Chapter 25 #2
She leaves her bag at the bottom of the stairs and goes through to the kitchen.
I fill up the back of my new coffee machine and put in one of her favourite pods to make her a proper latte.
I pour myself a cup of breakfast tea. We sip our drinks in contentment, the sun already beating in the sky, shining on the overgrown grass in the garden, giving everything that glow only a late-September morning can bring.
‘So, tell me everything,’ Jess requests.
‘I can’t. He’s upstairs.’
Jess’s eyes widen. ‘Cute! So cute!’
I can’t help but smile.
‘Let me guess – you’re no longer fake breaking up at the beginning of the tour,’ Jess prompts.
‘I thought I made that obvious when I completely made a fool out of myself at the party.’
‘I thought someone was holding you hostage, or you were doing it for the dramatics. Still playing to Mimi’s plan to convince everyone that you and Luc are in love.’
‘I meant everything I said at the party.’
The smile that spreads across Jess’s face is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. She almost uses her entire body: her shoulders raise and her back straightens, feet kicking together. ‘I’m so happy for you, Sienna. You really deserve this.’
I take a deep breath. ‘I’m scared,’ I admit.
‘Of course, but… Sienna – it’s Luc.’
‘I know,’ I take a huge gulp of tea, letting it scald the back of my throat. ‘But that doesn’t– it doesn’t mean he won’t leave and hurt me if I let him in.’
‘It’s been, like, ten years.’
‘Only means it’d hurt more.’
‘I get that, but if he was going to leave, he would have done it by now.’
‘People can be married for thirty years and get a divorce.’
‘Sienna, you can’t– you have to live your life without planning out every eventuality like that.’
A moment of comfortable silence between us.
‘I knew something was going to happen between you when he asked Mimi to stop paying him,’ Jess adds.
My blood runs cold. ‘Mimi was paying him?’
Jess stops halfway through a sip, the hot liquid against her top lip. Her eyes. She holds the mug in her hands for a few seconds before leaning across and putting it on the coffee table. ‘Didn’t you know?’
‘Know what?’
When Jess doesn’t reply immediately, I probe further. ‘Jess, what do you mean, when he asked Mimi to stop paying him?’
She looks towards the door, probably scanning whether Luc is coming downstairs to interrupt the secret sharing session. She bites on the corner of her lip, her teeth scraping the edges of any dry skin after her summer cold.
‘I really thought you knew, Sienna. I thought Mimi had told you, if not Luc himself.’
‘How much?’ I snap and immediately regret it.
Jess and I don’t snap at each other – it was one of the rules and terms of our agreement to work with each other.
We wouldn’t let anything get in the way of us being us, us being the best of friends since her tooth fell out in primary school and she showed it to me, a tiny white speck on the palm of her hand. ‘Sorry,’ I apologise.
‘It’s okay.’ She reaches over and rubs her thumb over the back of my hand, and I want to snatch it away, I want to run. Everyone has been keeping things from me, taking me for a fool, this entire time.
‘When Mimi asked– first proposed the arrangement to Luc,’ Jess starts.
‘She offered him payment to compensate for the time he’d be spending in what she then thought of as “work”.
’ Jess takes a deep breath. ‘I was never directly involved in these discussions and only found out about the payment after he had already requested the payments to stop coming, but I don’t know how long he was paid for.
’ Jess shakes her head. ‘I presumed Mimi went over all the details of the arrangements and, for that, I am sorry. I shouldn’t have presumed. I’ll– I should’ve checked.’
I shake my head, and a tear silently slips over my waterline. I don’t dry it. I let it race another drop of water from the other eye to the bottom of my face, the coldness burning against the heat of my emotions.
‘I think– to the best of my knowledge, when Mimi reached out to Luc regarding the rel– arrangement, he had not long been told he was about to lose his job.’
‘The only reason he said yes was because he was… being paid for it?’
‘I didn’t say that. And I can’t answer that. Only Luc can answer that.’
My lip wobbles and I think about the man upstairs, lying face down in my pillows.
How I woke up to his leg hooked over mine to keep me from moving far.
The way he fell asleep last night with his little finger pressed against my upper thigh because it was too hot to cuddle but he couldn’t sleep without some contact with my body.
The man who has gone out of his way to plan surprise after surprise after surprise, who only wants me to be able to live the life I want, however that looks.
And just to think this whole time I was worried about the possibility of him using me to gain fame and interest around his screenplay. About him being too understanding.
I am a fucking fool.
‘Honestly, Sienna, I think his heart is in the right place. When he realised he– what things were going to be with you, he told Mimi to stop paying him.’
‘When was that, though?’ I throw my hands up weakly. ‘Was it last night? After I flew him to Tuscany? After the first time we kissed in private, when there was no ulterior motive of us being seen “dating”?’
‘You can only ask him, Sienna.’
‘I don’t want to hear it. I want him to leave.’
There’s a shuffling down the stairs, and Luc appears in the doorway. Jess shakes her head subtly.
‘Sie, can we talk, please?’ Luc asks.
I face him, but I can’t look him in the eye. ‘Sure, I’ll talk. Did Mimi pay you for our arrangement.’
‘Well, initially, yes. But–’
‘Get out,’ I snap, turning back to Jess.
‘Sienna.’ Luc’s voice is strained, caught in his throat.
‘Please, Luc. I don’t want to argue with you. I need you to leave.’ My voice is a whisper, a shadow of the contentment I felt this morning. I hear him slipping last night’s shoes onto his feet, zipping up a bag or maybe a jacket? The door closes behind him with a gentle click.
And then he’s gone.
I am nothing if not stubborn. And for the next few days, I do not cave.
I don’t respond to any of Luc’s messages.
I leave them mostly unread. I don’t open them to avoid feeling that heavy sting of betrayal in my diaphragm.
I try to forget everything he’s done. I change my lock screen photo.
I push him out like I did all those years ago, like I’ve done to everyone else who has tried to get close since.
But it’s different this time.
This time he’s trying to stick, and my heart won’t let him out as easily.
I go to rehearsals and home again and sit in front of the blank tele screen until the early hours, a blank page in my notebook open in my lap.
I don’t leave the house, drinking wine on the sofa in the low light.
I’m not supposed to drink while I’m rehearsing.
It won’t do good things for my voice. But if I’m retiring, who cares?
Last night, I slept poorly, and I didn’t want to go to rehearsals today. I rang Mimi and feigned a foot injury, citing the need to rest if I was going to recover in time to complete rehearsals before the tour.
The house is quiet, and only the static hum of the fridge in the background tells me I’m not the only person on the planet right now. Luc’s jumper still lays in a heap on my bedroom floor where he left it. The only physical evidence he was ever here.
It’s already two o’clock, so I crack open a beer that Luc left a few weeks ago. It fizzes in my mouth in a way that’s not wholly unpleasant, although the aftertaste is putrid.
I take a deep breath and open our message thread.
LUC (FRIDAY)
Sienna can we talk please?
I promise it’s not what it looks like
I have an explanation for everything, just please talk to me
LUC (SATURDAY)
What can I do to get you to talk to me?
Sienna I’m going crazy here
Please please let me explain
LUC (SUNDAY)
We promised each other we wouldn’t run without an explanation Sienna
At least let me give you that
LUC (YESTERDAY)
Sienna please
I cannot tell you how much I miss you right now
I can explain what Jess said please just hear me out before you do anything rash
The thread ends there, but Luc’s name at the top tells me that he’s typing again.
LUC
Sienna please can we talk? Just let me explain
I can explain everything
The ticks must go blue straight away. He knows I’m online and reading them as they come in.
Nothing else comes for a few minutes but I stare at the screen until it tells me that he’s typing again.
I wait. The status goes from typing to not every few seconds until finally another message comes through.
LUC
I know you’re there Sienna but I’m not explaining myself over text. Please call me when you’re ready to hear me out and I’ll be happy to do so but please don’t run again. We’re better than that. Everything between us was real I can promise you that
I lock my phone after that. Eventually he’ll get the message. Eventually he’ll see that I haven’t changed at all. I’m still exactly the person I’ve always been.
Sienna Martin. The infinite ghost.
I should never have thought I could change.
We’ve come so far, but it was always going to end like this. We’ve been dancing around each other for far too long for it to end any other way.
I tap my pen against my notebook, the blank page still taking the piss out of me.
I know that I want to write a song about everything I’ve felt in the last few days, but I don’t want it to be too obvious what it’s about.
I don’t want the entire world to know that I stooped to a PR relationship and then stupidly got too… No.
My phone vibrates again. Not Luc. Renée Ross.
RENéE
You up for a celebration tonight? Your girl just got engaged!!!!!
SIENNA
No! Stop! Renée! That’s such amazing news!
How else are you supposed to react when your friend gets engaged? When you’re so happy for them but it also breaks everything clean in two. I overuse the exclamation points instead. No one deserves it more than Renée, but it’s a painful reminder of everything that I can’t have.
I text my stylist directly asking if she has anything for me to wear to an engagement party tonight.
She says she’ll bring it round within the hour.
I ask her not to tell Mimi and Jess. I can’t miss Renée’s engagement party, but after missing rehearsals for my poor foot, they won’t be happy that I’m prancing around in heels at a party.
Was the girl with the jacket over her head Sienna Martin?
Probably but where’s Luc?
They don’t go anywhere without each other lately, god I hope nothing’s wrong
They’ve obviously broken up already – that’s the Sienna Martin way