Two
Leah
2013
24 years old
“I ’m leaving you.”
Standing behind the couch, I could do nothing but blink at him. I sort of figured that out like ten minutes ago, but whatever.
I watched Brett race around the room, packing away his X-Box and video games. I think I was sadder to watch those go than him.
“Why are you dumping my bestie again?” Mel asked from the couch, feasting on her popcorn as the commercials aired in the background. “I think I need to hear it out of your mouth because I’m a little stumped.”
Brett paused, letting out a hard puff of air from his lungs. He looked at us with exasperation, like we were too thick to understand. Pointing at me, he said to her, “I know who she’s been with! That rockstar all over the magazines! I can’t compete with that. I didn’t sign up for this dishonesty! I saw him at the checkout today, and I swear to God, he was mocking me. Telling me I’m nothing but second best!”
Mel glanced at me with wide eyes before she replied to him, “You saw him at the checkout?”
He stiffened for a moment and straightened his posture. Looking away, he muttered under his breath, “Yeah, I saw him.”
“The real him?”
“Well, it was the magazine, but he was staring right at me, so yeah, it was real in a different sense. It was symbolic, Mel.”
When Mel looked back at me, I just shrugged. Honestly, I really didn’t care. I’d toughened it out with the guy for two months, which was a feat of its own. He was funny, sure, but in that too-awkward-and-need-to-be-pitied kind of way. He had some wicked video games, which made work nights on the couch pretty fun, and the sex….
…
…
Well, the sex (if you could even call it that) was possibly the most important thing I would not miss about Brett the fucking Dentist. I still could not shake the memory of my first encounter with him in bed just two weeks ago—after weeks of kissing and unsatisfying make-outs—and the way he spread my legs wider than anyone had ever spread them before, until my bones ached. I really wasn’t flexible. Maybe I’d led him to believe that I was along the way, I wasn’t sure.
He'd settled himself between them and stared at me for a solid ten seconds. It was like he was trying to stare into my soul, but he wasn’t. Not even close. And when he finally entered me, his dirty talk was dirtier in the sense it rotted my brain cells just hearing it.
“You like that? Oh, yeah, I know you like that! Pull my hair, baby. Pull my hair!”
He didn’t have hair.
“Come on, baby, do it.”
I remember scratching at his head, pretending to pull, and the weirdo actually growled like it was seriously happening.
I questioned my life choices.
I’d been so picky about who to take to bed.
I was sharing my body with another human being, and I’d fucked it up in that moment.
I still had not come back from it, and I had dodged sex with him since. I had tried so hard to break up with him, but I wound up feeling bad for him, which was so fucked-up.
I still cringed at the memory; I’d cried from the pain—I swear, my legs might have snapped off if I’d bitten my tongue and took it—and he’d stopped abruptly. The sex had been five seconds long, and five seconds too long in my books. My pain had spooked him. Jumping off me, he’d gotten dressed and left, his bald head riddled with pink scratch marks while I spent the night nursing my aches with a bag of ice between my legs.
Communication since then was stilted and awkward, and now this.
I continued to watch him tear apart my apartment, searching for his stuff, only he barely left his things behind except for the crap he brought for Game Night, which was actually a lot of fun.
When he was finally done, he came to me, carrying a box of his games, and stopped uncomfortably close.
“We could have had something, Leah,” he said, despairingly. “It could have been amazing had you not fucked up your past.”
“Technically, we could never have had something,” I replied, flatly. “The past sort of can’t be changed, Brett.”
He sneered. “Maybe. Next time you want to be with someone,be sure you're over the man before him. Have a good life.”
Too gobsmacked for words, I replied, “You too.”
He stomped out of there after that, slamming the door behind him.
For a long moment, there was that thick silence in the air. Mel and I just stared at each other, unsure of what to say, trying to digest the lunacy of the situation.
“Leave it to you to find the fucking crazies, babe,” Mel snickered, dispelling the silence.
“It’s that goddamn dating website. I don’t know why I keep falling for it.” I made my way around and collapsed on the couch next to her, idly watching the television as I spoke. “They always seem so promising.”
“Stop going for the looks.”
I nodded, agreeing. “You’re right. Maybe I’m just shallow and my knight in shining armour is some six-hundred-pound janitor at a maximum-security prison.”
“Well, look, if you hit the clubs again, you can find some really good opportunities.”
“No,” I disagreed. “Those are usually one-night stands, and I can’t stand to be that emotionally detached.”
“Better than a guy asking you to pull his hair during sex when he doesn’t even have one single fucking hair on his head.”
“He’s got a soft patch on the back of his head.”
“Leah.”
“I think he was referring to that.”
“Well, I think we should go out tomorrow and find someone.”
I sighed and shook my head. “Nah, can’t do tomorrow.”
“Why the hell not? It’s a Saturday. It’s bad enough we haven’t gone out on a Friday night after a week from hell.”
I looked at her and raised a brow. “It’s that time of the month, Mel.”
She paused and looked back at me. “Oh,” she said, slumping her shoulders. “Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“Isn’t she moving too?”
“Yeah.”
“When will you be back?”
“Not until late at night. I’ve got spin class, and I’ll be fucked by the time I’m back. Go out without me and have fun.”
She looked disappointed, but she nodded anyway. I grabbed my book off the coffee table and started reading just as she flipped through the channels. We were couch potatoes. Five years of being broke had forced us to depend on the god that was the television to dull the boredom.
We were financially better lately than we’d ever been before. She was no longer a waitress, but a bartender working at a high-end bar closer to the city. The drive was a bit brutal for her, but she said the tips made it worth it. I was a low-level accountant, but my pay had done wonders compared to before. With more money to play with, we commuted a lot into the city for retail therapy. Being out of the condo meant distancing ourselves from the old stir-crazy days in front of the television. We were still in Abbotsford, in a nice, quiet condominium that had all the modern conveniences, and we were comfortable.
“Holy shit,” she suddenly whispered from next to me.
I looked up from my book and at the television. I immediately tensed at the images of Carter’s face all over the screen. He was walking out of a restaurant, his head down, hand wrapped around another that belonged to his latest piece of fluff.
Honestly, how many times did I have to watch the same thing just with different chicks in different places? You’d think I’d have gotten used to this by now, but the trigger of emotions that ran rampant through my body in the seconds that followed these moments proved otherwise.
That could have been me.
The paparazzi had ambushed him like a pack of wild dogs, and they were howling questions at him, all of which went unanswered. He didn’t respond in any form to any of them, as he forced his way through the crowd. Soon after, his bodyguards stepped in to ward the evil men with cameras away.
“Jesus,” Mel muttered. “They treat him like he’s royalty.”
“Rockstars sort of are,” I returned numbly.
“Do you hear what they’re saying?”
I didn’t have to hear it. The clip cut off and a new story of Carter emerged, this time of him with some long-legged model.
“Buzz has exclusive footage of bad boy Carter Matheson and Panda Alwright doing the dirty on camera. No, folks, not the dirty as in another Carter sex tape— and we can’t forget that one, can we, ladies?” Oh, my God, not this again. “No, I’m talking a fight that occurred out front of a club that resulted in Alwright throwing her suspected engagement ring at him. Seems like trouble in paradise for this bad boy.”
“Buzz?” I let out in confusion.
“That’s the program’s name. They call themselves Buzz. Like, you know, the latest buzz and they’re all over it with their team of paparazzi.”
“And what’s this chick’s name?” There was no way I’d heard it right.
“Panda Alwright.”
I grabbed the remote and muted the garbage and turned to her. With one raised brow, I stared at Mel sceptically. “Don’t fuck with me, Mel. What’s the girl’s name?”
She tried to keep a straight face but ended up bursting into a fit of giggles. “Her name is Panda Alwright .”
What was it with Carter and these horrifically named girls? First Pomposa, and now Panda?
“She’s the spawn of another famous model,” Mel went on to explain. “I guess around the time she was born, her mother had been a spokesperson for this ‘Save the Pandas’ charity foundation.”
“Oh, my fucking god,” I cursed, shaking my head. “Why do celebrities do this?”
She just shook her head, laughing into the couch cushion.
When I looked back at the television, I was surprised their story was still going on.
“I’m going to bed,” I told Mel, standing up. “I’ve got a big day tomorrow.” Mostly, though, I needed to be away from the television. I didn’t like hearing one shred of information about Carter. Too many memories, and I’d done well up until this point to avoid them.
It was actually a must for my case.
“Night, Leah,” Mel called out to me as I disappeared inside my room.
Now this was my sanctuary. It was more of an office than a bedroom, filled with bookshelves complete with every book I loved, no matter the price, bought specifically to adorn these walls. My desk was huge, taking up practically one side of the room, and the surface was covered with magazines of every passion I’d taken up since being on my own without the baggage of relationships.
Aside from my attempt with Brett, of course. He’d been my first in two years, and let’s not discuss the events that transpired two years ago. I was still trying to forget it.
My magazines ranged from exercises to investment opportunities to photography. I’d done what I could throughout school to get my mind off Carter, trying hard to instil my independency, and mostly trying to convince myself that he was right all along. Love was overrated. It wasn’t real in the way I thought it was, and even though some men had caught my attention throughout the years, they never held my interest for long, or at least long enough to screw them.
That step was huge for me.
Every time I had come close, I’d wound up imagining Carter over top of me, touching me—
I collapsed into bed and set my alarm on my cell phone. I was annoyed to find a text message already there.
Brett: Maybe I made a mistake.
I rolled my eyes.
Me: No, Brett, you didn’t. You’re right. I’ve done a huge injustice to you keeping that info to myself. I’m a treacherous liar and I don’t deserve you.
I wondered if he believed me.
Whatever, it would make him happy if he did.
Truth was, I hadn’t necessarily lied to him about my past. I just didn’t find it relevant to bring up my sexual history, and it wasn’t like I asked. If Mel hadn’t accidentally spilled the beans a few days ago about Carter and me when he was around, I never would have known the guy had massive insecurities. That sort of manly complex was not attractive, at all.
Brett: It’s such a shame. I’ve just never met a girl with a fifty-inch television and fabulous as fuck speaker system. It made gaming so wicked.
What the actual fuck?
Me: Take care, Brett.