Sixteen
I try to tell myself that I’m not thinking straight, that what I feel for Tyler is an inane crush. Sure, we kissed—but one, it was just kissing. And two, I’ve kissed dozens of guys.
Except it’s the fucking cliché that I cannot overlook no matter how hard I try: Tyler isn’t just another guy.
Because something’s changed, and I don’t know if it can be un-changed. It’s fireworks: the difference between that first, singular, unassuming streak of orange that’s shot upward, and the succeding brilliant, all-consuming, can’t-take-your-eyes-off-of-it, visible-from-a-hundred-miles-away light show that paints the whole sky.
We don’t talk about the kiss—don’t even come close—but we don’t have to. I know how that mouth tastes, the electric shudders it sends through my body when it presses into my own, and without him ever alluding to it, I can tell he keeps thinking about it, too.
It’s the way his fingertips do a quick, delicate, inconspicuous jog across mine whenever we’re standing next to each other. The fact that I now notice how the instant Yasmin yells “Cut!” his eyes immediately jump over to me, as though his subconscious is always keeping track of my presence. How, on the days where I get to set first, I somehow find myself needing to answer just enough emails in my car until I see him pull in; how, on the days that he’s there first, he’s always having a conversation with Yan that wraps up right as I step out. It’s him sitting at lunch with me and May one day and then, out of nowhere, squinting up at the craft services tent ceiling as though deep in thought before saying, oh-so-casually, “So I listened to all of Red last night, and wow, that album was absolutely robbed of a Grammy,” and my this-is-the-hill-I-will-die-on instincts prompting me to yell, “Wasn’t it?!” before realizing the full gravity of what he’d said.
How at the end of each day for the past week, he’s found a way to steal us a few minutes alone so he can whisper “No news” with a quick reassuring hand squeeze that I know is meant to remind me that I’m still okay, and, more important, that he’s still looking out for me. That he’s always looking out for me. Just like he promised. Every day still feels like that crescendoing scene in the horror movie where you know the serial killer is going to pop out any second now, but knowing I have Tyler in my corner makes the fear manageable.
As the cameras start rolling on the last take of the last scene before we break for lunch, the additional coffee I’d had that morning makes its presence known in my bowels. And, of course, it is a very tense, high-stakes scene during which no crew member even dares exhale too loudly. Mra’s ex-fiancé has shown up right as Nanda was about to profess his undying love for her, and he’s asking her if she knows without a doubt which one of them she wants to be with because a part of him has known ever since she walked into the office five years ago that she was it for him, and she’s crying, and I would be crying, too, if it weren’t for the fact that I am now really wishing I hadn’t worn a thong today of all days.
“You good?” Jason whispers when he catches me tiptoeing out.
“Yeah,” I whisper back. “Bathroom.”
Once I’m outside, I power walk to the ladies’ bathroom, pleading my butt cheeks to stay squeezed for a few seconds longer.
I try the first door. “Occupied!” someone calls out, and the un-turning latch confirms it.
“Sorry!” I say.
I rush over to the adjacent one, which is, yep, also occupied.
Stepping back to command my first place in queue, I try not to squirm too much, but the hideous gurgling sounds now coming from my gut make it clear that nature is about to call regardless of my ability to stay still. Just one minute, I plead with my body. Please, please, please. Once I hear the familiar sounds of digital candy being crushed in one of the stalls, I know two things: one, neither of them are going to be done in one minute, and two, I do not have more than one minute.
The only other place on set with a bathroom that I can access is Tyler’s trailer, which I have a key to because that’s where I leave my stuff. So that’s where I sprint for, like a hurricane is on my tails and that trailer is my sole source of shelter.
I flush after a few minutes because while I might not be sleeping with Tyler, I still don’t want him knowing what my shit smells like. Right as the water bowl refills, I hear the front trailer door click, and my ass cheeks inadvertently tighten once more, this time with trepidation and slight embarrassment.
Should I call out? What do I say? Tyler? Hey, it’s me, I’m taking a shit, FYI. But it’d be weirder if I sat here and kept pooping covertly, right? Do I cough loudly?
“Sorry to cut into your lunch break, but I thought you guys should be looped in. I had a long call with Legal this morning.”
Yasmin’s voice screeches my train of thought to a complete stop. I definitely don’t need her knowing I’m taking a shit. Guess we’re going with covert pooping.
“About?” Tyler asks.
“Apparently, the police have been in touch.”
“What? I thought that was over,” May says. “They haven’t been here since last week.”
“Has there been a new development?” Tyler asks. Maybe it’s because I can’t see his face so my auditory senses are heightened, or maybe it’s because I know him better now, but I can parse the tension in his voice.
“No,” Yasmin answers. “Well, at least no developments in the sense of no new connections to us.”
“So then why are they still contacting us?” Tyler asks. “We’ve answered all their questions.”
Yasmin lets out a long exhale. There’s pacing, and then the sound of someone (presumably her) settling down on the leather couch. “Look, I’m going to lay it out. The cops were tactful about this part, but from what Legal understands, the Australian embassy isn’t going to let them close this case without finding the culprit. One of their citizens dies in Yangon and the police back off simply because it was near a film set? It’ll look like they were lenient and lazy at best, and intentionally looked the other way at worst.”
“But they have no evidence to prove it was any of us,” May scoffs. “They’re fishing in the middle of a desert. They can’t arrest anyone.”
“No, they can’t,” Yasmin agrees, but her voice doesn’t make it sound anything close to good news. “But they can revoke visas and filming permits, and we’ve barely shot a quarter of the scenes we wanted to do here. It doesn’t help that the Shwedagon Pagoda scene is both a key one and one that we can’t do in a lot, and I don’t want to jinx it and even start thinking about rewriting such a significant portion of the script, but if they put up enough red tape—”
Tyler barks out a laugh. “On what grounds? Those lawyers get paid literal thousands of dollars an hour and they can’t even—”
“Obstruction of justice—”
“But it’s not obstruction of justice—”
“They’re not our only problem.”
“What?” comes May’s voice. “What else?”
“The studio is getting… antsy.”
“Antsy?” Tyler echoes.
I imagine Yasmin nodding. “One of my friends who works there told me that there was a closed-door meeting. Rumor is they’re considering pulling the funds.”
“What?!” May yells.
At the same time, Tyler shouts, “Like fuck they are!”
“Okay,” Yasmin’s tone takes on one of a mediating parent, “it’s still talks, but they are worried about what might happen if this leaks to the press. The authorities are doing a good job of keeping it a secret so far, and I know everyone on set has signed NDAs, but someone is going to talk at some point. And if I had to guess, the studio’s drawing up a cost-benefit analysis right now to see if they should cut their losses early.”
“You cannot—” comes Tyler’s low grumble, but he’s cut off by a phone’s ringtone.
“Hello? Yeah, I can talk, one sec.” Yasmin’s voice drops. “I need to take this. I didn’t want to worry you guys, but like I said, I thought you should know. We’ll circle back later.”
There’s a long silence between the trailer door closing and May speaking. When she does, her words are wary but firm. “Ty,” she’s saying. “This is serious.”
“They’re fishing, getting desperate. Trying to scare us.”
“Well, it’s working.” She sounds just as petrified as I was when I said those exact same words to him.
“It’s fine. We only—”
“No, Tyler, it’s not fine!” May snaps. “Khin has to come clean.”
“How dare you even suggest that? Absolutely not.” It’s such a sharp reply that even I recoil in my porcelain seat.
“Tyler,” May says. I can see her curled up on the couch like she was when she revealed that she knew, two fingers pinching the bridge of her nose. “I know she’s scared and I would absolutely be, too, but we’re going to get her the best lawyers. I’ll help out. We’re going to make sure she gets a fair—”
“She won’t. It doesn’t matter what we do, because it’s not going to be fair, not for her,” he says. Because he understands. He listens, and he remembers and knows and understands. “Besides, I thought you liked her. You were the one who came up with the cover story for her pen.”
“I do like her,” May says without missing a beat. I can tell she means it, but I also don’t miss the underlying caution in her tone. “But I came up with that story because I thought I was helping you. I want to help both of you, but Ty… you are my priority. Khin is great, but she’s not my best friend. She killed a man—”
“You know it was self-defense.”
“Then she can tell that to the police.”
“She’s not going to the police.”
“Tyler!” May says brusquely, losing her softness. “You heard Yasmin!”
“Khin could lose everything—”
“ We could lose everything! How long do you think it’ll be until either of us gets another job? How long do you think it’ll be until Yasmin gets another job? She’s an Asian woman director in Hollywood, and her first-ever feature film gets killed because of a murder scandal? Do you think Burberry won’t rip up my contract if this gets out? And you can say goodbye to the Bond role—”
“I don’t care about the Bond role—”
“Well, I do!” May’s crying at this point. Her words sound like they’re thrashing around on choppy seas. “I get that you care about Khin, but I care about you! And I know you’re mad at me right now for saying all of this, but I have to because it’s us. I have your back and you have mine—that’s how this works. And Khin is amazing, she really is, but…” On instinct, something in my heart hardens, calcifies, prepares me for what is about to come. “What I’m trying to say is, Khin doesn’t fit in here. She can’t. This isn’t a movie, Ty. She’s not…”
“Not what?” Tyler scoffs, and I grit my teeth, uncertain if there is a single word out there in any language to encapsulate the emotion that’s taken over me.
“She’s not going to stay,” May says quietly. “She can’t. And neither can you. When we finish shooting here, you two are going to go your separate ways and live out the rest of your lives in opposite corners of the world, and that’s it. Except, that won’t be it, because I know you. You’re too soft for this, too honest, too good . You are the best person I know, Ty. You’re hiding it, but I know how anxious this must be making you, and telling the truth is the only thing that’s going to make you feel better. Otherwise, this secret is going to haunt you for the rest of your life, and I’ll be damned if I don’t step in and at least try to stop that from happening. So please, for both of your sakes, please tell her to turn herself in.”
After a considerable pause, Tyler replies, “She won’t do it.”
“She will if you ask her.”
“I’m not doing that. I will do almost anything you ask me to, May, but not this. She’s—” He takes a deep breath. “She’s going to be alone in this if I turn my back on her. And I’m not doing that to her.”
“Tyler.” I’ve never heard May sound so desperate. So frightened. She’s genuinely frightened. For herself, for Yasmin, for the movie. For him. “Do you think she’d do the same if the situation were reversed? Do you think she’d jeopardize her whole career for you ?”
“I know she would,” he replies instantly. My heart trips at the conviction in his voice. “Khin is a good person, loyal to the bone.”
May’s chuckle is so light that I’d have missed it if my ear were just two inches farther away from the door. “And you’re in love with her,” she says.
“That’s—” He stops, and my mind plays an unprompted game of Mad Libs. Ridiculous. Inaccurate. The absolute furthest from the truth. “—irrelevant,” he finishes.
Oh, I think, not even jumping at the knocks on the front door, followed by a muffled voice telling them that Yasmin said to eat lunch because shooting’s going to resume soon and both May and Tyler yelling back, “Okay!”
I remain on the toilet for an additional ten minutes, partly to make sure that Tyler doesn’t come back because he forgot something, and partly because it feels like my whole body has been anesthetized. At last, I hoist myself up, wash my hands, exit the bathroom, and, because I can’t quite go out and face Tyler and May and Yasmin yet, not now that I know the pressure they’re quietly bearing on everybody else’s behalf, I drop down onto the couch.
Just then, I become acutely aware of a buzzing beside me. I’m so out of it that I stare at my phone for a solid three seconds before realizing that’s what’s buzzing, and that to stop said buzzing, I should answer it. “Hello?”
“Khin?”
“Yes?” I can’t ascertain if I can’t place the voice because I don’t know whom it belongs to, or because it still feels like I’m processing the world from the other side of a dirty windshield.
“It’s Dipar.”
“Dipar? Hey! How… are you?” I ask, my brain going from blank to a hundred in a matter of seconds. Is this a trap? Are the police listening? Do I really watch too much SVU ?
“I’m good, thanks. Just got back from holiday. After I found out about Jared, my girlfriends decided I needed to take some time off to process and they essentially kidnapped me to the beach,” she says with a stifled laugh.
“That sounds… good,” I say. I know it’s such an incompetent adjective in this context, but the past twenty minutes are all collating into something so unmanageable that “good” is about as expansive as my vocabulary is at the current moment. “They sound like good friends.”
“They are. I’m… calling to thank you,” Dipar says after a pause. “You… you saved my life. And you don’t even know it.”
“What?” If this is a trap, I have to hand it to her, it’s a good one. If the police are trying to disarm me, it’s working.
“I know why he was stalking you.”
The blood shoots to my head like a bullet. I instantly know what she means, but it’s like there’s a barrier that my brain has erected to protect me from the whole truth, even if it’s precisely what I’ve been searching for this whole time. “He as in—”
Her voice sounds muffled through the thumping of my heart in my ears. “Jared,” she says.
My fingers seize around my phone. “Why?”
“Because I was pregnant and he thought I got an abortion.”
It feels like someone’s turned on the windshield wipers to try to give me a clearer view, but not quite managing to. “Why would he think that?”
Dipar’s rueful laugh gives me the answer first. “Because I did.” I feel her dragged-out inhale and exhale more than I hear it. “I’d been wanting to leave him for a while,” she says, voice lowering. Now I’m certain this call isn’t being tapped, at least not to her knowledge, because she’s talking with the solemnity of someone who was going to take this to the grave. “When I found out I was pregnant, I knew I couldn’t have a child. Definitely not now, and absolutely not with him. I had the abortion and spent the night at my sister’s, and when I came home the next day, he’d found the pregnancy test while taking out the trash. I lied and said I hadn’t wanted to tell him until I could confirm at the doctor’s, but when I went, it turned out I’d miscarried. And then I told him that the whole thing got me thinking, and I didn’t see us having a future together, and that my sister was waiting downstairs, and I would be packing my bags and leaving. He must’ve sensed that something was up, hadn’t believed that I had a miscarriage, and when he googled about abortions in Myanmar—”
“My article was the first hit.”
“Yes,” she confirms. “I would know because it’s what saved my life. I emailed you under a fake name and fake email, and you connected me with your friend. That’s how I got your number, by the way. I don’t want you thinking I’m stalking you, too.” We share a short, bitter laugh.
“Why… are you telling me all this now?” I’m scared to know the answer, but I’m more scared not to.
She draws in another long inhale. “The police talked to me the day after you found me, that night at the club. I had to remember to be shocked at hearing about Jared’s death.”
“Did you tell them—”
“No,” she cuts me off. “Like I said, Jared was not a good person, and somehow, I knew I shouldn’t be telling them that you’d been asking about him, too. But anyway, that’s not why I called. I’m calling because—” Another inhale, another pause. “They came again yesterday. Or, more precisely, I went to see them. They called me while I was away, something about new evidence, so I explained my situation and told them I’d come in as soon as I was back in town. So I finally did, which was when they showed me… the phone.”
“The photos,” I say, blood pounding at a thousand decibels against my eardrums.
“Yes.”
“They… didn’t tell you about the phone before? Because that’s how they found out his identity, which was how they must’ve tracked you down.”
“I’m pretty sure I was also on their suspect list, so they didn’t want to show me all of their cards.”
“And… now?” Now she’s no longer on their list. Which leaves—I can’t even finish the thought.
“Now they must be getting desperate, because they showed me the photos,” her voice slices through my anxiety. “And then they told me your name and what you did and asked if I knew you, or if Jared had known you, if there was any way your paths would’ve crossed, and as soon as I heard your full name, it all clicked. I knew what he’d done. I knew what…” She hesitates, but I already know how the sentence ends. “ You’d done.”
I’m already crying, and no matter how deeply or frequently I suck in air, it’s not enough oxygen. “It was self-defense, I swear!”
Dipar’s voice, however, remains level. “I know. I knew that must’ve been the case. Which is why I also told the cops that I had lied to them the first time, when they’d asked me if I knew anything about the fight that he’d gotten into before he died.”
“Dipar,” I say, ice spreading from my fingertips down to my toes. “You can’t… What did you—”
“That he didn’t take the combination of the miscarriage and breakup well. That he showed up at my sister’s place that night. I knew she’d back me up if it came to it. But I told them he was drunk as always, which was true. And then I remembered them telling me about the marks on his face, and I explained that things got physical when I refused to get back together, and at one point he had me pinned against a wall and the only way I could make him let go was by grabbing the nearest sharp object, which was a pen, and stabbing him in the ear, which was why he had those injuries. Obviously, none of that was true, but it could’ve been. Anyone who knew Jared wouldn’t have been surprised at that.”
My breath shakes. “Didn’t they get suspicious that you’d lied to them the first time around?”
“Yes, but I explained that I knew how it’d look. He’s a white man, and we get into a physical fight on the same night that he shows up dead? I knew I’d immediately be their first suspect. But as luck would have it, I did have a solid alibi that night. My friends have been dead set on a mission to get me over this breakup, and now I’m actually thankful that they’ve been dragging me out to clubs every other night. I gave the cops the name of the club I was at on that particular night, explaining I’d gone out to clear my head and also to be around people in case he returned to the apartment. They could check the club’s CCTV footage if they wanted. We might’ve gotten into an argument at my place, but he was alive when he left.”
“Dipar.” My voice is coarse. “You could’ve gotten into serious trouble. You still could.”
“I know, but I would do it again in a heartbeat. Here’s the thing—in that moment, I knew I had a solid alibi and that you didn’t, and the choice was… clear.” Her voice takes on a steeliness, the kind that you can’t fake. “I stayed with him as long as I did, as long as I could, because despite it all, I did love him. But you know the first thing I felt that night that you told me he was dead?”
“What?”
“Relief. I was relieved . That’s when I knew I’d made the right decision by leaving. You know—” She pauses. “I’d always wondered if I’d ever meet you in real life. You saved my life, Khin, without a doubt. I just returned the favor.”
“Thank you,” I say. It feels both not enough and yet all that needs to be said. “Just… thank you.”
“You’re welcome. But Khin?”
The caution in her voice makes my stomach roil in a new way. “Yeah?”
“I hope that what I did was enough, although I’m not sure it was. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but those two detectives, they seemed to be really upset about your article. They kept circling back to it, showing me different photos of your face, repeatedly asking if I was sure I didn’t know you. It was clear that they wanted me to turn on you, make me jealous, try to frame you as someone Jared was obsessed with more than he was with me or whatever.”
Just like that, the wisps of hope and relief that I’d started to feel vanish. I bite down hard on my lip to hold back a sob. “Thanks for the heads-up,” I say.
“Anytime. Again, thank you . I have to go, but… stay safe, okay?”
I nod, the tears practically gluing the screen to my cheek at this point. “Okay. You take care of yourself, too.”
Outside, someone yells, “We’re resuming shooting in twenty, people!”
“I’ll see you on set,” says Tyler over his back, closing the trailer door and already two steps in before he halts at the sight of me. “Oh my god, Khin,” he says, rushing over. His hands reach out for my face but stop themselves in time, and, ever the boundary-respecting gentleman, he instead restrains himself to tilt up my chin with the back of his knuckles. “What’s wrong? Did something happen? Is it the police? Did they call again? What can I do to help?”
“No, it’s… stupid. I popped in to use the toilet.”
He raises one brow to point out that that doesn’t explain the crying part.
“I’m… PMS-ing, and I watched this video of this dog who got abandoned by her family and anyway—” I wave my phone in the air. “I’m okay, just need a minute.”
“You’re crying alone in my trailer because you watched a video of an abandoned dog,” he deadpans.
I take a tissue from the coffee table and blow my nose. “Look, dude,” I say, scraping together as much tenacity as possible. “I can show you my period tracker app if you want,” I offer, realizing that my period seems to be my go-to excuse for any tricky situation.
For a beat, I worry that he’ll challenge me on it. But then he raises his palms and moves backward. “Sorry. But still, is there anything I can do?”
“Yeah,” I say, nodding. “Are you and May free today? After shooting? There are some things I want to go over. About the investigation. Strategize. And… stuff.” I am a wordsmith today.
To my surprise, Tyler sits up and points a finger at me. “That sounds like a great idea. I was actually going to suggest the same thing.” His voice has perked up, and his mouth is splitting into a smile that seems to want to grow larger already.
“You… were?” I ask, confused. Then it hits me—maybe he and May kept talking after they left the trailer, and she managed to convince him to convince me to go to the police. Maybe he’s working overtime to put on an “everything’s fine” air so as to ease me into the whole thing.
“Yeah. Your place okay?” There’s a knock at the door. “Yes?”
“May’s left her trailer,” Tun yells from the other side.
“I’ll be out in five!” Tyler yells back. He gets to his feet and I follow suit. We remain motionless, staring at each other in the foot of space between the coffee table and couch. At last, he grimaces and signals toward the bathroom. “Do you, um, mind leaving and meeting me at the set? Sorry, I feel weird peeing while I know you’re on the other side of the door.”
I suppress a rueful laugh. “See you on set.”