Chapter 23 Barcelona, Spain #4
Exhausted, I tell him, “If you ended up accidentally feeling something during this fucking hustle, this emotional shakedown—if you’re capable of being ‘real,’ which I doubt, since everything about you is tailored to fit the audience and always has been—I don’t care.
I have nothing else to give. You got what you wanted and played the game well, honeybee.
” I hop off the bottom step, onto the lobby tile.
“And as for you ‘not giving up’?” I call over my shoulder. “It isn’t your choice.”
At the paddock, in the darkness of the motor home’s bedroom, Priya’s voice is quiet over the background of night-bird song from the white noise sleep machine.
“I know you said you don’t want to talk about it—”
“And I don’t.”
She pauses, then sighs. “Right. But you’re not sleeping, and Dagna’s gonna be in here barking at us like a drill sergeant in five hours and it’s already after midnight, so technically it’s race day and…
” She rolls on her side toward me. “Maybe talking about it a teeny smidge would give you some comfort.”
I roll to face her, mashing and punching my pillow until it’s right, then settling.
“He said he didn’t do it, which is a total lie.
I told him we’re done, and meant it. End of story.
Good night.” I close my eyes, shutting out the blue-green shimmer the sleep machine is projecting onto the ceiling, then open them again after a few seconds.
“And if you want to help, you’ll let me switch this to ‘autumn rainstorm.’ The bird one isn’t relaxing.
Hearing a bunch of fuckin’ owls and loons makes me feel like I’m in a haunted house. ”
“Okay, but the rainstorm one has those cracks of thunder and it wakes me back up.”
I sigh. “Frog pond?”
“Frogs are funny. Funny isn’t conducive to sleep. How about ‘mountain stream’?”
“That trickling just makes me need to pee.”
Priya laughs, and I smile automatically because the sound of her laugh is actually the best “noise machine”—I feel so at home. I reach for her hand and we clasp.
“Well,” she says with amusement, “we can’t do ‘grandfather clock,’ because ever since that time you said it makes you think of your own mortality, it creeps me out. How ’bout ‘breeze in the branches’?”
“That works. Done.”
She rolls away to change the noise machine and then comes back and takes my hand again and I just love her so fucking much.
“You know you’re perfect, right?” I tell her.
“And you’re perfectly imperfect,” she returns.
It’s something we’ve said since we were teenagers, and my shoulders relax into the mashed pillow and for a few seconds my heart doesn’t hurt, but then the pain comes right back.
I can see Alexander’s red eyes, his shock and grief and the way there was a hopeless silence after I told him, You’re wasting your breath.
How bad I wanted him to say something—anything—that would make it all right.
As if she can hear my thoughts, Priya asks, “So, what was his defense when he denied it? How’d he explain the pic of him with CJ Ardley?”
“He claimed he was playing along with her. That she wanted him to get incriminating gossip from me, and he told her he would, but only to protect me. And he said he isn’t the only person who could’ve known the stuff about Thailand, because Jules might’ve said something in a therapy session and an employee or another patient sold CJ those details. ”
She squeezes my fingers. “I actually thought the same thing after you left. It’s not impossible that some unethical A-hole who works there tips off the tabloids about famous patients.
And since Julian sent us a letter, another patient could’ve sent the info to someone on the outside.
” Her thumb moves restlessly on my knuckles. “Maybe consider that.”
“Jesus, Pri. Why would you make this harder for me by defending him?” I groan. “I thought you couldn’t stand the guy. Aren’t you glad I’m dumping him? Or has falling in love with Jules made you all mushy?”
“I’ve always been mushy. And yeah, I haven’t been a fan of Alexander. But this is like being on a jury, right? Maybe the defendant is a jerk, but you still have to admit it if there’s a possible alternate explanation. Reasonable doubt.”
I make an impatient growling noise. “You’re just confusing me.”
“It’s worth talking to him once you cool off. The guy seemed to be—”
“Oh, fuck me… you too? He was all, ‘Once your anger wanes, we must talk,’” I deliver in a mockingly posh accent, “and it’s just so patronizing.”
“You know I’m not like that. Don’t be unfair.
” Priya’s tone is impressively stern, and I’ve gotta admit I like the way she’s been sticking up for herself.
“But I know you, Sage. We talked about exactly this issue on the flight to Bahrain—the fact that someday your stubbornness and hotheadedness might trash a good relationship, and—”
“Tsk! Oh, and this is the ‘good relationship’ you were afraid I’d fuck up? Alexander fucking Laskaris, the shit-talking playboy? Yeah, okay.”
“Look, I hated the things he was writing about you, and I hated him for writing them. But I also thought it was possible, the explanation he gave you that the blog trash talk was just a clumsy bid to draw your attention. You know why I found it believable? Because you do that kind of stuff all the time yourself, taunting and pranking and hiding your feelings and intentions behind a bunch of sassy schoolyard mischief.”
I sit up on an elbow. “Pri!”
“Am I wrong?”
There’s a long pause, and I know my next line, because we use this Big Lebowski quote all the time to de-escalate when we’re on the verge of bickering. “You’re not wrong, Walter—you’re just an asshole,” I supply, collapsing back onto the pillow.
She hums a little chuckle. “Anyway, as far as my perspective goes, I’ll just say this: Julian is proof that someone can screw up and still be fundamentally good.
And seen from the outside, with no context, plenty of people would assume you’re a total jerk, but because I know you, I understand that a lot of your behavior is insecurity. Alexander might be—”
“What? I’m like the least insecure human on the planet!”
“That’s your disguise, but I know the real you.
And all the things you’ve told me about Alexander in the past month, he seems to have the same defenses, but a good heart.
I’ve had a few hours to think about it, really think about it, and…
he made you happy, Sage. Don’t walk away from this based on an assumption that might be wrong. You need more information first.”
“I won’t talk with him again,” I snap. “Ever.”
“You’d rather be alone than risk being wrong?”
“I’m not alone, honeybee. You know what lives in my heart?
Carbon fiber, steel, engine grease, E10 fuel, asphalt, rubber, and speed.
Not some cotton-candy love bullshit.” There’s a minute of silence as I listen to the sighing and tapping of recorded forest breeze.
“Also he’d never forget that when I confronted him, I said, ‘I hate you.’ Men don’t forgive that.
It’s too much of an ego punch. I called him a liar and said I hate him. ”
“Okay, but—”
“And remember how you told me, when we talked about all this on the flight to Bahrain, ‘Sometimes they don’t give you another chance’? This would definitely be one of those times.”
“Hmm. Did he say it back?”
“No! He just gave me a look like I’d incinerated his soul.” My chest drums out an arrhythmic ache at the memory. His soft, perfect lips, parted in disbelief. His smoke-gray eyes red and devastated. The scar on his eyebrow creasing as his forehead crumpled with pain.
Fuckity fucking fuck.
“Sage,” Priya says, just above a whisper. “Do you really believe in your heart that he could do that to you—betray you? That everything you guys shared was a lie? Because if you do, I won’t push you to have another conversation with him.”
The thing is… I don’t believe it in my heart. But I have to believe it in my head. Plus I’ve already ruined everything and I won’t go crawling back. I’m not meant for relationships; I never was. And Alexander was fucking warned.
Maybe it’s not even him I distrust, but… me.
I pull Priya’s hand to my face and kiss her knuckles before tucking her hand under my cheek like a security blanket.
“Thank you for understanding,” I tell her, doing my damnedest to sound both carefree and final. “I do appreciate your feedback. You’re the best.”
She makes a grumbly sound like she’s unconvinced, but lets it drop. As I feign drifting off to sleep, I can’t help thinking of my fake sneeze in the elevator with Alexander in Melbourne, and that Priya is a lot easier to fool than he is.
Unfortunately, there’s no fooling myself that I’m not heartbroken.
But it’s too fucking late.