4. Nate
Iflip over the Polaroid that’s in my hands, the edges seeming to slice the tender skin ofmy fingers, at the same time, my eyes burn into the picture of Addy, and how her lips are stuck to someone else’s. A mouth that isn’t mine.
My heart feels like it’s speeding down the freeway, with no intention of slowing down. My earsthump, turning red and numb within seconds, the only sound breaking through being the car horn outside. Most likely my dad trying to hurry me, after complaining all morning that if we don’t beat the traffic, we’ll never make it to Stanford before sunset.
But I needed one last reminder. One last look at the reason why I’ll never see Addy again.
Why I never want to.
As I’m staring off into the picture, my eyes getting lost in Addy’s hair, an alarm starts tosound. Repetitive and incessant. But through the beeping, I hear her enter the bedroom. I can tell by the footsteps and how the soles of her ballet flats tap against the wood.
“As much as I don’t want you to leave, you’re dad’s asking for you.” I float around toface her. “I might just tell him I couldn’t find you, so we can have a few more minutes, just us.”
Right on cue, my vision fades red. Pure, transparent anger.
My head becomes a split screen, projecting the day I saw this right alongside the other half of my dream.
I saw this Polaroid two weeks ago. We’d been out on Sunfall, the pier we”d claimed as ours, the one built on theshoreline just past Topanga Beach, right in the middle of Malibu. We found it when we got the wrong bus home from Santa Monica one day. Tiredness had tracked us down and knocked us out for a good half hour before we woke and realised we were nowhere near our homes in Palm Springs.
That night we were there, just as the sky was turning pink, Addy went for one lastswim. But before she jumped off the pier and cannonballed into the water, her foot knocked over her bag, a dozen lip balms, a bottle of sunscreen and a paperback book fell out as she did. So did the Polaroid I’d never seen before, as it slipped from between the pages of her book.
It was a photo of her, and someone else… Kissing.
My dream becomes whole again, my bedroom taking up the darkness in my head, my hazy attention descending back onto Addy.
“What is this?” I ask, tossing the Polaroid at her feet.
She looks down at it, her neck angling, like she’s trying to convince me she’s never seen itin her life, before springing her head back up at me, a smile so sinister, yet so soft, creeping on her face.
“You know exactly what it is. You ask me this every night.” Her smile turns wicked. “Forso many years, you’ve asked this exact question. You know what I’m going to say, Nate.”
“Tell me again.” The beeping gets louder, urging me to lean forward so I don’t miss whatI know she’ll say next.
“I’ve fallen for him, Nate. I’m sorry.”
The sound that bursts from my mouth wakes me, a gasp, a scream, both combined, alongwith everything else that disturbs the only full night’s sleep I”ve had in a while. My eyes barely opened enough to take in my surroundings, the familiarity of my room blurred by the sun that was glaring through the window. The thumping of my heart, however used to it I am, still makes me panic, my hands frantically covering my chest and pulling at the sweat-soaked white tee I’d drifted off in.
My mind becomes a map, torn and battered, as I try to search my thoughts for what wascausing the attack. But it was empty, hollow and deserted. The thoughts in my head always seemed to be, the panic surging through my body was always physical before it had a meaning. The pounding heart, the breathless breaths, the nausea that swarmed… it comes without warning, without a reason, always has done.
Waking up frightened, like some invisible force was crushing me without anyexplanation, was just how I started my days.
The same beeps I’d heard in my dream were still bouncing off the walls, my back archingover to reach my phone and frantically tapping the screen a few times to get my alarm to shut up.
My shallow breaths were now the only noise disturbing the silence, on top of a few car horns,and the room went still. Groaning, I sit up straighter in my bed, stretching my legs and dragging my hands over my face, the sharp morning stubble scraping at them as I do.
My attention falls back on my heartbeat, unsteady and jagged and all the things thatwould scare any medical professional if they heard it. For me, though, it was the first step in my morning routine… regulating it. My head sunk into my hands, making room for airflow as I sucked in some precious breaths. I held it there, in my lungs, savouring the feeling, and thinking of something good, before blowing the air back out, repeating that process until it didn’t feel like my heart was about to break free from my body.
Once my eyes adjusted to the sunrise, I shifted my head to the window, absorbing theskyline I’ve woken up to nearly every morning for the past six years. I get lost in the skyscraper forest before leaning over to the bedside table and grabbing my journal and pen that are resting there.
Journaling was an essential part of my routine, no matter where I was. If I didn’t spillevery word that was cycling around my head onto the lined paper in front of me, they’d stay up there all day, and I wouldn’t focus on anything else.
Although, every page before the blank one I was staring at contained the same thing: adetailed retelling of the same dream I’d had nearly every night since I’d lived it.
It didn’t matter that I’d already recorded it; if I didn’t let out what was in my head, I’d spend the rest of the day driving myself crazy with it. Every detail. Every word. And given that today was the first day of rehearsals for ‘Forever and Always’, and that the woman I was dreaming about would be standing in front of me all day, I made sure to scribble on the page until it was full.
After breakfast had been eaten on the balcony, sitting there until the icy chill of thenew spring air that was lingering reached my bones, I went to get dressed, dropping a text to my driver to tell him to be outside the building in five. Grey sweatpants and a matching sweater was the outfit I”d mindlessly chosen, even though the second I’d arrive on set I’d be ushered straight to wardrobe. I loaded my backpack with the script I’d spent the night before highlighting, even though I was off script already, my journal (just in case), and other things I deemed necessary to survive the day.
I slipped on my shoes and headed for the door not long after, but as I reached it, a fewknocks came from the other side.I peered through the peephole, and after seeing my best friend on the other side, I swungit open without a second thought.
I licked the smile away from my mouth. “You do know it’s a Tuesday morning, don’t youhave a rom-com to be filming?” I asked, stepping out of the way for Jacob to stroll on in.
“I’ve got today off; thought I’d come to see you before you left.” he hummed. “I wouldhave stopped by later, but I promised Flo that I”d help her with the rush hour at the bakery.”
I closed the door behind him and followed his footsteps back down the hallway. “Ithought she’d already hired someone to cover the afternoon shift?”
“She did,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Turns out the girl she’d hired was just a tad bitobsessed with me. Made extremely clear by the millions of questions she’d ask Flo every shift, and not the normal ‘What’s he like?’ or ‘What’s his favourite colour?’ either. She also left her phone out behind the counter one day, and when Flo peeked at it, it showed a fan account called ‘itsjacobemerson’, which was an account purely dedicated to posting fan edits of me, as well as where I’d been spotted recently.” He collapsed his body down on the green couch, an almighty groan rattling the room. “It was all very dramatic.”
“Well,” I hum back, taking the seat beside him on the couch. “That was not what I wasexpecting.”
“I don’t think Flo was either. But I think she’s just excited that I get to bake with hertonight.” His smile was beaming brighter than the sun was as he said that. “How are you doing anyway?”
It was my turn to groan. “I’ve been better,” I admitted. One of the good things aboutJacob knowing what I was like was that we didn’t have to skate around how we were really feeling. If we felt like shit, we could talk about it.
“What time do you have to be there?” he asked, leaning forward and resting his elbowson his knees.
“Nine at the latest,” I said, resting my spine against the cushions behind me. “Do youthink they’d fire me if I called in sick?”
Rolling his eyes, he let out a breathy laugh. “Do I need to remind you who you are, NatePatricks?”
“No, but—”
“If you called in sick, they’d probably send a dozen ‘get well soon’ baskets and hold offfilming until you get better. Having Nate Patricks call in sick to their movie will be more important than not having him in it at all.”
“It freaks me out when you talk about me in the third person.”
“Calling in sick will only delay the inevitable, which means Nate Patricks—”
“Please stop.”
“—Will be sitting at home overthinking things. Things that he still hasn’t told me, butbecause I’m such a good friend, I don’t push him to tell me. So it will just be him, and his thoughts.” He leans his head toward me. “And you and I both know that that is worse than being fired.”
He was right. I hated that he was right. Leave me with no plans or job to do and I will justsit there, stacking up questions in my brain until I hypothetically explode.
“I have to go in.”
“Yes, you do. If you don’t, you’ll only work yourself up about it. It’s the band-aid thing,rip it off quick, and you won’t feel a thing.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Well, you might feel things, but what I’m saying is—”
“I know, if I don’t do it now, it’ll only hurt more when I eventually see her.”
“Exactly.” Sighing, he stretches his legs to stand up. “And it’s Addy. Just Addy. She’s oneof our closest friends. You’ll both be fine.”
I highly, highly doubt that. Like he said, he didn’t know the reason why we were like thisin the first place.
“You got through the table read fine, right?”
Barely.
“Yeah, I guess we did.” I hadn’t realised how twitchy my hands had gotten since she became the topic of our conversation. I hadto stand up. Do something. “I’m sure we”ll be fine.” I lied, standing up to meet him and clasping our hands together, pulling us into a shoulder hug. “See you later, J.”
“Stop by the bakery, if you’re up for it.”
“Sure thing.”
I showed him out a minute later, giving myself a moment alone before I left, too.
And although Jacob was right, about things probably being okay today, I couldn’t shakethe feeling that things were about to get a whole lot worse, before they ever started to feel normal again.
“Normal.”I laughed to myself.
Like I knew what normal felt like.