2. Wesley
Wesley
H e dips her, and my world spins off its axis and into oblivion. Her eyes are closed. A wave of red hair flows down her back, nearly brushing the floor. The lapels of his suit jacket are clenched in her fist. The camera flash glints off the glasses raised in celebration behind them.
“Fucking hell. You think we can go a week without getting some news about this bitch? Now she’s going to get married, and we won’t be able to go anywhere without seeing headlines about it.” The man next to me at the bar shuts off his phone, the image of her engagement disappearing with it.
His friend barks a drunken laugh over the sound of billiard balls cracking in the back of the dimly lit dingy bar.
Please turn it back on. I wasn’t done looking at the single worst thing that’s ever happened to me, I nearly tell him. But when someone calls my favorite person a bitch, I’m not inclined to be polite.
“As if anything you’ve got going on is more interesting. You’re at a shit bar on a Tuesday night,” I say instead.
It was dumb to come out in the first place, but I needed to be somewhere, anywhere, I’d have a ghost of a chance of not being recognized. Especially tonight.
Our anniversary. Her birthday. Call it what you want.
Because for me, it’s the one night a year I let myself hate Wesley Hart, lead singer turned solo superstar, and long to be Wes Gaflin. I drink cheap shit that burns as it goes down, as if it will incinerate my regrets.
“What the fuck did you just say?” Phone guy swivels on me, puffing his chest. His splotchy beer-bloated cheeks could be cherubic if you squint, like, really hard.
I take a swig of my scotch and shrug. “You heard me. Don’t make me waste my breath on you.”
His friend peers around him and his eyes widen in recognition. A meaty finger points at my chest. “Hey! You’re that singer with the whiny songs and the crop tops.”
“Yeah, that’s me. Want to borrow one?” I get to my feet and face them. “Actually, that might be awkward after I’m done with you.”
I don’t know if I punch him for talking shit about the love of my life or because he’s the closest person to me when I learned she’s engaged.
Realistically, it’s both.
I don’t suggest making your best friend your lawyer unless you have a high tolerance for feeling like an idiot. And, as someone who spent a better part of the early 2010s in a mesh shirt and skinny jeans, I’ve been micro-dosing shame long enough to build up a suitable tolerance.
“You look like shit,” Garrett says as he slips his wallet into the inside pocket of his tailored jacket, probably coming from the entertainment law firm where he’s a senior associate.
He’s practically lived there since graduating from law school. He’s always spewing some damn bullshit about how it’s a more practical career path than music, as if he doesn’t have millions tucked away. If you ask me, I think he just likes being miserable.
Out of the guys, Garrett is the only one who still speaks to me. I get the odd Christmas card from Jared, his wife Alyssa, and his happy All-American family. And Luca? Yeah…I’ve taken enough of a beating tonight without dwelling on how shit went down with us.
“That's too bad. I was going for camera-ready. A smoky black eye look.”
“Shut up, or I’ll leave you here to rot.” And I know he will.
I stretch out and try not to wince as my ribs make a less than desirable noise. “Fine by me.”
He scrunches his nose. “I’m pretty sure someone died on that couch.”
“Then I’ll be the second.” Even with my swelling nose, I pick up the faint sour smell that has already started to cling to my clothes.
Instead of validating my response, he looks down his slender nose at me until I drag myself up.
The bar is empty, except for the bartender, who broke up the fight and locked me in the office. I should be thankful he didn’t call the cops. Kind of wish he did, though, since it would beat out her engagement for the front page.
The roles we’ve been playing for years: America’s pop-rock princess and the charming fuckup you can’t help but watch. Ten years and they never seem to get sick of it.
Garrett nods to the bartender and ushers me out, lifting his suit jacket like a cape to shield us from the flashing lights of camera-wielding paparazzi, and into the back seat of a town car.
“How much did you pay him?” I cock my head back toward the bar and instantly regret it as my head throbs.
“Don’t talk about money. That’s tacky.”
All right, then. No doubt he’ll bill me later.
“You sound ridiculous.”
“I sound like someone with tact.”
“Tact. Is that what you call the stick up your ass these days?”
His jaw ticks, but otherwise he’s calm as a lake, which only itches at me more. How can he just sit there and act like this isn’t a big deal? Fucking do something, Garrett.
“You knew this would happen eventually. If it wasn’t him, it would be someone else.” He rests his head on the black leather seat and closes his eyes. “There’s no need to be a sore loser.”
“It’s not a competition.”
“Then stop pouting like you’ve come in last place.”
“She doesn’t give a damn about him. You know that.” It’s fucking plain as day. He has to see it.
“Maybe you don’t know her as well as you think you do.”
“I know her better than I know myself,” I yell, launching the words at him with the force of all the frustration boiling in my gut, but he doesn’t even flinch. “I’ve seen them. He’s just a guy. She couldn’t give less of a shit about him.”
How do I know? Because no matter how much she hates me, she’s still my fucking wife.
“Last I checked, she doesn’t give a shit about you either.”
The truth that rings through the comment shuts me right up for the rest of the drive to my place in Chelsea.
I want to tell him he doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.
But just last week Avery was asked about my newest album, and she asked the interviewer, “I’m sorry.
Why do you think I’d have an opinion on music that relies on the same tired chord progression and overly dramatic metaphors he always uses? ”
Honestly, all I got from her response was that she’s still listening to my music.
They’re always asking us about each other, since that first major show in Vegas when we were barely more than kids.
Back then they wanted to know if we were together.
Now they’re desperate for a crumb of what caused our fallout but settle for whatever vitriolic attention grabbing headline they can cobble together.
When we arrive, the car jerks to a stop. I dart past the ever-present paparazzi and go up to my apartment.
I fumble with my keys, my fingers struggling to select the right one. The last few hours have drained me entirely. At last, I slot the key into the lock and push through the front door.
Lights are on in the living room, even though I could have sworn I turned them off. But it’s not like I’ve been all that present today. My keys jingle as I toss them into the ceramic dish on the entryway table.
It was stupid to come to this apartment when I have other places in the city, but it’s the last place she woke up next to me.
I swear the woody amber notes of her perfume still cling to the art adorned walls.
And if I listen hard enough, there’s a faint meandering humming of a song yet to be written, the lingering effects of the alcohol and the ringing in my ears playing a cruel trick.
There I go blaming the alcohol as if I wasn’t the one who tried drowning in it.
Maybe she did choose the right guy, one who isn’t the punchline of some cosmic joke.
The man everyone claims to want, but only for a night.
To possess and toss to the side, destined to become proof that they used to be young and fun before settling down with someone worth committing to.
I walk toward the lights of the living room. As I get closer, the humming gets louder. A dissonant siren song.
Reaching the threshold, I pause, because if I step into the room the vision of her might disappear.
Red lips. Red hair. Red. Red. Red.
Red has always belonged to Avery. The flecked dried crimson of scraped knees from the first time she fell off a horse. Glowing embers coaxed back to life. Ruby lipstick smeared on my mouth in a bar bathroom.
In all its shades, it’s her.
It’s tricky to love someone whose essence is so vast you see them in a fucking primary color. I can go about my day, not thinking of her or us or all the regrets that press against my ribs, and then I’ll be caught at a stoplight. A sea of red. Brake lights flaring.
I remember it now with her sitting on my couch, cherry hair draped over the straps of the dress she got engaged in. The slit displays a flash of moonlit porcelain skin.
“I was starting to wonder if you were ever coming home.”