Chapter Twenty-Two
Willa looked good in that way she always did. Her hair was glossy and dark, her make-up immaculate, and she looked like she’d recently caught the sun. Bo, by comparison, looked lovesick and forlorn, her hair a mess, her face tear-stained and full of woe.
“You look worse than you did after Oliver left you,” Willa remarked as she kicked off her shoes, handing Bo a bottle of wine.
“And you look like you’ve caught the sun,” Bo remarked back, looking at Willa’s browned skin, at the delicate freckles that were evident across her nose and cheeks.
“Monte Carlo,” Willa explained. “Umm, Scarrow took me. After we finished shooting the film. It was a kind of, uh, celebration.”
Bo watched as Willa took a deep breath, before extending out her left hand. A diamond the size of Bo’s fist glinted back up at her, and Bo’s mouth fell open in shock.
“Willa,” she exclaimed. “What the fuck?”
Willa gave a graceful shrug. “Scarrow asked me to marry him. I said yes.”
Bo pursed her lips to stop any words from leaving them.
For a moment, she just stared, her mind both wordlessly empty and overwhelmingly full all at once.
Willa was engaged. Engaged. And she hadn’t said a word.
Not a call, not a text. Not even one of those chaotic voice notes she sometimes left that started out with one thought before ending oddly on another.
They’d been friends for years, and before this, there’d been no secrets between them. This — Willa’s engagement — was huge though. Life-changing.
And Bo hadn’t even known it was happening.
A sad kind of devastation passed through her at that knowledge, made worse by the look on Willa’s face, which wasn’t even one of happiness.
No. There was nothing of the blushing bride around her at all.
Instead, the look on Willa’s face was one of resignation, and suddenly, a new thought popped into Bo’s crowded mind: What about Berg? It’s meant to be you and him.
Willa, to her credit, gave another shrug. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“You really don’t.”
“I like Scarrow, and he likes me. He’s talented and takes care of me and isn’t, you know, addicted to alcohol or heroin or anything like that.”
Gently, Bo took hold of Willa’s hand. “Should I be happy for you?”
Willa nodded. “Yes. I think so. Scarrow and I have a real chance of making this work. It’s different to—” She stopped suddenly, Berg’s name in the air, before she squeezed Bo’s hand. “It’s different.”
“What happened with him?” Bo asked, still stunned by Willa’s news. “When you went to see him, what happened?”
“You mean Berg?” Willa asked, as though they could be talking of anyone else.
“Yes, I mean Berg. You, umm, were going to see him the last time we spoke. He had a new girlfriend. You were worried.”
At that, Willa dropped Bo’s hand. “I’m going to open the wine,” she said, shaking her head as she went through to Bo’s little kitchen.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“Yep,” Willa replied, though there was a hint of strain in her voice. “I’m not an alcoholic. That’s Berg, remember?”
“I remember.”
“Fucking Berg.” For a moment, Willa chewed on a nail. “The new girlfriend is called Kara.”
“Kara? Did you meet her?” Bo stood, walking through to the kitchen. Wordlessly, she handed Willa a bottle opener and watched as Willa pulled out two glasses.
“No. I didn’t need to meet her. Berg told me all about how wonderful she is.” Bitterness was written into every one of Willa’s words and Bo flinched to see it. “He said he needed to be with her, needed to be with someone. He’s been lonely.”
At that, Bo felt a knot of empathy for Berg begin to grow. She knew what it was to be lonely. Hadn’t known just how lonely she’d been until Max had filled that unknowing void.
“Did you tell him about you and Scarrow?”
Willa nodded slowly. “You can imagine how he reacted. He still thinks Scarrow is taking advantage of me.”
Bo paused. She’d had a similar thought herself. “Is he?”
“No,” Willa replied, but she sounded wary. “Look, it’s hard for Scarrow, you know? He’s brilliant, but new in this business, and I’ve been acting for so long now. People want to take my photograph. Scarrow can’t help it if he’s been snapped in those photographs too, can he?”
“What did Berg say?”
Willa made a noise of frustration. “Oh, just that he thinks Scarrow is using me to get ahead. He’s not though. Berg doesn’t know Scarrow like I do.”
“I should meet him,” Bo suggested, and Willa gave a small smile.
“You will.”
“Are you sure he’s what you want?” Bo then asked, and something in Willa’s face changed. For a moment, the mask of pretty indifference that Willa usually wore slipped, and Bo saw what lay underneath. It looked a lot like loss, regret and sadness.
She still wants Berg, Bo realized. She’s always wanted Berg, right from the day they met. But she can’t have him, so she’s settling. Settling for Scarrow Arlington.
It occurred to Bo that one day very soon, she might be in Willa’s position yet. Unable to have the man she loved, so settling for one she could tolerate. One she could possibly be happy with.
I’d rather die than settle like that, Bo thought, another new and entirely adult emotion running through her. If I can’t have Max, well, then I can’t have him. I can be sad about it, and I can regret it, but I won’t settle. Not ever. Not like that.
“I really want to be happy for you,” she told Willa slowly. “But you just don’t seem certain.”
“I am certain.”
Bo paused. “Did anything happen with Berg? When you were in LA?”
Willa turned sharply towards Bo. “What made you ask that?”
“Well, it’s just you were off to LA to save Berg from certain doom at the hands of party girl Katie—”
“Kara,” Willa corrected with a frown.
“Right, Kara. Anyway, you went off to see Berg but came back and almost immediately got engaged to Scarrow and to be honest, you just don’t seem very content, Wills.”
Willa nodded while taking a large sip of the wine she’d just poured. “I am content, Bo. Really, I am. It’s just . . .” she took another sip. “It’s just, I thought a lot about what you said to me. When we argued.”
Bo flinched. “Look, about that—”
“No, don’t try and apologize again, you don’t need to.
” Willa took a deep breath. “The truth is, I just didn’t want to hear it.
Everything you said . . . you were right, Bo.
I had stuff to work out with Berg and for a long time, I used his illness as a .
. . I guess a kind of crutch. That was something he was always terrified of too. Berg, I mean.”
“He was scared?”
Willa nodded. “Yes. He was always scared I’d end up as his nurse or sobriety companion.
He was downright terrified he’d start using me as a crutch to keep him off drink and drugs.
He never wanted that. Neither do I. All that space Berg insisted on between us for all those years .
. .” Willa sighed. “He was right to do it. And now, it’s too late for us, and I have to let him go. ”
Have to let him go. The words echoed painfully inside of Bo’s mind and she swallowed a mouthful of wine down over the lump that had suddenly grown in her throat.
“So, he’ll be with Kara, and I’ll marry Scarrow, and we’ll both be okay,” Willa decided, and it frightened Bo to hear how blank her voice sounded.
“And then, maybe one day, he and I will be friends again. Maybe one day I’ll realize that I didn’t lose him, he just was never meant to be mine.
And maybe one day I’ll realize that’s okay. ”
The knot of empathy Bo felt for Berg turned into a knot of pain for Willa, and she reached for her.
“I’m sorry, you know,” Willa carried on, drinking another mouthful of wine. “I’m sorry for cutting you out and ignoring you. I was hurting, and when I thought of you, and what you said, it hurt even more.”
“Oh, Wills.”
“It was true, Bo.” Willa looked up at her with wide eyes.
“What you said. It was true. It just hurt to admit it and so instead I cut you out and just sat around being miserable and . . . and missing you.” Abruptly, Willa’s eyes filled with tears.
“I’ve really missed you, and I’ve missed what’s happened in your life, and now that I’m back, just look at the state of you. ”
“Hey,” Bo protested, wiping away a tear from her own cheek. “I don’t look that bad.”
“You don’t look great though, Bo.” Willa looked her up and down. “Do you want to tell me what happened? With Mr Two out of Ten?”
Bo shrugged, taking her wine and going back to her bed. She sat cross-legged upon it, picking up Max’s purple shirt once more and holding it.
“What is that?” Willa asked, following Bo and pointing to the garment clutched within her hands. “Did you accidentally boil your washing with a full red cabbage or something?”
Bo gave a soft smile. “It belongs to Max. He, umm, gave it to me.”
“That’s the ugliest gift I’ve ever seen. You mean to tell me that he owns all of Geoffrey’s house and that shirt was the best thing he could get you?”
“It wasn’t like that, it wasn’t a gift, not as such. He just gave it to me.”
“And you’re holding it like it’s your newborn baby.” Willa sighed. “You really did go and fall in love with this guy, didn’t you?”
Bo nodded. “Yeah, I did. Not that it matters. He’s not interested.”
“I thought you were sleeping together? The ultra-casual arrangement? The Band-Aid to get you back in the saddle after Oliver?”
Bo blushed red. “That’s right.”
“But he’s not interested in you?” Willa frowned.
“Nope. Not as a long-term prospect, anyway. He made it pretty clear that we’re just a temporary thing.
” Bo took a deep breath. “He doesn’t love me, Wills.
Not like I love him. He doesn’t love me, and the moment he found out I loved him, he .
. . he took off back to Berlin.” Her voice broke a little as she spoke, and she took a deep breath, trying to calm both herself and the hurt within her.
Willa’s face softened. “Oh, Bo.”