Chapter 33
Graham
Vacationing alone, I’d decided, was an acquired skill. This realization hit as soon as I sat down to dine by myself at a restaurant my first night in Amsterdam.
I hadn’t been planning on taking a vacation, but after the spectacle from the Vogue cover and spread, and my last conversation with Lior, I’d barely left my house and was craving freedom and anonymity.
The Vogue attention was to be expected and I didn’t blame Lior for that drama. I’d brought it on myself and, from the emails I’d received the evening before – from both my agent and my editor – it was doing wonders for my book sales.
That coupled with the conversation had me feeling rattled and caged though. I was angry. And… I was scared. Was I willing to risk something that seemed so right? So destined? So Bronte two tail thumps approved?
So many times I’d had to stop myself from going to Lior’s house. But what would I say? I had set boundaries for myself for a reason. And while Lior was no Nadia, I knew what I could and couldn’t handle. I knew what I did and didn’t want in my life.
I needed to stand my ground. Honor what I felt. Take control of myself and my emotions. One slip and it’d be all over. Back to square one. Back to my bad habit of overlooking the red flags.
Not that any of it was an issue anymore. Because then the kicker came. The thing that pushed me over the edge and had me skimming my favorite vacation site for last-minute-trip ideas.
Per the accompanying article, Lior was on the Amalfi coast for an Armani campaign.
So much for moving on from modeling. A picture showed up in the papers with a bold “New Couple Alert?” headline.
In the photo was Lior and Colin Graydon, action star, romcom leading man, and newly minted dramatic actor that was rumored to be in the Oscar running for his portrayal of an alcoholic politician in his last film.
He was standing with Lior, his arm around her back. Sort of.
I tried to get a better look, enlarging the image on my screen. Was his arm actually around her body? It was hard to tell. I went to another site and the photo was there as well. Just as grainy. Clearly taken from a distance by an onlooker.
“Fuck,” I whispered, typing in the name of a popular social media page and then her name. Twenty-five thousand, two hundred and fifty-three mentions. Awesome. People were freaking out at the thought they were a couple.
I found a back-and-forth of people analyzing the photo.
“Is his arm really around her?”
“His arm is totally around her. Are you blind?”
“It’s such a sweet, respectful embrace.”
“I think he’s just reaching around her. See that drink at the edge of the photo? He’s totally reaching for it.”
I went back to the photo and looked for the mentioned drink. It was half out of frame. But it was there.
“Oh my god,” I said out loud and tossed my phone to the end of the bed. It bounced off and landed on the floor. I covered my face with a pillow.
This. This was the kind of drama I didn’t want.
The kind my exes had all encouraged, and had in fact thrived on.
I was convinced they subconsciously manifested it.
Or maybe even consciously. The consistency of it had been exhausting.
It had worn me down. I’d felt myself getting smaller and smaller until I was relegated into this little pocket of their lives, only good for photo ops I wasn’t in, merely acting as photographer as they posed with food, drinks, friends, and different beautiful views around whatever city we were in.
My only role became supportive boyfriend, which was a role I was happy to be in – until it became me supporting the weight of their needs, unending wants, and inflated egos.
It was a paparazzi photo that led me to the realization that my wife wasn’t on a girl’s trip like she’d claimed, but on a private yacht in the Mediterranean with the man she’d apparently been sleeping with for months.
Somehow the paparazzi caught wind of it and were able to get photos using a drone.
There was no is-his-arm-around-her-or-not questioning.
It was obvious they were together as she was straddling him, topless on a sun chair on the deck of the boat.
I hated the paparazzi. I hated what and who it made me question. Especially if they had it wrong. But there was no way of knowing for sure. Trust? Yeah… hard to do that when there were pictures making their denials outright lies.
I’d pulled the pillow from my face and put it behind my head.
In truth, I’d never once seen Lior encourage or fan the flames of her fame.
At least, not while I was around. She’d made a conscious effort to keep it at bay.
But did that matter? The truth was, she was famous.
Whether she encouraged the circus that sometimes happened or not, her fame was the issue.
My issue. And I had no business faulting her for doing her job well and being beloved for it.
It went hand-in-hand with the job and her level of success.
Lior wasn’t the problem. I was.
“Fuck,” I’d whispered.
And so, with the picture of Lior and Colin Graydon burned into my brain, I’d decided it was finally time for that vacation I was always saying I was going to take.
If I could just get past the dinners out alone, I figured I’d be okay.
I glanced at the families and couples sitting around me, laughing and talking over shared meals and drinks sparkling under the overhead lights.
There was an older man and woman one table over, sharing that secret sort of smile one shares with a lover.
I imagined what Lior might say if she were here.
If she’d notice the elegance of the couple.
Or maybe the woman’s beautiful sapphire-colored dress and how she kept touching her ear.
A nervous habit? Were they on a first date?
I looked at the empty chair across from me, wishing Lior were there. Missing her messy buns and stained sweatshirts. But before I got too deep into my feelings, I recalled the image in the newspaper and was immediately angry.
“You can run, but you can’t hide,” I whispered and raised my hand to the waiter to indicate I needed another drink.
My first therapy appointment was at four p.m. on my third day in Amsterdam, where I’d been meandering the streets, staring down canals, marveling at the picturesque city that at once felt large but quaint, and taking pictures of all of it.
I’d seen sunrises from bridges while drinking my morning cappuccino, and sunsets while enjoying a beer from one of the many pubs.
I’d found the therapist, Novi, through a friend of a friend when joking over text that I’d be in Amsterdam and if they knew of anyone I could see while I was there to let me know.
And now here I was.
“What brings you to me today?” she asked in a beautiful accent.
I had low expectations that I could be healed in the few sessions I’d set up, but it was a step in the right direction and, if I felt it was helping, I’d find a therapist in Brooklyn to continue my self-help journey.
Novi looked to be around my stepmother’s age and had a no-nonsense feel to her as she waited for me to answer the question.
“I’m taking a solo vacation. A me-only vacation. I thought bike rides through fields of tulips and drinking bottles of wine by myself could only be enhanced with a side of therapy.”
The pleasant smile on her face didn’t move. Maybe humor was frowned upon in Amsterdam.
“I think I’m addicted to narcissists,” I said.
She nodded and her smile transformed into something I recognized. Empathetic. I inhaled and let the breath out slowly, my body sinking into the sofa I was seated on. I suddenly felt less alone. She’d heard this tale before.
“Narcissists usually have a few stand-out traits,” she said. “They are very charming. They love to talk about themselves and their accomplishments. They need a lot of praise, aren’t very empathetic, and don’t usually have a lot of long-term friends.”
She had ticked each point off on her fingers and I had nodded along as she stated each one.
“I assume some if not all of that resonates by the way you’ve been nodding your head?” she asked.
“You assume right.”
“And you’ve found yourself with people like this… more than once?”
“Three times. The only women I’ve been in serious relationships with have had those traits.”
“So then we need to ask the question… why do you think you’re choosing to be with people with those traits?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I had a great childhood but I was never particularly confident and really quite shy, preferring books and movies to socializing.
I was a good-looking kid, but because I was shy I didn’t respond in kind to female attention and I started to get labeled as weird.
And then gay. And then a dork. And then a loser.
But during my junior year of high school I found a love of three things: running, working out…
and Elizabeth Bristol. She was on the school’s gymnastics team and often in the gym in the mornings.
She started talking to me and I was hooked.
She drew me in, asked questions about me, seemed interested as I prattled on about the book I was reading, asked what I’d thought at the time were insightful questions, and made me feel seen.
Finally. I blossomed under her attentions. ”
“Did something happen?” Novi asked.
“She wanted all my time. I didn’t realize it at first, but I was suddenly abandoning books for gymnastics meets and movie outings with my parents to do whatever she wanted to do.”
“That’s not out of the norm when you get in a relationship though. Making sacrifices is something we all do.”
“True but… this was different. I even knew it then, but she had a way of pulling me back in when I started to retreat.”
“She was a snake charmer,” Novi said.
“Indeed.”
“And how did you feel when her attention was on you?”
“Seen. Special. Popular.”
“And those things were important to you why?”
“Because I’d never felt those things by my peers and it felt good.”
“And then what happened?”
“She started having excuses as to why she couldn’t hang out with me. And then I’d find out she’d been hanging out with other friends. Other guys.”
“And that made you feel?”
“Hollow.”
“Who broke up with whom?”
“She dumped me after four months. I was crushed and didn’t date anyone again until college.”
She made a note and then looked back up at me. “And what was she like?”
“Elizabeth 2.0. She strung me along for two years.”
“She strung you along? Or you hung on?”
I was silent. Fuck.
My experiences with both were nearly identical and it was embarrassing to realize my compliance. My desperation. My basement-level self-worth and the way I’d sought the high I’d gotten from the beginning days of the relationship. The attention and love and feeling of being seen.
But Nadia had been the master. And now I could see it so clearly. The way they’d seen not me, but my weakness.
And sure, what they’d done wasn’t okay by any means, but the truth of the matter was, they weren’t to blame for me staying in relationships that weren’t healthy.
I was.
I went back to my hotel room after and laid on the bed, staring at the ceiling, thoughts circling my mind as I revisited the things Novi had said and asked in our session.
My alarm sounded and I turned it off and lay for a moment more before swinging my legs over the side of the bed and grabbing my laptop.
My article for Around the Neighborhood was due the following day and I needed to finish it up and send it.
But when I opened the document – my eyes skimming the paragraphs I’d written the day before about a new brunch spot with a great selection of vegan pastries – I found my usual enthusiasm for finding little gems like this lacking.
My finger wandered to my email app and I clicked it, then opened an email my editor at the newspaper had sent a week ago. Subject line: The city demands an update.
I rubbed my eyes and then scrolled down to the screenshots she’d attached.
Image after image of emails readers had sent to the paper.
To me. Accumulated over the past couple months ever since the incident in the park with Lior.
Apparently people were invested. They wanted to know if I’d seen the woman again.
If perhaps she’d seen the article and emailed me an apology.
If she knew about B’s passing. If I could describe her so people could be on the lookout.
In my mind, I pictured her that day, seeing now what I hadn’t seen then. The looks of confusion, anger, and angst like a kaleidoscope on her pretty face, changing as some invisible hand turned and turned.
I stared at the article nearly done. Nearly ready to read over and send off.
And then I opened a new document and started anew.
Not for my readers… but for me. And for Lior.
Maybe we’d never talk again, but in case she still read my articles, at least she’d know I was sorry.
She’d know that I’d seen how I’d failed both of us by giving up before even giving us a chance.
Lowering my hands to the keyboard, I began to type.
“Sometimes, friends, shit happens.”