Chapter 32
My stomach is in knots. And not the good kind. I haven’t seen Haley in four days and it’s making me anxious. Ever since she texted me that she wasn’t feeling well, I have been in a constant state of worry. She caught a “bug or something and don’t want to spread it to anyone” as she put it. I even offered to bring over some soup, but she said Rachel was taking care of her. I sent some anyway.
When I walk into the studio, I’m not expecting to see her back at work. She’s by craft services, getting a croissant and a banana, with a couple of coffees next to her on the table. I thought she would’ve let me know she was coming in.
“Good morning, Hales.”
“Morning.” Without looking at me, she hands over my coffee. What the hell is going on?
“Here is your call sheet. You have a lunch meeting with Samantha again today. You have a night shoot tonight and tomorrow night. I have a few calls to confirm some things in Europe for your press tour…” She starts walking fast in the direction of my trailer.
I have to jog a bit to catch up with her. “Wait, Hales, slow down. You’re talking a mile a minute.”
“Do you need me to send this information to you in an email or voice memo? Because I can.” Her tone is short. Clipped. Professional. She hasn’t looked at me once, which is unfortunate because she is looking extra beautiful today. Her look is effortless. Her hair is in a ballerina bun with a pen through it and a light gray cardigan. Classic Haley. Her soft look does not match her hard demeanor towards me. It’s killing me that she isn’t looking at me.
When we finally reach my trailer, I grab her hand and pull her inside. I shut the door behind us a little more forcibly than I should.
“Okay, what’s going on?” I press.
“What do you mean?” Haley continues to type on her phone and avoid eye contact. She is wearing her blue-light glasses, obstructing her beautiful brown eyes. Damn those glasses. I want to rip them off and break them in half.
I put my hand over her phone screen and lower her phone down. Haley sighs and finally looks up into my eyes. Her eyes are really puffy and red, confirming that something is definitely off. She has, in fact, been crying. “Hales, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just didn’t sleep well last night. I’ve been sick, remember?” she sniffles.
“Bullshit. I don’t think that’s what it is.”
“Then why did you ask me?” she retorts, her tone clipped.
Okay, she is definitely pissed and hurt. What the hell happened between a few days ago and today? I need to tread lightly here. “I’m sorry…it just looks like you’ve been crying and I want to know what’s wrong.”
Haley sniffles and her voice is a little shaky when she says, “Maybe you should ask Natasha.”
I shake my head out of disbelief and confusion. What does Natasha have anything to do with this? “Wait, what?”
Tears start rolling down Haley’s face, but she is still as stoic as ever. All of her walls are up again. All the walls I have been trying so desperately to take down. “When I was pulling into your driveway, I saw Natasha and you…kissing. Then she went into your house, still kissing you, and I just…”
My heart plummets. “You assumed something happened between us?”
“Didn’t it?”
“Do you really think that low of me, that I would cheat on you with an ex-girlfriend?”
Haley averts her eyes again, confirming that she does in fact think that.
I scoff, “Wow.”
“Oh don’t ‘wow’ me, Aidan. It’s not completely out there for me to think you hooked back up with her. You were in love with Natasha. I witnessed it. All of it. The only reason you started ‘dating’ me in the first place was so that you could get out of your own way after your break-up. What am I supposed to think? And you know, it doesn’t surprise me. You both make sense together. I think it’s easier if we go back to the way things used to be. The deal is over anyway.”
I put my hands on my hips and I clenched my jaw. I can only imagine how it looked to her. Natasha was barely dressed, and Haley is right. I was in love with her. Was being the most important word. “It’s not what you think… I had no idea that Natasha was going to come over. I swear. I didn’t invite her over. Nothing happened. Haley, you have to believe me.”
“But something did happen…you were kissing her, Aidan.”
“She kissed me. Not the other way around. And I pushed her off immediately. The kiss meant nothing, Hales. ”
“A kiss always means something.” Then Haley holds her hands to her face, attempting to block the inevitable tears coming out. I don’t know what to say to her. It is clear she doesn’t believe me. I am losing her. She is closing in again. Building that impenetrable wall of hers that I worked so hard to break down.
“It’s fine, Aidan. We agreed this whole relationship, or fake relationship rather, was going to end. We had an expiration date, remember?” Haley’s phone starts ringing. “I need to take this, excuse me,” and she starts stepping out of the trailer.
“Haley.”
She looks back at me.
“Can we please talk later?”
Her phone keeps buzzing. “I gotta take this…Hello, this is Haley.” She steps out of the trailer and the door slams shut.
This explains so much. Natasha ruined everything good happening in my life. Again. But I was an idiot in the first place for ever letting her step into my house at all. The moment I saw it was her, I should’ve closed the door in her face.
I can’t let Haley go like this. I push open my trailer door and run after her. I catch up quickly and take the phone from her hand.
“Aidan, what the hell?” she fumes.
I put the phone to my ear. “Hey, she’s gonna have to call you back.” I press the red “end call” button.
Haley crosses her arms. Damn, why does she have to look so cute when she’s mad?
The little crease between her eyebrows is very prominent now. She places her hand out. “Give me back my phone, Aidan. I have a lot of work to do. Especially since…” She looks down at her feet and bites her bottom lip. “…I’m giving my two weeks.”
What? No.“Are you serious? You’re quitting?”
She snatches her phone out of my defenseless hand. She looks down again and says, “I don’t see any other way. I’ll make sure that all of your appointments for the next few months are finalized and confirmed. I’ll make sure everything is taken care of before I go. I just…can’t be around you anymore. Everything has changed. It’s too hard.” She grazes her hand across her cheek, trying to mask the obvious tears that are slowly slipping out of her eyes.
“What are you going to do for a job? I know you can’t afford where you live now, even if you are splitting rent with Rachel. And what about your screenplay? I thought you wanted to get into this business so that you can work your way up. I can help you do that, Hales.”
“I will figure it out,” she responds curtly.
“Please, Hales, I don’t want to lose you,” I plead.
“I wasn’t yours to lose in the first place and you weren’t mine to lose either,” Haley says.
I grab her face between my hands. “That’s not even remotely true. Don’t do this. Don’t run away. You promised.”
She pushes away and just like that, she is out of my reach again. “I made that promise when I thought that you were everything to me. When I thought I’d finally found the guy who was it for me.”
“Haley, I am still that guy. I’m the same guy.”
She shakes her head. “I am not running away, Aidan.”
“Yes you are, because you are scared.”
“No, I am getting myself out of a situation I shouldn’t have been in the first place. I am not running.”
“You are. Just like you did three years ago.” I feel her delicate hand make its way across my face.
She points a finger at me, infuriated,“That’s not fair and you know it.” Tears start rolling down Haley’s cheeks again.
That does it. I have become the thing she is running away from and I don’t know how to salvage this.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “That wasn’t fair.”
“I am not running. I am simply abiding by the contract we established. According to our contract, this–” She points back and forth between the two of us. “–is over.”