Theo
I wake in the middle of the night to a drunken text from Bryce. I ignore it because there’s no reasoning with him when he’s half cut. But it’s going to be a problem. There’s another in the morning, as we get dressed to run, and I ignore that too.
“Maplewood won’t be quite this scenic,” Bex pants as we run, “but it’ll be a lot less humid.”
I love that, more and more, she’s deciding to.
Lars has promised us a relatively easy afternoon, given how tired we are by the time we’re done. We shower, change into swimsuits, and are taken to Porto Moniz, where there are natural pools formed by volcanic rock. It would be amazing if it weren’t for the fucking cameras and microphones.
And if it weren’t for the texts coming from London, warning me that it’s all about to go tits up.
“There’s nothing like a twenty-mile run to make you appreciate lying flat on your back,” Bex says, stretching out in the poolside chair beside mine.
I have the scratches on my arse to prove she appreciated lying flat on her back last night, too, but I can’t say this with the entire crew listening in.
“You know how I’d respond if we weren’t being recorded,” I murmur.
She raises her sunglasses to grin at me. “No clue. Whisper it.”
I know she has a clue, simply by the way her eyes gleam.
“I’ll tell you later,” I reply. “I’ll tell you repeatedly.”
She bites her lip, thoughts similar to my own clearly etched across her face. My phone, in the pocket of my swim trunks, vibrates with another text, ruining the moment.
This trip with her is a small taste of what my life could have been if I were someone else. And it might be the last taste I get.
“I have an idea,” she says, pushing up to her feet with a groan—stiffness from the run setting in—and walks over to this little hut selling pool toys and sunscreen.
Her suit is cut high on her perfect bum. Every man she passes turns to watch.
All mine, I want to growl.
For now, warns a voice in my head.
She buys something at the stand and returns with a wide grin and two deflated rafts.
Those eyes are still on her as she walks back, and I can’t fault any of them.
The sun has put streaks of caramel in her hair and her skin is tanned from a summer spent outside.
Her eyes gleam and though she’s still slender, she has a softness to her curves that wasn’t there when she was so broken last winter.
I don’t want to look at anything but her anymore.
“You have the most amazing eyes,” I tell her. I’m being recorded and I just don’t care. Time is ticking away, and I might not get the chance to tell her later. “They’re the first thing I noticed about you.”
She blushes, fighting a pleased smile. “Are you just saying that to get out of helping me inflate the rafts?”
I shake my head. “No. But do you have any idea how long it’s going to take to blow these up?”
“Not for me.” She winks. “I’m good at blowing things.”
It’s a shot right to my groin. I glance from her to LJ, standing five feet away with the camera trained on us. “Rebecca.”
“Sorry,” she says with a cheeky grin, sounding not at all sorry, and my stomach squeezes again.
Am I going to have to go through the rest of my life without that grin? Without hearing her reference blow jobs in the worst possible place? God, I hope not.
We each get to work on a raft. Thanks to the run, it’s harder than it otherwise would be. Neither of us has the energy.
“Maybe I’m not so good at blowing things,” she wheezes.
I cover my valve just long enough to raise a brow. She’s incredibly good at blowing things, and she knows it.
Eventually, I finish mine and then finish hers for her. She uses the cord wrapped along their edges and the plastic packaging to lash them together.
“Look at how clever I am,” she says as she climbs to her feet.
“I’d be the perfect person to be shipwrecked with.
Although Bronwyn would be better. I got kicked out of the Girl Scouts in the fifth grade but she did it until high school.
She knew all kinds of outdoor shit. I only know how to make a papier-maché snowman. ”
I’ve noticed this before. Every time she does something well or toots her own horn, even in jest, she backtracks to insist Bronwyn would have done it better.
“Let me guess,” I say as we pull off the mics and battery packs. “You threatened the troop leader? Or corrected her when she was wrong about some wilderness fact?”
“I did want to correct her, frequently,” Bex says. “But no. I was selling Girl Scout cookies at a significant markup, which is apparently frowned upon.”
A year ago, Jessie would have told a story like this to prove Bex was always bad, and I’d have believed her. Now I hear it and all it proves to me is that Bex has always been strong, has always had some fight in her, even if she can’t see it herself.
I follow her into the water, and we carefully climb onto the raft. I exhale in relief as my eyes close, and I brush my hand against hers. They’re still filming, but they can’t hear a fucking word we exchange.
It’s the perfect time to say, “This may be about to turn bad; let me explain.”
“This seems like it’s halfway between the Maldives and Primrose Hill,” I say instead. “We could settle here rather than Iraq.”
Throw out your phone, Bex. Don’t read the news; don’t watch TV. We’ll hunker down here and leave the world behind because it’s the only way I can avoid what’s coming.
She smiles. “I’m pretty sure we’re a solid three thousand miles from the midpoint, but I’m okay with that.”
I slide my hand over hers. “We could blow off the show and never return to civilization. Buy a little place in the mountains, go for a run every morning, milk our own cows, and grow our own vegetables…”
She raises her sunglasses and turns her head toward me. “You know I’m too lazy to do those things,” she says with a sad smile. “You’d be better off with Bronwyn for almost all of that.”
She’s doing it again. And it’s insane. Did Jessie condition her to be like this, or did Bex choose it for herself?
“Bex, do you realize how often you tell me that Bronwyn was superior to you? If it was possible, I’d think you were trying to set me up with her. Why?”
She blows out through her nose, her body sagging into the raft. “Bronwyn had this crush on you. I know it sounds silly, but sometimes it still feels as if you’re hers, as if I’m borrowing you but need to remind us both that she’s the better choice.”
“I wasn’t hers. We met in passing, five minutes max, and I know based on that alone that she wasn’t the better choice. Just once, I want to hear you name one significant thing you’re better at than her.”
“Being alive?”
I laugh. “Rebecca. Aside from that.”
“In terms of significant skills, I can’t come up with anything else,” she replies. “I’m assuming that you wouldn’t consider holding my liquor a significant skill?”
“I would not. Also, you’re not that good at it.”
“You didn’t say I had to be good compared to the general population,” she argues, “only relative to Bronwyn. And Bronwyn was a terrible drinker.”
Lars is waving us in. She playfully gives him the finger, and he grins and shakes his head.
They all adore her—Lars lights up when she speaks, and Paula fights a smile even as she’s scolding her.
Katrina races to her side when she’s not occupied, and the guys treat her like she’s one of their own.
Does Bex see that at all? Does she understand that it’s rare, her ability to charm and seduce everyone who meets her?
Does she understand that the way she’s rebounded after what she’s suffered is rarer still?
“You are, you know,” I tell her, as we wade toward the shore. “You’re good at being alive.”
She smirks. “I’m actually just good at missing flights, but I’ll take the compliment.”
“That’s not what I meant. I meant you’re good at living. You’re good at finding a way to make the most of your life, whether or not the chips are down.”
It’s the piece of her I fell in love with first.
I don’t know how I’m going to survive without it.
· · ·
That afternoon, she naps while I’m interviewed by Lars in a room reserved just for this purpose. “Describe how blissful it was at the start,” he says, “and then I’ll have you tell me how it’s gone downhill.”
He wants the best moments, then the worst. He wants to know what I hoped for and what worries me now. Every answer is a struggle, and most contain a half truth or no truth at all.
But the doubts…those come pretty easily. How couldn’t they when it’s increasingly clear I’ve ruined everything?
Bex is still asleep when I get back, flushed and peaceful, her mouth slightly open, her long hair splayed across her pillow…and it feels as if I betrayed her with what I just said on camera.
But I didn’t lie, and Lars didn’t put any words in my mouth.
I do have doubts, and I can’t bring myself to effuse about my wife and our marriage when I know what a bloody fool I’ll look like after it ends.
My parents’ legacy can’t be two sons who publicly lost the plot over women.
But when I look at her sleeping there, I regret it all.
I regret what I said, and I regret that I’ve grown into the man I have—one who makes decisions like the one I made last summer and is so unable to be what she needs.
If there was a way to just silence the world and slip away with her somewhere right now, I’d take it.