Chapter 12
Looking back, I feel like that was the equivalent of claiming it.
Right?
Like when two kids are fighting over, I don’t know, board game pieces or something, one will cry out, “I call red!” and that means they’ve laid claim to the red piece. Simple as that.
I laid claim to this story.
Doesn’t matter now, though, I think to myself as I’m having a shower later that night. I want to wash this whole thing away—between Beckett and my mom—I wish I could just rinse all memories of Aruba down the shower drain with my conditioner.
I need to call Evan and tell him I made a mistake, just to forget what I said before and cancel the interview.
I’ll apologize to him profusely and understand if it destroys our friendship.
He’ll eventually drop me as a client, which will be fine because I won’t want to write anymore anyway.
Thankfully, my writing income isn’t what I use to pay the bills; it’s just extra money that I’ve been saving for a rainy day. I’ve got my job. I’ve got my apartment.
Maybe I’ll get a cat.
It’s 8:00 p.m., so it’s late but not like oh my God how could you call me at this ungodly hour late. Plus, Evan’s my friend. Knowing me as he does, I’d be willing to bet that a part of him is even expecting this.
I don’t want to turn my phone back on, though.
What if Beckett called back? What if he left a message?
What if he didn’t? What if my deepest suspicions are confirmed: that I’m just some secret he wants to hide away in the nether regions of his mind, pretend like it never happened, especially now that he’s a real author in an entirely different social class and tax bracket from me?
Something tells me Beckett Nash no longer lives in a basement apartment in Oceanside.
Just throw in the towel, I decide. Call off the interview, tell Evan you love him and that you’re sorry. Tap out and be done.
I wrap up in a bathrobe, sweep my hair up into a towel, and grab the phone from my nightstand, where it’s been charging. Turning it on, it begins to buzz, indicating a slew of e-mail notifications and one, two, no, three missed calls.
I check the screen.
Beckett called at 5:53 p.m. That was just after I hung up on him.
He called again at 5:55 p.m.
And once more a little later, at 7:15.
There are voice mails, the phone tells me. I dial into my voice mail system to retrieve them, holding my breath. You can do hard things, I tell myself, and I believe it. I have suffered through way worse than listening to Beckett’s recorded voice on my phone.
The first message plays: “Melody? I think I just lost you. Maybe your phone got disconnected? It’s Beckett, by the way.”
Right on its heels, without giving me any time to process the ironic implications of the sentence I think I just lost you, the next message plays: “Figured I’d try back again.
Maybe your phone died. I’ll give it a little while, and hopefully you’ll get this.
Give me a call when you do. Okay.” Click.
The third message begins with a long pause.
“Hey.” This time, his voice is softer. “Now I’m thinking maybe you don’t want to talk to me.
Although, I got an e-mail from my agent saying we were set for the interview with People magazine.
So I’m not sure why you’re not picking up.
” He sighs. “I’d really like to talk to you.
Can you please call me back? It doesn’t matter what time.
I just… Well, I just think we should talk.
Discuss things, I guess? I don’t know. I’m rambling.
I’m sorry. Just call me, okay? Please? Okay.
Thanks.” Another lengthy few seconds of quiet. “Bye.”
Fuck, I think, ending the call. Everyone’s confirmed the interview. It’s going to be a lot harder to pull back on it now.
I stare at my phone screen, unsure of whether I should call Beckett back or just call Evan as planned. I think I just lost you. The words ring over and over in my head as I sigh deeply.
Suddenly, the phone comes alive, lighting up and vibrating so hard in my palm that I almost drop it. Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit.
It’s him.
I don’t give myself time to think. I swipe at the screen. “Hello?” I say, trying to sound the opposite of the about-to-vomit way I actually feel.
“Melody,” he whispers. He says it again, louder. “Melody, hi. It’s me. Beckett.”
“Hey,” I say. I’m everything, all at once. I’m furious, hurt, cautious, overwhelmed by missing him, hating myself for hanging on every breath of sound he makes.
“You called me,” he points out.
“I did,” I say.
Neither one of us can find the next words, apparently, so we just stay like that for a beat. Silence, thick and muddy, hangs in the air between us.
“I, um,” he mumbles. “I don’t really know what to say.”
I wait to hear more, but he falls back into stillness. “Same,” I agree.
“I’m glad you called,” he says.
“You’re engaged,” I reply. Not the most graceful response, but those are the facts that spill out of my mouth.
“I am,” he says.
“Where is she?”
“Rio,” he replies, not missing a beat. “At a show.”
“Oh.” This makes sense. Rio. A place everyone goes. Where even is Rio? I wonder. Brazil, that’s right. Other than the one time to Aruba, I think the farthest I’ve made it out of New York is to the Poconos. So, yeah.
Rio.
“How are you?” he asks.
“Fine.”
“That’s good.”
More lingering quiet now.
“And you’re doing great, right? I mean, you made it. All your dreams have come true,” I say, trying to ignore the snarky undertone my voice surreptitiously adopts.
“Not all of them,” Beckett mutters.
“Huh?”
“Nothing,” he replies. “Where are you right now?”
“In my bedroom. Why? Where are you?”
“Kitchen. But I meant, like, where in the world?”
“Who am I, Carmen Sandiego?”
He emits a small chuckle. “Are you still in New York?”
“I am. Are you?” I ask, stomach clenching.
“Yes.”
“But not Long Island, I’m guessing.”
“No, not Long Island.”
“Gave up on the seals?” I shoot back. I hate the flatness in my voice, but it appears the giant lump in my throat won’t allow for inflection. This must be what happens when anger and sadness and guilt and shame all collide in a fiery crash.
“Yeah.” His tone is sad when he says this.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” he says.
“How does it feel to be famous?”
“I’m not.”
“Entertainment Weekly compared you to Nicholas Sparks.”
“Nobody reads Entertainment Weekly.”
“Okay,” I say. “If you say so.”
“Can I ask you a question?” Beckett volleys the spotlight back onto me.
“Mm hmm.”
“Why did you write that?”
“What? Our story?” I clarify.
“Yeah.”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“But you didn’t. I asked you first.”
I sigh. This is going great, I think. We’re behaving like a pair of twelve year-olds. “Low-hanging fruit, I guess.”
“What does that mean?” he asks.
“I needed a story. I was on a deadline. I had a lot of shit going on in my life. So I wrote about us,” I say. It’s almost the whole truth, just packaged slightly differently than the reality of the situation. “Now, you. Why did you write it?”
Beckett’s voice shrinks. “Is that all we were to you? Low-hanging fruit?”
“Please. Don’t try to make me feel sorry for you. Everyone thinks I stole it from you!”
“Nobody thinks that, Mel.”
Hearing him say my name like that threatens to push me over the edge.
I’m not sure if I want to scream, cry, smash the phone with the nearest hammer—maybe all three.
“Beckett. I really need you to listen to yourself for a second. The entire reason we’re having to reconnect for the People magazine thing is because the whole world thinks I swiped your debut masterpiece. ”
“Fine, yes. There’s been some bad press, I’ll give you that. But I doubt the readers believe you actually—”
That does it.
“Who even are you?” I interrupt, raising my voice unintentionally.
“The readers? A few years ago, you were a starry-eyed kid just dreaming of the day when you would finish a novel, and now you’re out here trying to school me about readers?
” I take a deep breath, trying to keep my blood pressure from skyrocketing.
“Beckett, when you’ve been in the game for more than five minutes, you’ll learn that readers are fickle.
They can love you one minute and trash you the next.
And that feeling just makes you want to curl up under a rock and die. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”
“I agreed to the People magazine piece because I thought it would help you,” he says now, deflated.
“Who are you kidding? It’s People magazine! I’m sure your publicist was thrilled. I can’t imagine that anyone over there on Team Beckett was concerned that a spotlight piece with the country’s new it author would do anything other than boost your sales even more.”
“Is that what you think?” he asks. “Is that all you think of me? You think all I care about is sales? You think I have no pride whatsoever? Like I’m some kind of literary sex worker, like everything I do, every choice I make is somehow just about money and fame now?” His voice regains its strength.
“I didn’t say all that.”
“You might as well have!” He’s on the precipice of yelling.
This does not bode well for my own emotional state. “Well, forgive me, Beckett. You were supposed to be writing a family drama, not a romance. Why couldn’t you just stay in your lane?”
“I didn’t know we had lanes to stay in, Melody. You have no idea what happened to me out there.”
“What happened to you? I’ll tell you what happened to you! You fucking left!” I screamed.
“I left? I left? Are you kidding me right now?”
“You did!” I scream, resolute in my anger, allowing all the feelings to bubble up to the surface.
“You disappeared!” he insists. “You broke my fucking heart!”
“What?!”
“That’s right, Melody. You fucked me up so bad that I had to write a book about it just to get through the pain. And now? To hear that the version of it that you wrote was just low-hanging fruit? Shit. You really know how to cut a man when he’s down.”
“Wow,” I say. I can feel my pulse pounding through the vein in my neck. “That’s the most revisionist history bullshit I’ve ever heard.” My words are scathing, caustic. I feel them burning on my tongue as I spit out each vitriolic syllable.
“Listen to me, Mel. I fell in love with you in Aruba.”
The words feel like a nightmare; they’re the right words but happening two and a half years and one marriage proposal too late. Still, that one part. I fell in love with you. “Bullshit,” I say, trying to compose myself. “You used me.”
“Used you for what?” he cries.
“I don’t know! Sex? Story ideas?”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously! If that wasn’t true, explain why you ghosted me!”
“What are you talking about?”
“In Aruba!” I retort. “After the last night.”
He goes quiet.
“Well?” I huff, exasperated. His silence gives me a chance to catch my breath.
“Melody?” he asks, his voice decidedly less agitated.
“What?” My blood is pumping as if I just finished a marathon.
“Did you even read my book?”
“Some of it,” I admit.
“Do me a favor, then?”
“What?”
“Read the whole thing, and then call me.”
I scramble for a response, but the line goes dead, and I’m struck by my own revelation as I realize it’s not bad service or a power outage or some other technological force of nature. It’s not a mistake at all.
Beckett Nash just hung up on me.