45. Anthony
forty-five
anthony
Absolutely nothing can mess this day up.
I sent Pen off this morning, cried my way through the ending of another one of her books, hit the gym for a quick workout, and then headed over to my place to finish the secret project I’ve been working on.
I know I’m putting the cart before the horse, but something tells me that Penelope and I are finally getting the wheels back onto the track. Her office is the first completed room in my home. I’ve been spending all of my free time in this room, finishing up the built-in shelves, the custom desk that takes up the entire wall overlooking the backyard pond, and painting it a light sage green. Today was a day for filling in all the details. Aside from stocking it up with her books, it is complete.
The room smells like new carpet and fresh paint. A few knickknacks adorn the shelves, like a fake plant and a mug I found in her collection that says Please do not annoy the writer. She may put you in a book and kill you. I found her framed posters and awards in a box inside the office at our place and hung them on the wall. My two gifts were the last items I added: A custom neon sign that has her author pen name written in funky lettering, and a custom door lock that only opens at her fingerprint.
I’m proud of the work, but even more proud of her.
According to the last text I received, the girls landed and are getting glammed up in her hotel suite, in the same hotel where she booked us all rooms. I know there’s a room for me, but I’m hoping that I won’t need it.
Something shifted within us this weekend and clicked into place when we said our goodbyes this morning. Like stuttering cogs in a wheel finally becoming unjammed, I feel slotted securely into place with her for the very first time. On that beach, something awakened, but now that there are no obstacles in our way, I feel confident. Free. A weight dumped from my shoulders so that now, the only thing I have left to carry is her.
Glancing at the clock, I see that I’m ahead of schedule. Only three of my warning alarms have chimed to remind me that I need to shower and change. My car is packed, my luggage has been triple checked, and I’m ready to go. Full of nervous energy, I head back to our temporary home. Once I’m clean shaven and dressed in my airport comfies, I start to pace around the place. I have too much time left to play. The bees in my brain are pinging off the ants in my pants like balls in a pin machine. Being ahead of schedule isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Typically, if I have a prior engagement, I mentally cannot start something else before. All of my brain power is put toward making sure I meet the commitment I made. With Penelope as the only thing on my calendar, I cannot chance messing it up. But when I get an idea to pass the time, and mentally calculate how much time I have left, I know I can’t pass it up.
I head into Pen’s office and find her boxes of books. Luckily, she has a few copies of each. I carefully select one of each title and put them into a Barnes & Noble tote that I find. If I head back to my new place and set these up on the otherwise empty shelves, I’ll have plenty of time to head to Logan Airport and meet up with the guys for our flight. I’m about to leave when something catches my eyes.
A proof copy of her newest book is cracked open on her desk. By the thin labels sticking out of the prior pages, I can tell she’s been making notes. It isn’t a finished copy, but it’s part of the collection all the same. And besides, it’s the first book we got to celebrate together. I’m sure she won’t mind me adding it to the shelf as a place holder for the finished version. Lifting it from the desk, I can’t help but glaze my eyes over the passages she’s highlighted and underlined. In doing so, my heart falls into my stomach and drowns in the acid.
“You told me I was the best part of your trip. You told me that you woke up every morning wondering where I was, and only went along because I’d be there. You told me that you didn’t want to leave us on vacation, and that you hadn’t felt more yourself since you met me. And then when the time came to own your words, you left me out to dry, Finn. You gutted me from the inside out, and you expect me to pretend none of it happened? How am I supposed to forgive you when I’m still putting the pieces you shattered back together?”
His name is Finn, but it might as well be Anthony.
Bile shoots up my throat in an angry river as I make myself read the rest of the page. Delilah walks away, and Finn runs his hand through his sandy blonde hair, watching the redheaded siren leave him in the dust like he did to her.
I collapse into the nearest piece of furniture and start at the beginning, letting my angry tears stain the words she stole from our history.
“You okay man?” Aaron asks as the plane begins to coast at ten-thousand feet.
“Yeah. Just nervous.” It etches out of my throat, still raw from powering through the first hundred pages of Penelope’s book. The one written from her heart. The one stolen from memories I’ve tried to erase.
“She’ll be fine. If anyone can take this on, it’s Penelope. That girl can turn any mountain into a molehill.”
I huff an angry laugh, shaking my head. My leg bounces in the aisle. Being on a plane with this much energy accelerating through my veins is like shaking a two liter bottle full of Mentos. I’ve gotta get out of here . I guess when your two options are jump out the window or land safely and face your greatest fears, there really isn’t a better one.
I pace the aisle to the bathroom just to give my legs breathing room. Once locked in, I pull up our text thread. The last message was before I left my place. Penelope checking in on me, like she’s done so much lately. My message to her makes me feel sick.
Right on schedule, boss. About to head home.
Only, I don’t know where home is anymore. I was starting to think of home as me and her, but now, betrayal is making my body feel out of sorts, like I’m running in a room full of funhouse mirrors with no way to turn that doesn’t shine all of my insecurities back in my face.
I know I messed up. I thought I’d been paying for it, that my debt was almost erased. Now, I get to see it clear as day on store shelves and posters and probably in Times Square, penned by the woman whose heart I broke. My name might as well be on display in neon: Anthony Ellis is a fuck up!
The entire short flight allows me enough time to rethink everything. Is she doing it for the money? Has she been playing me this whole time? Was she ever actually ready to forgive me? Was this all a plot to get her revenge?
Did she ever truly care?
The plane lands before I can truly spiral, and I go through the motions with the guys of taking my luggage out of the overhead bin, getting in the Uber for the hotel, and changing into the outfit I picked out especially for her. It feels wrong. Itchy. Sensory overload between my emotions waging war inside me, and the shirt I wore to our last dinner on that fated vacation clawing at my skin. What I once thought would be a romantic gesture, an homage to how we got here, suddenly gives me hives. When we pull up to the theater, and I see the nickname I gave her in lights, I feel sick.
I head in and head straight for the bathroom, weaving my way through pockets of PJ Layne superfans. While I should be beaming with pride to listen in on their conversations, they make the bees in my head angrier.
I can’t wait for Finn and Delilah’s book!
What do you think he did to break her heart?
I don’t know, but I love seeing a man fight to get his girl back. He’d better grovel.
I want to shout to all of them.
But what if he’s been groveling?! What if he thought he’d paid his penance only to be slapped in the face with a four-hundred page account of everything he did wrong?!
I have to calm down. My breathing is ratcheting at a hundred miles an hour and my reflection is as pale as the ghost of Penelope Barker’s past. I close my eyes, inhale, hold it, and wait until my brain screams for fresh oxygen before I let it all out. Peeling my eyes open, I know that I look wrecked. The pockets of purple beneath my eyes are so deep, you’d splatter trying to jump to the bottom. Creases in my forehead echo all of my unearthed doubts, and the tension in my eyes is so tight, a professional wrestler would bounce from one corner to the opposite.
How can I go in there? How can I join a crowd of people praising her name when I look like I just crawled out of the grave she wrote me into?
On the other hand, how can I not?
She has been let down all her life. I told her I would be her stability, and I will be. I have to be. I just didn’t realize that being her foundation meant letting her walk all over me.
In the process of splashing cold water on my face, I hear the crackle of the bathroom speakers. They’re announcing her entrance to the stage. Applause ping pongs between my ears as I shake my head, and by the time I’m finished wiping the excess water and sweat from my eyes, I at least look presentable—like a nervous plus-one instead of guy used for book fodder .
I sneak in the side door and join my place in the front row on the end. The RESERVED sign crinkles against my back when I sit in the aisle seat, unnoticed save for Juliet who grabs my hand in welcome. She smiles at me, but it tilts into concern when she sees my face. The moment it dips into a sour remorse, I know I’m not the first to find out.
I finally force myself to look up at the stage.
She is radiant. A little stiff, but she is absolutely in her element. Despite the hurt and the confusion and the betrayal rushing through me like white rapids, pride is still trying to fight its way through.
I wonder, is this how she felt when I let her down? Because if so, I guess I get it. I get why she avoided me for so long. I feel like my heart has been carved out with a jagged knife, only for the knife to stay in place so that every time I breathe, I feel it all over again. If that’s the case, I may still owe her more apologies. But just like she was at the beginning, I have no idea how I’m supposed to face her, and I have to for the next several hours.
She does so well, answering questions with a little bit of grace added to her quick witted humor. Her fans clap at the mention of every book. It’s only when the moderator mentions her newest book—the one written about us—that my heart becomes doused in gasoline, her words the torch.
“Now, I know you can’t reveal too much about Finn and Delilah’s book…” She pauses for ringing applause that makes my eardrums sting. “But if you could give just one sentence to tease us a little, what would it be?”
She freezes, her expression blank as she peers out over the audience. I didn’t realize it until now, but she hasn’t eyed over our row once this entire time. Now, after her eyes close and she takes a deep breath in, she finds us. There’s a bit of surprise when her gaze catches on mine, but her words don’t add a spark to my fire. They make my heart swollen for an entirely different reason.
“Finn and Delilah’s story is a reminder that, even when the person you thought was your security pulls the rug out from beneath your feet, even when you’re so raw that you don’t think you can bear to breathe, if you’re truly meant for each other, even the tiniest pieces of shattered glass can be put back together.”
There is hesitance in her eyes, but beneath it is a river of hope. I wonder if anyone besides me catches the fraction of time where she bites her bottom lip in question. But then, the crowd stands for a resounding ovation, and her gaze turns from me to look on them in thanks, taking all of the unsaid between us with it.