Chapter 22 #3
I sit down next to her outstretched legs and she opens her arms to me.
I can’t do anything but collapse into them.
I’m emotionally and physically exhausted, but also completely wired from the coffee I drank on my long drive.
When I arrived at the airport I found that the only remaining flight that day back to Salt Lake City was fully booked, so instead I rented a car.
I’d called Sierra at the beginning of my drive, but it was a quick conversation because she was still at work.
The six hour drive home took far longer because of heavy snow in Idaho, which I’d had to navigate with my crappy compact rental car.
It was nothing like the comfortable drive back from Big Sky in Nate’s truck with him, Sierra, and Petra earlier this month.
And just like that, the memory of that drive—that time with Nate and my friends, when my whole life wasn’t imploding—has me in tears again, sobbing onto Sierra’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her after I get out most of my tears. I pull back, reaching for the box of tissues on my coffee table and wiping off my face before blowing my nose. “I’m so glad you’re here, but also I feel bad taking you away from Peter. Wasn’t he getting home from a business trip today?”
“Eh.” She shrugs. “I wanted to be here for you. Plus, Peter and I had a fight right when he got back, so it was nice to be able to give him some space to cool down. I talked to him a couple hours ago, things are fine now.”
“I’m so sorry, Sierra. What happened?”
“It’s not a big deal. Work has just been extra stressful for him lately, and he’s been extra snippy as a result. It’s like he takes his stress out on me, but he’s always super apologetic about it afterward.”
That doesn’t sound like a healthy pattern, but I don’t say that to Sierra because I’m sure she’s well aware. Instead, I ask, “Is there anything I can do?”
“No, but thank you,” she says, brushing her blond hair behind her shoulder. “I just wanted to make sure you got home safely and that you are okay.”
“I’m so far from okay. How did things between me and Nate get this messed up, this quickly?”
“Well since I didn’t even know you guys got back together until today, I’m not really sure.” There’s a justified note of bitterness in her voice.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It’s only been, I don’t know, a little over a week? Just since Alta Badia. There are so many reasons that we needed to keep it a secret . . .”
“Like Marco,” she asks, her eyes bugging out because, duh, she thinks I’m cheating on my boyfriend. How did that not even occur to me?
“Oh my God, Sierra, no.” I give her my most earnest face as I beg her, “Please don’t be mad, but Marco and I are just friends.”
“Wait.” She pauses. “Like this is a recent development? Or like you’ve only ever been friends?
” She works through this slowly, then narrows her big brown eyes at me.
I bite my lip in response and she just shakes her head.
It feels like forever before she says, “So you’ve been lying to me for a year? ”
“I’m so sorry, Sierra. It was a favor to Marco that just took on a life of its own. I didn’t want to lie to you, but I had to so I could protect him.”
“Protect him from what?”
I take a deep breath. “Sierra, you are like a sister to me. You’ve been my best friend since we were little kids. And I’ve hated lying to you even if it was to protect my other best friend. And so I’m really sorry, but this isn’t my secret to share. I have to respect Marco’s privacy.”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “Marco knows about you and Nate?”
“Yeah. When Nate hurt his back at Alta Badia, we stayed with Marco at Christian’s house there. That was the first night we slept together.”
“And how did you possibly think you could keep this a secret from everyone else? I mean, even if those pictures hadn’t been taken, you believed that no one would realize you two were back together?”
“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “Optimistically, yeah, I thought we could just be very careful and even if people suspected, we could avoid confirmation. But now, I mean, now I’m probably going to get fired.”
Sierra doesn’t say anything in response to that, and she doesn’t meet my eyes either.
“I am, aren’t I?” I ask, reaching out and putting my hand on her knee so she’ll at least look at me.
She clasps her hand over mine and gives me a little squeeze.
“I don’t know. I guess it’ll depend on whether there’s something in your contract that prohibits this type of relationship with the athletes you train.
I mean, if you weren’t training Nate, it might be different.
But you said the pictures were taken during a training session? ”
“Yeah, they were. At the time, I didn’t even think about that—we were living at his place in Big Sky, just doing normal domestic things like cooking and reading and watching TV together . . .”
“And having sex during his PT time?”
“I mean, yeah, we were having sex all the time. We had a lot of years to make up for.”
“So why isn’t he here with you?”
For the hundredth time since I walked out that door, I wonder if I made the wrong choice. “He did offer . . .”
“And you told him not to come back with you? Are you crazy?”
“Maybe. It was just the most surreal experience. After I got those photos from TJ, Nate went into detective mode, like all that mattered was who took the pictures. He didn’t even care how I was doing, that I was humiliated, and that I might lose my job.”
“Did he say he didn’t care about all that?” Sierra sounds skeptical.
“No, he didn’t say it, but that’s how he acted.” I explain about packing all my stuff up, and how he was on the phone and on his computer, not even checking on me or acknowledging that maybe I wasn’t okay.
“What was he doing on his phone and his computer?”
“I assume trying to track down where the photos came from. But that’s pointless. It doesn’t matter where they came from because they’re already out there, and TJ’s probably going to fire me because of them.”
“Maybe he was trying to make sure they didn’t go any further than they already had?” Sierra says in that gentle and consoling way she has about her. “Like making sure that they don’t get posted on social media, or don’t get sold to the gossip rags or something?”
“Maybe,” I say, thinking about how cautious he is about his “image.” I’m sure his PR people are all over this trying to get control of those photos before they get auctioned off to the highest bidder. “But he hasn’t called or texted once since I left.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Have you called or texted him?”
“No. I told him I’d let him know how things go with TJ tomorrow, but I was hoping he’d care enough about how I was doing to get in touch in the meantime.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, and pulls me into a hug. “Maybe you should try to get some sleep. Everything feels more manageable when you’re well rested, don’t you think?”
“Sure,” I say, because I know that’s what she wants to hear.
But I already know that I’m not going to sleep a wink tonight.
Somewhere out in the world there are photos of me having sex, my career is about to go up in flames before I’ve even come close to paying off my student loans, and my boyfriend—who is supposedly so in love with me—hasn’t even called to see how I’m doing.