Chapter 40 Lex
Lex
The days blur into a week, my twenty-second birthday coming and going between a whir of film sets, empty trailers, chain-smoking, and a few stunts I insisted on doing myself because pain is easier to manage when it leaves a bruise.
If I couldn’t escape the weight of my own self-contempt, at least I could throw myself off a moving truck and call it work.
An action movie in Washington wrapped up in seven days, my role nothing but a bit part as the tagalong friend to an up-and-coming actor eager for his big break.
Slate-gray skies stretched over the ocean for days, waves crashing against jagged rocks, while wind tore through coastal cliffs, tugging at our tents and trailers as if the whole world was beating itself up on my behalf.
The actress playing the love interest asked me out for drinks on the last day, but I told her I was seeing someone.
Not a direct lie.
I fucking see her everywhere I go.
While I never had the balls to make a public statement about my “breakup” with Stevie St. James, the media is having a heyday questioning her sudden disappearance from my life.
Rudy has been on top of it, trying to put the rumors to rest while spinning a story about her needing to be at home with her family for personal matters.
Also not a direct lie.
Stevie’s face is on magazine covers and running rampant on my social media feeds. She’s haunting me. But no more than the guilt and inner turmoil following me around like a ghost I can’t outrun.
Back home in Los Angeles, I walk into a meeting on a crystal clear Tuesday morning, the door slamming shut behind me while multiple pairs of eyes shift in my direction. It’s a meeting with my producers from Come What May . More bullshit promotion.
My phone buzzes on the table when I take my seat—another notification, another headline. “Where is Stevie St. James?” The question of the hour. The question I can’t answer because I’m the reason she’s gone, and I haven’t yet managed to breach this ocean of denial.
I silence my phone, and the meeting begins.
I hear nothing.
Voices drown out on all sides, a muddle of pointless chatter.
Nothing but drivel and clipped words. Willa sits beside me in one of the rolling chairs, glancing my way every so often.
Worry tightens her brow. She taps my ankle with the toe of her shoe, and I blink up, realizing people are staring at me, waiting for something.
I didn’t hear the question.
“Yeah,” I say. “Sounds good.”
Everyone around me smiles and nods, and the next thirty minutes whiz by in an out-of-body blur, paralleling the last.
When the meeting is over, I have no idea what I just agreed to.
I don’t think I really care.
As I stroll out of the sterile room, Willa stops me before I make it to the building exit.
“Lex.”
Clearing my throat, I scratch the back of my neck and pivot to face her. “What’s up?”
“Are you okay?” She steps forward, her head angled like she’s trying to read me. But my pages are nothing but spilled ink. “Seemed like you didn’t hear a word of that.”
She’s observant at least. Makes her a great actress. “Yeah, I’m good. Just had a rough week.”
Nodding, she rubs her lips together. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you for Stevie’s number. When she comes back to town, I was thinking we could meet up for coffee or lunch.” A chuckle slips out. “Weird, maybe, since I’m kind of her alter ego. Do you think she’d be up for it?”
I blink at her as the question registers and my heartache plows through me like a bulldozer. “Oh…uh, sorry. Not sure when she’s coming back.”
A frown. “An extended Thanksgiving or something?”
Is it almost Thanksgiving?
I don’t even fucking know.
My throat scrapes with sand and grit. “No. She moved back. Permanently.” I glance away. “I’m not ready to talk about it yet, so that stays between us.”
Willa stares at me, her eyes flaring when awareness dawns.
I begin to walk away, knowing I don’t have the strength to harness my acting abilities today, and I’m a blink away from crumbling into dry, old paint. With asbestos. “I’ll tell her though. She’ll appreciate the thought.”
“Wait, what?” I’ve hardly moved a foot before Willa charges at me, trying to catch up in her high heels and floral skirt. “What do you mean permanently? The breakup rumors are true?”
I close my eyes, blowing out a toxic breath. “Yeah. Something like that.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m no good for her, and she’s better off in Chicago.”
Shit.
I gave her too much, too much to dig into.
“Really.” She squints at me, still reading, trying to pull my threadbare pieces apart. “That’s strange. I saw you two at that party not long ago, and it looked like you were perfect together.”
I sigh, peering down at the floor. “Things change. Look, I need to—”
“I’ll rephrase.” Willa pushes her tongue against her cheek.
“I saw you at the party, but I’ve also seen the photographs, the appearances, the interviews.
Your chemistry is electric,” she says, her eyes digging into my cracks, deepening the fissures.
“I mean, I know you’re a brilliant actor, Lex, but I also know that some things are more than just performance.
And I’ve seen the way you look at her—like she’s literally everything. ”
Planting my hands on my hips, I try to ignore the tiny pinholes pricking my chest. “I appreciate the TED Talk, but you’ve only gotten glimpses. There’s a bigger picture.”
“I’m staring at the bigger picture right now. You look sick. Completely wrecked.” She pauses, her gaze skimming my face. “Have you looked at it?”
My jaw ticks. “You sound like my therapist.”
“I actually went to school for psychology before the acting dream took over. Got my master’s degree and everything.”
Well then.
I knew she was older than me, but I didn’t know that.
My hands slide into my pockets as I tap my foot, looking around for the nearest bathroom I can lock myself in until the churning nausea passes. “Thanks for the insight, but I gotta go.”
I try to walk away again, but she stops me.
Again.
“Come what may, right?”
My heart staggers. Teeters on a knife-edge.
Freezing in place, I clench my hands and stare at the endless hallway in front of me.
“Can I be honest with you?” she asks, approaching me at my side.
Willa stops, an arm’s length between us, drawing out the silence for a few breaths.
“It’s probably not my place…but I never really resonated with the title of the show.
It gives too much power to chance, to the idea that we’re at the mercy of whatever happens.
But I think we’re bigger than that, you know? ”
Her words have me glancing back up, seeing her.
Listening.
“I think we’re armed with the tools to carve out our own path, to create exactly what we want,” she continues.
“When we leave our dreams up to circumstance, we relinquish control. And I think it’s easier sometimes, letting something else take the wheel, but then we never get to uncover who we really are.
What we’re capable of. What we’re made of.
” She smiles softly. “We’re the ones holding the pen. It’s up to us to write the ending.”
I study her, allowing the underlying message to settle in. Allowing something other than this crushing sense of inevitability to seep inside and outshine the darkness.
The glimmer of possibility. The spark of potential.
The hope.
Fuck.
I shake my head, blotting it all out with black marker.
No.
I made the right call. Stevie is exactly where she should be.
“Anyway, sorry if I’m overstepping here.
” Willa shrugs, her eyes dipping away. “I just feel like I was able to see your relationship through your eyes, woven inside that manuscript, almost as if I had a little window. And maybe it was all fiction, but I’ve come to know you.
And I don’t think you write fairy tales.
I think you write truth.” She takes my cold, clammy hand and gives it a squeeze before letting me go.
“If that truth is what I think it is, then I hope you hear me.”
With a final poignant look, she steps around me and saunters down the hall, leaving me alone in the quiet, empty corridor.
I slump back against the wall and slide down to my butt.
I think about my truth, knowing it can’t possibly be that simple.
Truth has always been elusive, a shifting shape, too hard to grasp. A battle of what I know versus what I want. Maybe Willa can see what I want, but she doesn’t see what I know.
She doesn’t have the full scope.
I tip my head back against the wall and exhale slowly through my nose. My cell phone weighs heavily in my front pocket, teeming with unanswered texts, missed calls, and video chats from my mother that I’ve consistently rejected.
Swallowing, I pull the phone out of my pocket and open the screen. I click on the text app, scrolling through the endless string of neglected messages, until I land on two little words sent over a week ago.
Nicks: I’m home.
And then another two words a few days later.
Nicks: Happy birthday.
My throat burns.
I begged her to contact me as soon as she made it home safely, yet I never summoned up the courage to send her a reply. And then she somehow remembered my fucking birthday.
More guilt chomps through me, nibbling down to the marrow.
Swiping my thumbs over the keypad, I finally text her back.
Me: Thank you. How are you?
I need to know she’s okay, that she’s happy and fulfilled, getting back to the life that was always meant for her. That’s what I want.
I think that’s what I want.
Seconds turn into minutes. Minutes turn into ten. All I do is stare at the screen, waiting for the message to show Read. When it does, my pulse revs. My breath stalls in the back of my throat as I watch her bubbles come alive, stopping, starting, then doing it all over again.
Three more minutes.
Three words.
Nicks: I’m good, Lex.
I read over the response a dozen times. Two dozen times.
My eyes close, and the phone slips from my hand because that’s when I remember something she told me a long time ago as we sat shoulder to shoulder on her rooftop.
She never says anything she doesn’t mean.