Chapter 27 #2
“Throw me the snorkel.” His voice echoes off the tree-covered rocks as he swims toward me.
“What have you lost?” I ask, throwing it into the aqua-green water.
“The ring.” He waves his hand furiously at me.
The platinum Tiffany ring is no longer visible on his right hand. He quickly shoves the snorkel on and dives back under.
So much for a quiet romantic evening.
“I can’t find it,” he says when he comes up for air a third time. He swims toward me, climbs out and removes the snorkel. “Can you look?” he asks, passing it to me.
“It’s just a ring. Don’t worry about it.”
I fling the snorkel down, unfazed by the issue and not wanting to ruin the evening. If I reacted that way every time I lost something, I’d have had a hundred heart attacks by now.
“That’s easy for you to say,” Christopher snaps back, retrieving the snorkel. “Not all of us have the luxury of being able to replace whatever we lose.”
His words land a blow to my chest as he jumps back in the water, drifting back toward the bottom and searching the coral.
How dare he. I’ve worked my ass off to get where I am today.
I came from nothing. We lived off hot dogs and whatever coupon offers my parents could find in the free newspapers and magazines delivered to the house for years before my life changed.
I grab the other snorkel and jump in, diving down to scour the coral near where Christopher dove off the diving board. I harness the anger pumping through my veins to hyper-focus my eyes.
I catch a little glimmer and notice the ring, caught between two pieces of coral, barely visible. I push myself down deeper, moving the school of fish swimming nearby, and pull the ring out before signaling to Christopher and returning to the deck.
Christopher climbs out behind me and reaches for it.
“Thank you.”
“Not so fast,” I say, pulling the ring away from him. “What did you mean, luxury?”
In the past, I would have swallowed my anger down and let it fester, but Lee has given me the courage to express myself. I don’t keep everything bottled up inside anymore, which has actually helped reduce my cravings greatly.
“It was nothing,” he says, trying to bat the comment away.
“No, tell me,” I say, sliding the ring into my pocket before crossing my arms.
“This.” His arms swing wide to indicate the empty lagoon. “Whatever you want you can have. You want this place to yourself, you can pay for it. You lose that ring, you can replace it. That’s not how things work in the real world.”
If I wasn’t so infuriated by his remarks, I’d be disappointed.
“Don’t you think I want to live in the real world?
” I say, removing the snorkel from my head and throwing it down.
“Don’t you think I want to go on holiday with my boyfriend and not have people stop to ask me for photos.
To be able to go around like a regular tourist and not have to hide away at some ridiculously expensive resort, or hire out a lagoon, just so I can have some privacy? ”
My chest rises and falls in quick succession as Christopher steps toward me.
“This,” I say, pulling the ring from my pocket. “It means nothing to me.”
I throw it back into the lagoon. Christopher’s face is aghast.
“Only you do.”
“Why would you do that?” His eyes track the ring down into the water.
“Because material things don’t matter.” I take two steps toward him and our toes touch.
“If I’ve learned anything since I became famous, it’s that all the money in the world, all the fame, all the things I can afford, won’t make you happy.
It’s what’s in here that will.” I poke his chest with my finger.
Christopher’s shoulders drop as his gaze finds our feet.
“I just feel like I don’t belong here. Like this world you live in doesn’t feel real.”
I reach for his chin and lift his head up so his eyes meet mine.
“Welcome to the club. Every day I look around, feeling like an impostor. Like I don’t fit in. Like one day it’s all going to be taken away from me and I’ll be back to cutting coupons out of magazines to get by.”
Christopher’s eyes widen.
“I thought you were joking about that. That you were trying to be like Jennifer Lopez and pretend you were real, like you were from the block.”
He goes to laugh, but I reach for his hand and squeeze it.
“There were weeks on end where it was eggs, hot dogs, or whatever the latest coupon provided. That’s why I will never eat another pop tart as long as I live.”
“Because you are one?” Christopher says winking at me.
“I prefer pop slut, but fine,” I say as we both let out a laugh.
“I’m sorry I never truly realized,” he says, squeezing my hand. “I just assumed after Thanksgiving that you wanted to help out the homeless shelters and what you shared with me was to make you look more relatable.”
“Next time, before you assume, maybe double check.”
The anger in my chest begins to subside, but flickers of frustration continue to course through my veins that he’s assuming things about me without clarifying.
“I didn’t mean to, I just thought you didn’t care about the ring, about spending money.”
“I do care, just not about materialism.” My tone softens as I notice a firefly starting to flicker above my head. “If you want another ring, let me get you one from the man at the stood where we parked the motorbike.” I hold his hands in mine as more fireflies begin to light up the night around us.
“Okay,” he says, squeezing my hands tightly as he leans in to kiss me.
When he pulls back, his eyes widen in awe as he notices what’s above us.
“Look at them.”
I hadn’t planned on my first tattoo being done in the Philippines.
But as we drove back on the motorbike from the lagoon to the resort, my hands wrapped around Christopher’s stomach as the moon lit the road we were on, I wanted to mark the moment.
To close out the year. To remind myself of everything I’ve been through, but also of everything that’s coming.
“Are you sure this isn’t a stupid idea?” Christopher asks as I look down at my ankles in the mirror.
Christopher is lying face down on the bed, with the tattooist holding Christopher’s leg. The sound of the tattoo gun buzzes away near his ankle.
“Yes, I’m sure,” I say back.
Somehow, the resort receptionist managed to convince the tattoo artist to reopen his store for us when I came up with the idea of matching tattoos.
I wanted something small I could easily hide, but something meaningful too.
I liked the idea of a wave, but Christopher quickly shut that down.
He instead suggested an anchor on my ankle, in tribute to my song My Anchor.
I instantly loved it, and once I had it done, I automatically wanted another, this time choosing to get music symbols on the bottom of my leg, tying my music career into my life with each symbol.
Rewind to remember the good times.
Stop being so hard on myself.
Pause a moment to take everything in.
Press play on life and live in the moment.
Fast forward through the bad times.
The buzz of the tattoo gun stops, and the tattooist removes his gloves as I head back to Christopher, who lifts himself upward from the tattoo bed.
“What do you think?” the tattooist asks, handing Christopher the mirror.
“I love it. But my mum’s gonna kill me.”
“Come on. It’s your own body. You’re not a child, you’re twenty-seven. You can make your own decisions,” I say.
My focus flits between his anchor tattoo and the wall, covered in photos of people’s tattoos. I wonder if I should get a third one as the tattooist wraps clingfilm around Christopher’s ankle, but push away the idea.
I pay, thank the tattooist, and we make our way outside. ABBA’s Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! blares out from the bar opposite. We’re mere minutes away from midnight and the new year.
I turn to Christopher, who unlocks the bike seat to retrieve our helmets, and my chest immediately tightens, thinking about the question I’ve been wanting to ask him all week. I take a deep breath as he hands me my helmet, causing him to pause.
“There’s one thing I’ve been meaning to ask you,” I say.
Christopher starts to put his helmet on but stops.
“Yeah?” There’s hesitation in his tone.
The beeping sound of a motor bike startles me when it zooms past. My lackadaisical approach to safety here has nearly resulted in me being run over on more than one occasion during this trip.
I cough to clear my throat and continue.
“When we get back, I was wondering if you wanted to make our temporary living arrangement more permanent.”
My heart starts to pulsate faster than the beat of the Killer’s Mr. Brightside, which is now playing from the bar. Christopher’s hazel eyes stare back at me in shock.
The awkward silence between us forces me to pull in another deep breath and continue once more.
“You said you didn’t want to return to your apartment. That it has too many bad memories associated with it. That it’d be too expensive to live in on your own. So why not move in permanently? Not for me, but to make things easier for yourself.”
It’s of course a lie. I want him to stay for me, but I’ve worked out that framing it as being for him is an easier sell. The shock on his face finally gives way to a smile, and he closes the gap between us, lowering the helmet to his side.
“I will on one condition.” The right side of his mouth lifts.
“Name it.”
I’ll do anything to make this happen.
Christopher lets out a snoring sound.
“You’ll go to the doctor and fix your septum.”