Chapter Six #2
And her face. It’s smug and angry all at once.
Like I’m a bear who’s walked into a trap and while that delights her, she’s now got to deal with the pain in the ass of cleaning it up.
What would she prefer? For me to not keep up appearances and stand up over Gustav’s oats and announce this to everyone?
Remove her mask like it’s an episode of Scooby-Doo?
Attention please! Allie Lake betrayed my trust and sold my personal messages to a gossip column to fund her own project!
Do you really want to be eating oats with this woman?
‘It’s just you seem to want me to know you really didn’t know I worked here, and if you had, you wouldn’t have come here, and oh, of course I don’t mind being paired with Allie. I’m a nice guy. I never do anything wrong.’ She sighs. ‘I’m not playing this fake game.’
I shake my head, tip it towards the sky. Despite myself, a hot ball in my chest aches, that she thinks that about me. ‘Fake game? Allie, why would I come here if I knew?’
‘I don’t know,’ Allie replies. ‘Accolades? Praise for a serious documentary that’s going to help the world, and screw how uncomfortable that might make me feel because look at what you’re set to gain? Or, I don’t know, some weird quest for my forgiveness to help you feel better?’
‘Your forgiveness? I want your forgiveness?’ My jaw clenches like a rusty hinge. I’m an actor. I get sticking to a story, getting into a character, but Jesus Christ. She is playing this like even she believes she didn’t do it.
‘Yes,’ she says.
‘For what?’
She laughs then. It’s a real, angry, exasperated laugh. ‘Well, the awards are certainly deserved,’ she says. ‘I almost believe, listening to you now, that you didn’t leak the messages.’
Wow, she is sticking to the story. But that’s what they say, don’t they? If you want to lie well, believe it yourself.
‘Allie, you know I didn’t leak the messages. Two years have passed. Just admit you did.’
‘Milo, you know I didn’t do it, because you did.’
‘It doesn’t even make any sense.’ A scoff bursts out of me. ‘What was it you said? That I leaked them to help my image because what better way than to leak all of my stupid romantic messages? That’s the line you’re sticking with?’
She shrugs, sharply. ‘I’m not sticking with anything, Milo. I just think, as a motivation, that makes a lot of sense, yes. You talked a lot about that on our calls. What people thought of you.’
‘A lot?’
‘Yep. About how everyone was angry at you after Day Falls, that interview which blew up your Instagram page, probably lost you roles, what a bad boyfriend you’d been painted out to be—’
‘I know you think it’s a watertight narrative you’ve created for me,’ I bite. ‘A motivation, as you called it. But really, if I wanted to help my image, I think I might’ve been able to come up with a better, more simple way than leaking my personal messages to a woman I met online.’
Her nostrils flare. ‘Well, you seemed to come out of it looking just perfect,’ she says.
‘Oh yeah? So I should be thankful?’
Oh, she’s really pissing me off now. Because has she forgotten?
She used to tell me she wanted to send her diary to her sister, that she sometimes left the document open, wanted everything out there.
She used to tell me there was nothing she wouldn’t do for her job; that her project in Bermuda was all she had.
She even said to Iris – and OK, jokingly, but even so – she could hand the phone in, make some cash.
I don’t think she ever expected her messages to Iris to be part of the deal.
But, regardless, she looks guilty. She knows she is.
And she’s scared, so she’s throwing it back to me.
‘Yes,’ she says again. ‘You did just fine, so why complain?’
‘Oh, so it all worked out.’
‘For you,’ she says, wobblily. ‘From where I’m sitting. Day Falls fans loved you again. Actors apologised to you publicly. People commenting and fawning over how romantic you are. All looked great and continues to, from where I’m sitting.’
Is that what she’s telling herself? That she might’ve betrayed me, but I benefited, so I should lighten up, or shut up?
‘You have no idea what you’re saying, Allie.’
‘I think I do.’
‘Well, maybe you should pass that on to my father, huh?’ I say. I try to steady it, but my voice wobbles now too. I’m angry. ‘He doesn’t think I came out looking just fine, but I don’t suppose we have time to get into that now, right? We’re running late. This is your work.’
For a second, Allie stares at me, her eyes wide.
The corners wilt, just a fraction, with something that could be – no, is sympathy, as far as I can tell.
Her eyes shine and I almost feel sorry for her.
I wait for her to probe. Her mouth opens to speak.
Instead, she clears her throat and says, ‘Yes. We are running late.’
She continues on, robotically, about staying seated, about keeping my feet on the rails at all times, and as she speaks, I feel like I’m listening to her with my head dunked under water. How the hell will we get through four days of this?
‘Let’s go then,’ she says finally, and she hops onto the snowmobile.
A petite nimble leg thrown over the seat, straddling it.
I get on behind her. I can smell her hair.
Watermelon. Of course she smells like watermelon.
Annoyingly that feels very Allie. And that makes the stupid dumbass animal part of me think about her legs last night.
Bare and smooth. Those eyes that stuck to mine – wide with anger and judgement, like she was marking my every move, like an assassin.
It’s stupid. But despite the anger, there’s an unspoken something else here too, in fleeting tiny moments.
Chemistry. The same chemical make-up that was there two years ago.
Confusing, because for two years I’ve been telling myself it wasn’t real . . .
Below us, the engine rumbles into life.
‘Hold on,’ she says and as I ask, ‘Is it like a motorcycle? Do I put my hands on your waist, or—’ she cuts in like I’m hovering above a full bathtub with a plugged-in toaster.
‘No, Milo. No,’ she says. ‘You have handles for that. OK? Please hold the handles. Do not hold me.’