Chapter Twenty-Two
ROXY OPENED ONE eye, saw Honey and Abby perched on the edge of her bed, and promptly closed the eye.
Maybe if she stayed completely still, they would think she’d fallen back asleep and they’d go back to watching Bridesmaids or baking shit.
Or whatever the living did outside of their bedrooms, out in the open.
Anything but force her to acknowledge that she’d been in bed for two full days, still wearing a ripped shirt.
She wanted to take it off, but she’d forced herself to keep it on.
It was silly, and yeah, kind of unhygienic.
But she felt ripped in half, and having a visible representation of that allowed her to wallow with impunity, didn’t it?
She had no intention of un-wallowing anytime soon, so she wanted her two pain-in-the-ass roommates to bail, pronto.
Even if she knew the moment she closed her eyes, she’d have to deal with memories of Louis.
It was better than not dealing with his memory, though, as she’d be doing for the rest of her life.
She’d lost him. Or he’d lost her. Who the fuck cared?
They weren’t together, but as long as she stayed in this bed, at least she’d have the heartache he’d given her.
Right now, it felt like she didn’t have anything else.
Someone, probably Honey, nudged her elbow.
“What,” Roxy said through clenched teeth, “do you want?”
“Another delivery of falafel came for you,” Abby said.
“We ate it,” Honey added. “You ignored the last two, and where I come from, we don’t let food go to waste. It was amazing. Thinking of coming up with my own recipe.”
Roxy’s chest hurt from hearing Louis had sent another round of falafel.
Why wouldn’t he stop ? Too much had happened, too many of the wrong words exchanged.
He’d stolen her independence. It might make her stubborn, but even if she weren’t pissed at him, she didn’t think she could ever look him in the eye again.
He’d seen her at too many low points. The lowest points of her life.
Every time she looked at him, that’s what she’d see.
She’d wonder if he was imagining her stripping or singing in a costume or running from a man she’d known was bad news from the beginning but had ignored the warning signs.
“Next time, don’t answer the door. Please. I don’t want him to think I’m accepting it.”
Honey crossed her arms. “You going to tell us what happened? I need some incentive if I’m going to turn down free food.”
“I have an idea.” Abby clasped her hands together and split an anxious look between them. “We’ll tell you our worst breakup stories first. Maybe that will make it easier.”
“It won’t.”
“I’ll go first,” Honey said, neatly ignoring Roxy’s protest. “Elmer Boggs was my high school sweetheart. Just a big old lug, linebacker for the football team. Sweet as pie and slow as molasses.” She tilted her head and smiled.
“If he had his way, I would have been barefoot and pregnant before the ink dried on our high school diplomas, but I shared no such notions.”
“What about college?” Abby whispered, as if she couldn’t imagine a world where everyone didn’t earn a degree. “Didn’t he want to go?”
“Well, that’s where we differed. Elmer was more than happy to take a job selling cars at his father’s dealership.
I wanted something more.” Honey paused for a moment.
“I broke up with him the day I was accepted at Columbia. Let’s just say he didn’t take it well.
Showed up outside my house, drunk as a skunk at two in the morning.
He held a giant boombox over his head, just like in that movie Say Anything.
But instead of Peter Gabriel, he was blasting “The Devil Went Down the Georgia.”
Roxy quirked an eyebrow. “Was that your couple’s song or something?”
“No.” Honey shook her head. “I think he just liked it.”
“Huh.”
After a minute, Abby broke the thoughtful silence. “When I was seventeen, I dated Vince Vaughn for one whole week.”
“Wait.” Roxy massaged her forehead. She so wasn’t equipped for this conversation right now. “Vince Vaughn the actor?”
“No, no. Different Vince Vaughn.” Abby smoothed her hair, suddenly looking self-conscious.
“It was Halloween night, and we’d planned on dressing as M&M’s.
I was going to be green, and he—aptly—chose yellow.
But when I got there, he wasn’t in his M&M costume, he was dressed as Popeye and his new girlfriend came as skanky Olive Oil. ”
“Ouch.”
Abby acknowledged Honey’s comment with a severe nod.
“I stormed out of the party dressed like a giant piece of candy.” She blew out a breath.
“Half a block away, my high heel broke, and I fell facedown on a neighbor’s lawn.
Of course, I couldn’t get up because the costume was so damn awkward .
I had to scream for the owners of the house to come out and help me up. ”
Roxy and Honey stared at her a moment in stunned silence before bursting into laughter.
There was no way to avoid it, the image of her struggling to stand was too funny.
Abby’s cheek’s colored, but she took it in stride, even chuckling along with them.
At first, it felt great to laugh. To have any emotion at all besides regret and sadness.
But it busted open the dam Roxy had constructed inside her, letting everything else out, too.
Her laughter subsided, to be replaced with tears.
Hot, noisy tears, the likes of which she hadn’t cried since she was a child.
“Dammit.” Roxy pressed the heels of her hands over her eyes. “I shouldn’t have let things with him go on so long. If I’d ended it when I should have, this wouldn’t hurt so bad.”
“Why did it have to end at all?” Abby asked softly.
She told them. The whole sordid story about Johan, straight through to Louis’s involvement in getting her the part, his reluctance to introduce her to his family.
Honey and Abby listened without saying a word, which was exactly what she needed to get the words out.
“He needed to feel better about me. Or himself. I’m not sure.
” She swiped at her damp eyes. “I just know he wasn’t happy with who I am, and he tried to change it.
If he tried to change me after a couple weeks, he’d do it again.
And again. I won’t lose myself. I’m all I’ve got. ”
Honey exchanged a look with Abby. “What are we, yesterday’s trash?”
Roxy gave a watery laugh, even though the simple effort of it hurt. “I guess I’m stuck with your asses now, too.”
ROXY FLOPPED DOWN onto the stoop and kicked off her high heels.
Her old, worn-in high heels. The ones Louis had given her were stuffed in the back of her closet underneath winter clothes, where she couldn’t see them.
She would just sit here for a while and watch Ninth Avenue sprint by in a flash of colors and white noise.
Just until she pulled herself together enough to face her roommates, who’d been freakishly nice to her for the past week.
At first, she’d put on a brave face and let them fuss over her.
She’d let them make her plates of leftovers, and she’d indulged them in watching a slew of Molly Ringwald movies.
But as the week had worn on, she’d started hiding from them more and more, wishing they would just go away and let her cope.
She wasn’t coping, though. After the two days she’d spent in bed, she’d somehow pulled herself together enough to leave the apartment, needing to disappear into her familiar routine.
She’d been going on auditions nonstop, grinding her sleep-deprived self into the ground.
All because she missed the gorgeous fucker like crazy.
Even though she hadn’t heard a word from him since that day, apart from the deliveries that had finally started to ebb, he hadn’t left her alone for a second.
She woke up to his laugh and fell asleep to his heartbeat.
How in the hell was that possible, when they’d only spent one night together?
Had she contracted some kind of illness as she’d slept in his bed, which was ruining her for life?
Johan had called and apologized, although since the call had been made with his publicist on the line feeding him the sullen apology, it hadn’t technically counted.
She’d filed a complaint with the studio in an effort to make sure girls weren’t put in that position anymore, and they’d promised to take the complaint seriously.
Knowing it was bullshit, she’d taken it one step further by filing a complaint with the police, only to be referred to an officer who’d recorded an existing complaint, filed by Louis.
The cop explained he knew Louis from the courthouse.
He’d anticipated her concern about media attention and assured her there would be none, thanks to a favor called in by Louis.
She couldn’t even summon the energy to be angry at Louis for calling the police without consulting her.
Instead, it only reminded her how outraged he’d been on her behalf outside Johan’s office.
How his arms had felt like the safest place in the universe.
God, not one minute passed where she didn’t wonder about him.
Thinking of his tortured face when he’d arrived on the scene with Johan.
Hearing his words playing on repeat until she had to do a mental scream to drown them out.
She wanted him to be wrong. He had been wrong to go behind her back and omit the truth.
But his actions had been done in consideration of her, and that’s where she got tripped up.
Her anger over what he’d done was tempered with an annoying sprinkle of gratefulness.
He cared. He’d done it because he cared. And now he was gone.