Chapter Eight #2
Unfazed, Tyler curls himself up in a big, shaggy ball, and buries his nose in sleeping bag fluff.
Between us sits a squat camping lantern, its bright white glow casting long shadows across the cave walls.
The song on my phone shifts to a newer one by the Cure, something I don’t recognise.
Tyler’s eyes drop closed and he lets out a long sigh through his nose.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper, the words lost beneath the slow, steady sound of drums.
The words are for Tyler, yes, but they’re also, in a sad, embarrassing sort of way, for me. An apology to the person I was just two months ago, who used to use thoughts of a dancing, gleefully-in-love Joseph Gordon-Levitt in 500 Days of Summer as a dopamine hit.
Tears suddenly blur my vision and I swipe my eyes with the back of my hand, muttering in exasperation, ‘God.’
Because it’s not fair. Sam can daydream about prom with Julian – I should be able to have embarrassing crushes and make out with girls who are yes, devastatingly beautiful but also inarguably heinous, personality-wise, without having to worry they’ll grow horns.
But I can’t. Not now, and maybe not ever. Because of him.
My eyes are clear again by the time I click open my phone.
For the last three years, my background screen has been the same picture of me and Sam from Halloween when we were eleven and both went as Bridget Jones, but I thumb past it, an empty, focused cold filling my brain.
All I have to do is type A in my search bar and the rest of his name autofills.
The pictures are always the same: him on different stages accepting awards; him standing on red carpets at charity galas, the shine of flashbulbs reflected in his eyes; him standing in front of the very first branch of F’resh he ever opened, right here in DC.
But my favourite is the one of him stretched out on a yacht in the Caribbean, drinking a sky-blue cocktail, his eyes shielded by sunglasses and a breeze blowing his open shirt.
All the other pictures make him look wholesome, giving.
Humble. This last one, though – you can feel the undercurrent of arrogance and power, as though he let the humanitarian mask slip just long enough for someone to snap a picture and capture the real him, the one that casts curses that ruin people’s lives.
Austin Taylor. The man who did this to me.
I scroll past the pictures and his Wikipedia blurb, but instead of the usual links to the F’resh website, underneath is a new series of articles from just this afternoon.
‘Wait,’ I say under my breath, clicking on the first one. ‘What …’
SALAD MAGNATE AUSTIN TAYLOR ANNOUNCES F’RESH NEW GALA TO BENEFIT MEN’S MENTAL HEALTH
By Randy Baron
Earlier today, Austin Taylor, owner and founder of multi-million-dollar salad empire F’resh, announced he’ll be hosting a gala to celebrate the tenth birthday of his foundation MENtal, a non-profit organization that supports mental health and wellbeing in men and boys.
The event is set to take place at Washington, DC’s National Zoo on May 31st to coincide with the end of Mental Health Awareness Month, and will include celebrity guest speakers and an appearance from Taylor himself.
Said Taylor of the gala: ‘I’m so thrilled to be able to host an event to honour MENtal in such an important month.’
Since its inception, MENtal has provided workshops, subsidized therapy, and support for men and boys struggling with their mental health across the United States.
MENtal’s workshops have taken place everywhere from prisons to schools and even, famously, in space, after a publicity stunt for World Mental Health Day made astronaut Frank Palmer the first person to undergo hypnotherapy outside the Earth’s atmosphere.
Taylor has been spending much of his time of late in the United Kingdom expanding F’resh to the European market.
Though he will remain in the UK leading up to the event, he has tapped another member of the F’resh team to plan the gala in his absence: his son, Max, a recent high-school graduate and former employee at the Georgetown branch of F’resh.
‘Max is everything anyone could want in a son,’ said Taylor on the announcement. ‘And he’s not only my family, but he’s a part of the F’resh family too. I have all the faith he’ll do an amazing job.’
The gala will take place in the Zoo’s Amazonia Science Gallery and will coincide with the opening of F’resh’s newest salad bar. After a number of setbacks, the National Zoo branch is finally hiring and aims to be in full operation in time for the gala.
When I look up from my phone again, my thoughts are racing.
‘This is it,’ I say. I have the sudden urge to jump to my feet and scream. ‘Tyler, this is it!’
Tyler cracks open a single eye.
‘No, I’m serious.’ I’m nearly breathless, my voice shaking.
‘I’ve never tried breaking the curse because it seemed impossible, right?
I just figured I could avoid you, and never have feelings for anyone else ever again.
’ Hearing it out loud, it sounds so unrealistic as to be borderline delusional.
‘I thought that would be enough, but after what happened with Avery today, it’s clearly only a matter of time before someone else turns.
’ I push myself to my feet with a groan, my butt cold and numb after sitting too long on the solid rock floor.
‘But now – this.’ I gesture frantically to my phone.
‘If I can get close to Austin Taylor, maybe I can figure out how to break the curse. He has to be the key, right? I mean, it’s his curse. ’
Tyler’s scepticism comes through loud and clear as he does a single slow blink.
Oh, yeah, because it’s so easy to become BFFs with a multi-millionaire salad bro, says unhelpful wolf-Tyler.
‘That’s the genius of this,’ I fire back.
‘What if I don’t have to get close enough to Austin Taylor himself?
What if instead, I get close enough to the people around him, and they let me in?
Look.’ I scroll back up the article, re-read a handful of lines.
‘This says they’re hiring at the zoo branch of F’resh, where they’re doing this big gala thing, and that Austin Taylor’s son Max is going to be planning it.
He only just graduated high school – what if I make him think we’re friends, and he leads me to what I need? ’
Both Tyler’s eyes are open now, watching as I pace the cave floor.
‘This is Max Taylor we’re talking about here,’ I continue. ‘Not Einstein. If he’s anything like his dad, he won’t even notice what I’m doing; he’ll just think I’m one more girl who’s obsessed with him.’
Each lap I do around the cave brings another layer to the plan that’s unfolding quickly in my head, adrenaline and excitement and hope, finally, tingling in my hands.
In order to get close to Max Taylor, I’ll have to join the soulless legions of F’resh workers, but luckily, I already know one of them.
And in the meantime, I need to prepare as much as I can, get all the inside information available on Austin Taylor, but not from the stupid puff pieces online.
I need to talk to someone who once knew him better than anyone else.
The only other person who’s been afflicted by the same curse.
The original person whose life Austin Taylor ruined: my mom.