Chapter 19 #2
It was that damn magazine’s fault. We had been doing fine before. We didn’t need the boost. We were already near capacity, but Danny was thinking bigger, playing around with the idea of expanding. To what? Another location? Franchises?
I slapped the water angrily. I needed another outlet to calm my nerves.
My mind stupidly went to a method I hadn’t tried, which ironically, Danny had also recommended: a man.
You need to get laid, Rox, he’d said, before he’d known what was really going on.
While that may have been true, and I had the means—in the form of my ex, Spencer—the thought of letting him back into my life and between my legs made me want to hurl, especially after the mess he’d made with the magazine.
I hadn’t found out about it until the feature was in print, but he must have known one of the editors or writers because in my biography, there for all to see, was a picture of the two of us from the sheriff’s ball we’d attended a couple of years prior, with the tagline, “As of the date of this article, Araxia Arevin has been in a relationship with another local celebrity, Spencer Hathaway, son of Sheriff Hathaway.”
Spencer and I’d had no communication since before my mom had passed. His number remained blocked in my phone. I hadn’t seen him again since before my mother passed. In a small town, it was quite a feat—and a blessing.
He was around though, and if I really were desperate enough, I could have called him. Only… I didn’t want to, not just because Spencer was an asshole but because I couldn’t let myself go down that rabbit hole again, not with him. Not with anyone. It’d be a temporary fix, not a long-term solution.
Staring at my reflection as I dried off, I saw a shell of a person, grossly skinny and pale.
My cheekbones protruded out of my face, and I had no color left in my lips.
There was no other way to say it: I was well on my way to looking like a corpse.
I picked up my phone and scrolled through my messages until I clicked on the one I was looking for.
A single text from me sat underneath the picture.
Hi Drake, I hope you’re well. I kind of miss you guys. Tell Eleni and the others I said hello.
Sent a few weeks after I got back, it had gone unanswered.
I enlarged the photograph of Drake and me.
I’d forgotten how handsome he was, but more so, I looked at the person standing beside him.
I’d forgotten about her too. She had vanished.
As I compared the Arax in the photo with the girl in the mirror, it was scary how different I looked and felt.
I sighed and rereading the text, felt a lump forming in my throat at the likelihood I’d never see Drake or…
anyone else from that week, ever again. At least I had Drake’s picture, but the other, I had no photograph of him, no reminder of his dark, angry eyes that drowned both of us in their yearning, and the long, luxurious hair that curled just so around his shoulders, begging to be parted with my fingers.
I’d made fun of it then, but to feel the softness of those thick black strands lightly brushing my arms would have been a sweet parting gift.
His image was more real to me than anything I could touch or taste. The memory of him was so tangible that when I thought of him and breathed, I smelled only snow and fresh, wet earth of winter’s end.
I sighed again and put the phone face down on the counter. A memory, that’s all he would ever be.
Dressed in my pajamas, I went through the motions of eating dinner, then took myself to bed.
I passed by what used to be my mother’s room.
With Danny’s help, I’d converted it to an office.
I had grown accustomed to the solitude during the day, but nighttime was a foe I couldn’t defeat.
I lay in bed with my eyes open. I was usually afraid of sleep, but tonight I had a lot on my mind.
I thought about my school. Danny was seeing the future.
He wanted to take the next step. The article had done more than just get the word out locally.
After it was printed, the county paper picked up the story and reran it in their Arts but not me.. I loved music, and I loved my school and teaching, but the truth was if more students and more success meant I’d be living in Spruce Grove indefinitely, then it was not for me.
I had brought my mother and myself here to heal from our traumas.
She had been my anchor here. With her gone, I had little reason to stay.
How I was feeling made me sick to my stomach.
Danny would hate me for abandoning him when we were on the verge of something great.
However, I needed a change. What that change was, I couldn’t ascertain, but whatever it was, I knew I wasn’t going to find it here.
I drew the blankets over my head, wishing it were morning, but eventually I let myself be taken over by sleep and crossed the gates into the land of nightmares.
Danny ramped up his quest to figure out what to do with the school.
I’d stubbornly vetoed auditioning new students, so he had been meeting with realtors who took him to different sites, not in Spruce Grove but in nearby towns.
He wanted to hold on to our current location but proposed redesigning it into a satellite office.
I stepped it up too, as promised. I taught more frequently, hoping to get some of the spark back.
I was aware it wasn’t going to happen overnight, but about a month had passed since I’d told him about my dreams returning, and yet I was the same.
I did my best to get excited about what could be on the horizon.
I wanted to be there for Danny and my students.
I was standing behind the counter in the lobby of the studio, flipping through one of the brochures for a potential new site, when Danny furiously pushed the front doors aside and came trampling into the lobby.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, rarely seeing him so upset.
“Deal fell through,” he muttered, throwing his crossbody on a chair and himself onto the one next to it.
“Oh no, why?”
“They wouldn’t agree to some of the contingencies. If we took care of them ourselves, it would cost us more than the damn property is worth.”
If I felt relief, I didn’t show it. Danny had been too invested, crunching the numbers and trying to stay within budget. I couldn’t shit all over his efforts.
“Take a break, Danny. You’ve been at this for too long without one,” I said, trying to be comforting.
“We don’t have time for that, Arax,” he replied. “We needed a new place like yesterday.” He crossed his arms on the table and laid his head in the middle, visibly strained.
“I know, but we’ll make do for now. I’ll stay longer and take on some later appointments.
We’ll get there.” I went back to looking at the brochure, but when I lifted my head, I found his eyes on me, his chin tense and his jawline straight.
Fuck, how long had he been watching me? I was familiar with that look.
It wasn’t often I saw it, but it was a hard one to forget.
“You’re not the least bit concerned, are you?” he said quietly, it was the kind of quiet that sent shivers into my kidneys.
“I am.” I gulped, my saliva had suddenly become too thick to swallow.
He shook his head slowly. “No, you’re not. The Arax I knew would be losing her mind right now. I don’t know who this impostor is.” Danny waved his fingers in front of me. “But I am so fucking tired of her.”
I let out an exaggerated breath and closed my eyes, trying to remain levelheaded. I counted to ten, then went to twenty. “I’m not an impostor, Daniel. I’m me.”
He got up and paced, talking as he did. “When your mom passed, I couldn’t get you out of here. You worked yourself damn near to death, pardon the expression. You were having those dreams then too.”
“So?” I replied petulantly.
“So? So?” Danny walked up to me and rested his hands on the counter. “It isn’t your mom, and it isn’t the dreams, so I’m going to ask one more time, Arax, and you better give me a straight answer. What the fuck has gotten into you?”
I sighed, not knowing where to begin. I was being an awful friend and a horrible teacher, and I was wasting everyone’s time with my bullshit, including my own. Still, I couldn’t bear to let Danny down any more than I already had. I glanced at him. His expression hadn’t changed.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“An actual explanation, please,” he replied, not accepting my apology.
I chewed my lip, hard, almost breaking the skin, and said, my voice cracking under the pressure, “Danny, I think I might be ready to move on.”
He stayed quiet, expecting more. Deserving more.
“I… I…” I faltered a little but kept going. “I came to Spruce in search of a new life, especially for my mom. She’d been through so much, mostly because of me. I didn’t expect her to be gone so soon, but now that she has, I think it’s time I made something of myself, like Gwen.”
“Like Gwen…” he said. “And you thought, what? That I’d be too stupid to understand?”
“Wait, Danny. No, I never—”
“When Gwen moved on, was I mad? Jealous? Did I think she ditched us?” he asked, and I realized he wasn’t being rhetorical.
“Of course not,” I answered. “You were happy for her.”
“Right,” he hissed. “Right. Do you honestly think so little of me, Arax, to believe that I wouldn’t want the same for you? That I wouldn’t want you to be happy?”
“I just thought, to tell you right now, in the midst of everything…” I mumbled, not finishing my sentence.
“No, no,” he replied with a sneering laugh. “You don’t get to do that, not with me.”
I wiped away a couple of tears that had leaked out. “Do what?”
“You don’t get to use me as your crutch like you did with your mom.”
His statement had an immediate and prolific effect. My anger exploded. It was unfair of him to accuse me of such a thing. It made me feel small, as if I were worthless and scared.
“I did not use my mother as a crutch, you asshole! Fuck you for saying that!” I screamed, running out from behind the counter where I’d been… hiding. I stood in front of him, every bit of me shaking.
“There she is,” he smirked. “I don’t know when the last time was that I saw the real Arax, but I’ve missed her.”
“I can’t believe you said that,” I uttered, still in shock. “Did you do it on purpose to piss me off?”
“Yes, but I also meant it.”
I gaped at him open-mouthed. It was so unlike Danny to hit below the belt. He knew so much of my history. I never thought he’d use what I’d told him as ammunition against me.
“Close your mouth, Arax,” he said haughtily.
“You’ve carried a shit-ton of guilt about your mom and your whole family, and you’ve used that guilt to hold yourself back for years.
Now that your mom is gone, and with her, your excuses, you think I’m going to let you shift that guilt onto me so you can continue doing more of the same? Hell no.”
Where was all of this coming from? I asked myself. “What about you, huh?”
“What about me?”
I took a few steps until I was right in his face. “That is really rich, accusing me of using my mom as a crutch when you’ve been doing the same thing with your family all along as well! With that voice and your looks, you could be selling out arenas but look where you are!”
Danny blinked a couple of times but didn’t budge an inch from where he was.
“Who said I never wanted to move on, Arax? Hmm? Who said that? Unlike you, I’m happy where I am at the moment, and when the time comes, maybe I’ll be selling out arenas or maybe I’ll be married with a bunch of kids.
Who knows?” He waved his arms around at the studio.
“What do you think all of this is for? And who says I haven’t moved on? ”
“Have you?” I asked, confused.
“Not in the same way as you, but yes, I’ve got other things going on.”
“What things?”
“Nothing that concerns you right now,” he replied in a tone that said drop it. “Rox, you should have been honest with me. I would never pressure you into doing something you don’t want to do or staying somewhere you don’t want to be. I’m not that inconsiderate or selfish.”
Hearing the hurt in his voice had me looking down in shame. He wasn’t the inconsiderate one; I was—too preoccupied with hosting a pity party for myself and wallowing in my own misery to see how intolerable I’d become.
“So what now?” I asked.
“You tell me,” he replied. “Now that I know how you truly feel, what do you want to do?”
“I have no idea.” I laughed and gazed up at him. “I’m sorry, Danny. I’m a mess.”
He nodded. “Hot mess express, but I know you, and I know whatever has got you stuck inside that pretty head of yours is not permanent.” He leaned forward and hugged me and, in his embrace, a little bit of the emptiness I’d been dragging everywhere with me gained some substance.
I hugged him back, praying he didn’t see my tears as they fell onto his shoulder, soaking his shirt.
“Stop crying,” he said into my hair. “We’ll figure something out. We always do.”