Chapter 51
"Silver Spring," Fleetwood Mac
Cruz
The pounding on my door was loud enough to hear through my headphones. Fuck, I couldn’t hide out from my tenants … even if I never want to leave my tiny basement apartment again. Aside from taking out the trash, I’d barely left since last night.
Pausing the song, I stumbled to the door on pins and needles, expecting a tenant with a clogged toilet.
Kate stood with her hands on her hips and worry on her face. Goddammit, I should have pretended not to be home. I’d canceled class because I wanted to be left alone … but I guess that was too much to ask.
“So you are alive,” Kate said. I turned around without speaking, pulling on my headphones and faceplanting onto my lumpy queen mattress.
“Worse than I thought,” she muttered. I turned up the volume to let Stevie Nicks rasp in my ears, questioning if it all was worth it, then flipped over to pick up my guitar and strum along.
The headphones’ silicon caress harmonized with my heartbreak about falling in love with somebody who refused to love you back.
Kate sat on the bed beside me. “Want to talk about it?”
Of course I didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t even want to think about it.
Didn’t want to remember the numbness of watching her car drive away. Walking into our building and finding a manila envelope on my desk in the superintendent’s office. A thank you card stacked neatly with my name in her efficient handwriting.
Dear Cruz,
I’m sorry our time together has to end so abruptly. The moments we shared were precious, and the imprint you made on my life is indelible. You have been my rock, my confidant, and my closest friend … so you understand why I regretfully have to leave.
Please accept this token of my appreciation.
Fondly,
Victoria S. Blackstone
I don’t know how long I’d stared at her letter before I pressed my fingertips to my temples, fighting off the tension headache.
‘Fondly,’ she’d written.
I was fucking in love with her. Yet she left with six hours’ notice, already looking back fondly.
With shaking hands, I unclasped the envelope … and a key fell out. What the fuck had she done?
I’d carefully slid her handwritten card and the paperwork back inside that awful manila envelope and walked down to my basement apartment, dropping the envelope on my kitchen table and climbing into bed.
I’d called Mama, cancelled classes indefinitely, then put on my headphones to block out the world …
yet there was only one song that captured the absolute devastation of being in love with somebody who’d already moved on.
Kate unplugged the headphones so Stevie’s voice echoed through my phone speaker, promising and threatening her voice would follow forever, that the memories of her would be inescapable.
“Interesting choice.” Kate leaned her head on my shoulder. “As far as heartbreaking Fleetwood Mac songs go, I would have expected the shattered illusions of love in ‘Gold Dust Woman.’”
She was trying to incite an argument, but I didn’t rise to the bait, no energy to fight. She pressed her song choice and we listened in silence. When it ended, she whispered, “That song got me through losing Nick.”
I stiffened, tilting to try to see her face, but she stayed curled up on my side, staring out my tiny basement window. I leaned back on my pillow and wrapped an arm around her shoulder instead. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Didn’t want to relive the heartbreak all over again. If it makes you feel better, I didn’t tell Mallory until April.” My jaw dropped, and she ran a hand over her face. “She gave me the silent treatment for two weeks.”
“For fucking her brother?”
“No, she didn’t care about that,” she said. “For keeping the secret for six years. Only telling her after Grace asked me to be a bridesmaid.”
“Oh shit,” I murmured, remembering that Nick was Alex’s Best Man.
“Yeah, at the engagement party in September I’m seeing him for the first time in seven years. Do you think you’ll still go?”
My stomach twisted like an Olympic diver. I was only invited as Victoria’s plus one … Alex didn’t like me enough to invite me without her. Yet another thing I’d lost. “Probably not.”
“Yeah,” she said with a shaky nod. “Paul’s coming. Hopefully that will stop me from doing something stupid, like throwing myself at a movie star.”
“You still … I mean, what happened to ‘Big dick, bigger ego’?” I asked. I’d been wondering since my birthday, when I video chatted with Nick—he’d seemed down to earth, not egotistical—but hadn’t had the right opportunity to bring it up.
“He was always a talented actor, and finally Hollywood noticed. He got an offer he couldn’t refuse.
My heart was collateral damage,” she shrugged, but I could tell it was eating her up.
“I avoided The Twelve for nearly two years. Didn’t watch a single episode until my dad turned it on at his house.
I’d been dreading it, you know, not wanting to see Nick be so successful …
but then once I watched, I realized the worst part: I couldn’t even be pissed at him, not really.
He was following his dream, doing what he loved.
What he was born to do. Even though he broke my heart, I’m so fucking proud of him. ”
“I think … I think I know how you feel,” I said in a raspy voice.
“I’m sorry to welcome you to this shitty club,” she said, leaning her head against my shoulder again. “But I don’t want you to go through two years of avoiding her, which is why I’m here for immersion therapy.”
I groaned, pulling the blanket over my head. She tugged it back off. “We’re going to live stream Victoria’s press conference, so you can be goddamn proud of her for doing what she was born to do. Then we can watch the episode of The Twelve where Apollo chases Daphne. Deal?”
My chest ached at the plan to watch Victoria step into her new position … but at least I’d have Kate at my side commiserating. “Deal.”