Chapter Bex
Bex
Six hours after we get to our rooms, I’m downstairs, showered, and entirely unready to feign enthusiasm for the black sand beach at Reynisfjara. I used to love travel, but I’m pretty sure if all of my trips were planned by Theo Porter, I’d quickly grow to hate it.
I go out of my way to avoid Caden, who stopped me last night on the way to my room to say I should give him a call if I got cold. I’ve known plenty of slimy men, but he’s more dangerous than most because he’s the sort who knows he’ll always be insulated from the consequences of his actions.
I down some coffee while they place our mics, but fatigue has wiped out my usually voracious appetite. I sink into my seat in the van, heavy with exhaustion.
Jessie would have a comment about this. There was never anything about me with which she couldn’t find fault. Maybe you should do a little less partying the next time, she might say. Or Go ahead and sleep. At least you’ll stay out of trouble that way.
She wouldn’t have been wrong. Under normal circumstances, my eyes would have been drooping because I’d stayed out too late, if I’d gone to bed at all. And can I really sit here and proclaim that I don’t get in trouble when I’ve done nothing but get in trouble for years?
That’s what complicates everything. Jessie was hard on me, but she was also correct about me, and even if she wasn’t, why am I taking mental pot shots at a woman who spent nearly two decades playing the thankless role of my stepmother, a woman who just tragically died and whose only child died with her?
I don’t know if I’m maligning her because she deserves it or because focusing on the imperfect moments makes me feel a little less broken. I guess it’s both.
Yawning, I open my phone. It’s a little after eleven p.m. in LA, and Brian is texting. He was always this way—get a few beers in him, and he’s suddenly remembering he sort of likes me. Plus, he’s apparently just seen my wedding photo online.
Brian: It’s a prank.
Me: I’m afraid not.
Brian: You didn’t even WANT to get married.
Me: Things change.
Brian: When are you coming back to LA? We’ll see how “married” you are after a couple drinks.
He thinks that once we’re in the same room I won’t be able to stay away, as that’s pretty much how we’ve gotten back together after every breakup for the last two years. I hate that he’s probably right.
Theo climbs in beside me, sickeningly attractive and well rested just to make me look worse by contrast.
“Here,” he says, tipping his chiseled jaw toward the box he then drops in my lap. “It was as close as I could come to donut holes. Eat.”
I open the lid. Two donuts are cut into bite-size pieces.
Brian would never have cut up donuts for me—he’d have to notice I wasn’t eating in the first place and then he’d have needed to care. Neither of those things would have happened.
Bronwyn would have, though.
“Thank you,” I whisper, and then I turn to stare out the window so he won’t see that I’m tearing up. I’ve cried maybe ten times in my adult life, and I’m guessing he’s witnessed five of those times. I don’t know what it is about him that seems to burrow into my most vulnerable spaces.
I force down the equivalent of a donut and have gotten myself under control by the time we climb out of the van at Reynisfjara, which Theo is apparently familiar with because part of Game of Thrones was shot here. He pulls out his camera and takes a pic.
“You didn’t tell me to move this time,” I say with a smug smile.
“I’ll just edit you out later,” he says, thus losing all the points he won for the donut holes.
When we’re rolling, Theo and I walk side by side and his broad arm wraps around me.
It’s only because Lars has told him to do it, but I lean in anyway and get a whiff of fabric softener and somewhere beneath that, coffee and hotel soap and toothpaste.
I’ve never pictured him showering until this moment, but I bet I’m picturing it super often going forward.
I point at the Reynisdrangar, the twin basalt columns jutting out into the ocean. “They say they were two trolls frozen by the sun.”
“How do you know all this stuff?” he asks.
“You might not be aware of this, but my husband and I own a travel company.”
He makes a face at me. “Yes, but you don’t hear me telling tales of Icelandic folklore or speaking knowledgeably about shifting tectonic plates.”
“I read a lot,” I reply. My voice sounds defensive, as if I’m responding to an accusation. Perhaps because it felt like one. I know what he expects of me—idiocy, indolence, chaos.
I’m not sure why I haven’t been providing it.
There’s only one quick stop after Reynisfjara—an ice cave that’s technically already closed for the season because it could cave in…Lars seems slightly disappointed when we escape unscathed—and then we’re back in the van and racing to the airport in Keflavík.
All of us will be heading in different directions—Lars and his crew to JFK, me to Newark, Theo to London. It will be like this after all of our trips—Lars apparently is working on another show at the same time, so ours is to film in fits and starts.
I thought I’d be relieved to be free of them all, but instead I’m surprisingly sad.
It’s not really about leaving Theo. It’s just about leaving…
humanity. It’s about leaving this slice of the world where I have dinner with people and someone worries that I’m not eating and is sporadically forced to hold my hand.
Theo helps me with my bag when we arrive and then we head indoors, still side by side though we no longer need to pretend anything. We go through security and turn to face each other.
“I’m sorry I pushed to do this trip so fast,” he says. “I told Lars last night that it was too much, and he agreed we’d slow the pace down going forward.”
He was worried on my behalf.
I’m touched and also a little terrified. In some ways it would be easier if he was a dick all the time—then there’d be nothing to lose.
I hug him impulsively, inhaling the hotel soap from his skin. I used the same soap, but it’s so much better on him. “I’m sorry I was such a baby about it. And I know it’s weird that I’m hugging you, but I’m too sleepy to care.”
His laughter is quiet and low, gusting against my ear. “You’re sort of sweet when you’re tired, Bex.”
I smile. It won’t last, I’m sure. But he’s kind of sweet when I’m tired too.
And it’s the first time he’s ever called me Bex.