past a couple of the other artists working on the first floor, and I give them each a small wave.
I get into my small room and shut the door gently behind me, dropping my bookbag to the ground. I sit down on the floor in one corner, closing my eyes for a moment and breathing deep.
The faint scent of oil paints has always been calming.
Finally I muster the ability to grab my phone and scroll through the rest of the notifications, and when I open up social media, the world around me feels surreal.
There are posts people have made about me.
And other people are commenting underneath them, as if they don’t even realize I would see what they’re saying.
Is he with Logan, you guys think?
No, no shot. You think Logan Stone would be with a guy like this? He ends up with a movie star.
Why would Logan Stone work with a nobody? He’s hot as fuck, I admit, but he’s just a rando… idk.
None of the comments really touch me. When you grow up knowing that you’re unwanted, getting negative attention just feels like you’re coming back home.
Sometimes, when my father hurt me, it made things finally feel easier, because at least the pain was predictable, and I no longer had to worry when it was going to come.
This is worse.
Because this is my fault. I would still have a job, if I were more careful. I would potentially be working with one of the best photographers in the city, if I were less forgetful.
I scroll, and scroll, like I’m holding my arms open to a barrage of input. Some people love my work, and are complimenting me up and down. Others are using me like a punching bag.
One of the posts looks innocuous enough. It’s the picture of me and Logan from the gallery show the other night, stitched next to one of Logan’s pictures from our shoot.
But the second photo afterward makes my heart drop.
It’s an old one of me.
A bad one.
And after I read the caption, I feel a tear drop down across my cheek before I even realized I gave a fuck.
I lock my phone and drop it to the floor.
I bring my knees up close to my body, looking out over the room full of my art, and I vow something to myself.
This is going to be the first thing I ever keep from Logan.
I can’t ever let him know.
I can’t show him this.
He has to think that I can handle anything, and everything, even if the truth is that right now I can’t.