by Mary
When we get home, Mom is waiting with my favorite old sweats and one of Dad’s T-shirts. I change and she feeds me empanadas and then I crash hard in my old room, falling asleep to the sound of my mother whispering dulces sueños in my ear and kissing my forehead, just like she did when I was little.
When I wake up, the sun is shining and I feel about a thousand times better. So much better that I pull out my camera, but as soon as I see the first picture of Marc on the beach, laughing, head thrown back, his eyes crinkled at the corners, the stabbing pain in my chest nearly cripples me all over again.
“Too soon,” I mutter before shutting the damn thing off and putting it back in my purse.
“I think she’s awake,” a loud voice whispers from outside my door.
“Shut up, Gabby, you’re too freaking loud.”
“Oh, and that wasn’t loud? Why don’t you just shout at me?”
“I’m awake, guys,” I call out.
A second later, the door flings open and both of my sisters jump on the bed, one on either side. They hug me like I’m the meat in their sister sandwich and then snuggle down next to me on top of the comforter.
“I missed you,” Gabby says, kissing my forehead.
“I missed you guys, too.”
“I didn’t say I missed your punk ass,” Gemma says, but since she’s snuggled up to my other side, I don’t really believe her. “Are you ready to spill it? Everything this time and none of that bullshit you told me about dating Brent that was obviously a lie.”
I take a deep breath. “Yeah. I’m ready.”
And then I tell them all of it, from the night with Scarlett, to the photo shoot where I first met Brent and Marc, to Starlee’s phone call and offer to help with my career, to the time I spent with Marc and how beautiful he is and how he helps everyone and everything around him to his own detriment. I tell them about Thanksgiving and the ride home.
I tell them about how it grew into something intense and our one blissful weekend—leaving out some of the sexy details, but they get the drift.
Then I tell them about what happened when the article hit, and how I discovered Brent apparently was falling for me and everything that was said before I totally lost my shit.
“Marc wasn’t using you as a means to an end. He’s not Lucky,” Gemma says when I run out of words. “It sounds like maybe he was just talking in the heat of the moment.”
“I know. But . . . I can’t come between them like that. They’re very close. They only have each other since their mom died and their dad is a real piece of work.”
“What are you going to do now? Are you going to move home?”
“And give up everything I’ve been working for? Everything I crawled out of a hole to get back? No. I’m going to go back to New York and start over. Again. Or try to. Except now that I’m the focus of a celebrity sex scandal, it’s going to be even harder to get people to take me seriously. How can I fight this?”
Gabby rubs my arm. “You know we’ll help however we can.”
“I just need a little bit of time to recover. And maybe a whole tray of Mom’s chile rellenos.”
Gemma laughs. “We can make that happen. And there’s always a distraction available around here. We’re having a little get-together at the Londons’ tonight. You should come.”
“They’re having another party? What for this time?” Gabby asks.
“Sam’s parents are out of town, so his sister Lucy is housesitting. They’re having a girls’ night or something.”
I shrug. “If it will distract me from my train wreck of a life, I’m in.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.
–Diane Arbus
Marc
There have been many moments in my life when I’ve thought, things can’t possibly get any worse.
When Dad went MIA and suddenly I was a brother and a parent. When I crashed into a tree and ruined my face and any future I might have had in snowboarding. When girlfriend after girlfriend used me to get to Brent and I thought I would never meet anyone that would really see me.
When I saw the article about Gwen and me in Stylz. “Beauty and the Beast.” How apt.
But nothing other than my own mother’s death can compare to the moment that Brent accused me, rightfully so, of breaking the bro code. And then Gwen, the only person I’ve felt so connected to I can hardly breathe without her, disappeared out the door.
I didn’t do anything to stop her.
And now I can’t find her.
“Charlie, I need your help.” I call her on my way to the office.
“Still not a shrink.”
“Gwen’s missing.”
“Missing? Did you file a police report?”
“So maybe she’s not missing per se. There’s a distinct possibility she’s avoiding me.”
“What did you do?”
“Will you please meet me in my office in ten minutes?”
She sighs and grumbles something about annoying men and this is why she’s a lesbian, but she agrees.
I try calling Brent again and it rings once, then goes to voicemail. Gwen’s not the only one ignoring my calls.
I haven’t seen him since he left the apartment yesterday. We were so busy ripping into each other we didn’t even notice when Gwen left.
We said things we shouldn’t have. Well, I did. I might have yelled something about how I take care of everything for him and when is he going to grow up and be a real man. For some reason, that made him leave and then ignore all my calls.
Once my head stopped pounding, I tried calling Gwen, but her phone went straight to voicemail. I went over to her apartment and she wasn’t there. Her neighbor Martha hadn’t seen her since that morning.
Every call I’ve made since then has been the same. No ringing, straight to voicemail. I tried texting, too, but no response.
I didn’t sleep, too busy worrying. If something had happened, I would know, right? She was upset, she just needed space.
By the time I get to my office, Charlie is there.
“I need you to help me find her.”
“How?”
I run my hands through my hair. I’m going to be bald soon. “I don’t know. Hack her phone records. Hack some flight records. Start calling hospitals.”
“Calm down. What happened?”
Haltingly, I tell her the whole story. Well, most of the whole story. I’m not telling her about the amazing sex.
“You love her,” Charlie says once I’ve finished.
I blink. “Yeah. I do.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Yeah. I am.”
She sighs. “Let me see what I can find. I’ll let you know.”
She leaves and I’m left alone. Once again, I call Brent. This time it rings about five times before going to voicemail.
Progress?
Maybe.
Gwen’s phone is the same. Straight to voicemail.
I’ve never felt so frustrated and powerless in my whole life. I can’t focus on anything in front of me. Instead of working on reports that are due yesterday, I start searching the web, social media sites, anywhere and everywhere looking for any mention of Gwen.
Most of the stuff that comes up is nothing new, just rehashing of the article about us being together, along with terrible photos that highlight how beautiful she is and how horrible my scars are.
I grimace at my own face.
It doesn’t get better when I get a call from Dad’s office.
“Marc, get in here. I need you.” Then he hangs up.
For the first time in . . . ever, I don’t jump to his demands. I put the phone back in the base and decide that I’m not going to listen to him. Not anymore.
Instead, I keep looking online for any Gwen sightings.
It takes Dad all of fifteen minutes to come b
arging into my office, red-faced and panting. “What are you doing?” he barks.
I stay seated behind my desk and lift my eyes once to take in his frustration—which gives me an inordinate amount of glee. I feel like the Grinch on Christmas after he’s taken all the presents from all the Whos in Whoville and he’s imagining their despair . . . before all the singing and happiness, you know. I return my gaze to the screen in front of me.
“I’m working, Dad.”
“I called you. I need you.”
“What do you need?” I keep clicking and tapping, not bothering to look up.
“What is wrong with you?” he bellows.
Charlie sneaks in behind his back, staying as far away from him as possible as she squeezes through the door.
“Did you find her?” I ask.
“Who are you?” Dad asks her.
“No, but I found Brent.” Her eyes flick from mine to Dad’s and then back, her expression serious. “He’s in the hospital.”
~*~
The next twenty minutes are a blur of activity. Charlie didn’t have any details about what exactly happened or Brent’s current condition, just that it hadn’t hit the media yet because there’s police involvement.
Dad and I rush as fast as we can down to the front of the building and get in a company car. Then we’re immediately stuck in traffic.
We’re in the back seat together. I’m about to explode with frustration at the amount of time it’s taking to get through the city when Dad turns to me.
“Why didn’t you come to my office when I called?” At least he’s calm. It’s weird, it’s like as soon as Charlie told us about Brent, he morphed into a different person. Like her words were some kind of incantation. All of a sudden, he’s serene and rational. The exact opposite of who he normally is.
“You really want to do this now?”
“It’s a simple question.”
“Dad.” I expel a breath and run my hands through my hair. It’s funny how when you’ve lost everything that matters, making decisions becomes so easy. “I quit.”
I keep my eyes focused out the window at the people walking along the sidewalk and brace myself, waiting for an explosion.
It doesn’t come.
When people have a heart attack, they do more than just sit there staring, right?
“Dad?”
“You can’t quit.”
I blink. He’s not yelling. That’s weird. “I don’t like my job.”
“Nobody likes their job, that’s why it’s called work.”
“You can’t make me stay. I’m a grown man, and I have no ownership interest in the company. I’m only an employee, and I’m your son. I want to be happy. I’m sorry, I really am, but I just can’t do it anymore.”
His face is blank. I can’t read him. This can’t be good.
He turns to look out the window.
So he’s going to freeze me out? Is that his game plan?
“I’ll find a replacement. A good one, but you can’t treat them badly. Please.”
Still, he says nothing and we continue the drive in deafening silence.
When we’re a few blocks from the hospital, we hop out of the car and run.
We find Brent in the ER. He’s okay. He’s been grazed by a bullet in the left shoulder.
“What the hell happened?” I ask, right after I hug him and squeeze his face in my hands like I used to do when we were young and he suffered a bad tackle, to make sure he’s really here and really alive. He’s sitting on a hospital bed, in his jeans and a T-shirt. There’s gauze wrapped around his left bicep.
Dad doesn’t say anything. He stands on the other side of the hospital bed, listening.
“Marissa,” Brent says.
“Marissa shot you?”
Brent nods. “Marissa is the chicken stalker.”
“Chicken stalker?” Dad asks.
“I’ll explain later,” I tell him. “How did you find out?”
“Well, I’m still pissed at you, by the way, but I also love you because you’re my brother and I was even more pissed at Marissa for running that damn article. We all know it’s her behind these stories. I had my attorney file a defamation suit against her, and when she found out, she showed up at the apartment door. I was trying to get her to leave but then our neighbors came out to see the ruckus. She dropped her purse while she was flailing her arms around and hitting me, and out came a chicken picture.”
“A chicken picture?” I ask.
“What the hell?” Dad says.
“Yep. Along with a few sheets of the weird vellum paper my stalker has been mailing me. I called her on it and told her I was going to have a restraining order issued, and she lost her mind. It was like a bad soap opera. It was all, if I can’t have you, no one can, and when I told her how unoriginal that was and asked if she could come up with something less derivative, she pulled out a gun and shot me, then ran.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah. Thankfully, she’s a terrible shot. One of the neighbors had already called security, and they got her almost immediately.”
“You could have been killed.”
“But I wasn’t. And I’m going to have a badass scar that’s way cooler than yours. And a better story.”
I laugh, relieved. “That’s true.”
“I’m glad you’re okay, Son,” Dad says.
“Thanks for coming here, guys. I know how busy you are.”
“I’m not going to be busy anymore. I quit.”
Brent smiles. “Good.”
Dad clears his throat. “I’m glad you’re okay, Brent. I think you guys have more things to discuss. I’m going back to the office.”
So much for showing emotions or sympathy for his son being in the hospital.
He’s clearly not happy about what I told him, but what can I do about it? I can’t let his problems become mine. Not anymore. And I’m actually surprised he didn’t totally freak out on me. The calm gangster routine is new and a little scary.
But I can’t worry about him now.
Once he’s gone, it’s just me and Brent.
“So you don’t totally hate me anymore?” I ask.
He releases a sigh and his shoulders slump a little. “I never hated you. How could I? And I’ve been thinking about the things you said. You weren’t entirely wrong with the ego comments. And I do rely on you too much. It’s time for me to stand on my own and deal with things that I’ve been putting off.”
Before I can ask what those things are, he continues. “It’s just that ever since Bella broke up with me, and then all this stuff with Gwen . . . I’ve felt, I don’t know, insecure. It’s not a comfortable feeling.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me what was going on with you and Gwen?”
I pull at the collar of my shirt, loosening my tie. “I don’t know. I didn’t think she wanted me like I wanted her. It was a nonissue. But then it wasn’t and I got wrapped up in the idea of having her. She’s everything I didn’t know I needed. And I think she really wanted me, too.”
“She’s a smart girl.”
I shrug. “I don’t think it matters anymore.”
“Why not?”
“She’s gone off the grid. I can’t find her. I’ve been to her apartment, I’ve had Charlie hacking computer systems . . .”
“She’s close with her family. Do you think she would have gone home?”
The lightbulb goes on. “Why didn’t I think of that?” I can only blame the stress and lack of sleep. I fumble for my phone, pulling it out of my pocket.
There’s a missed call from Charlie.
She answers after one ring.
“What did you find?”
“She left on a flight to Reno yesterday at five.”
“You’re a goddess.”
“I know.”
We hang up and I look at Brent. “You were right. She’s there.”
/>
“Do you love her?”
“Yes.”
“Then go get her.”
I swallow. “Do you think it will be that easy?”
“Probably not, but I’ve thought of a way maybe I can help smooth the way.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The truth is the best picture, the best propaganda.
–Robert Capa
Gwen
“Mija, you need to eat more.”
“Mom, I just ate three helpings of ceviche.”
“You are too skinny. Here. Have some rice pudding.”
“Mom! Okay, fine.”
I can never say no to rice pudding. Or flan. She knows my weakness, this person who birthed me.
She leaves me in the living room in front of the TV, wrapped in blankets like it’s outer Siberia, a bowl of rice pudding in my hands and a heart full of doubt.
I’m sure I overreacted, leaving New York like I did. But I’m going back. I have to talk to Marc. And Brent. I have to find a way to fix . . . everything. It’s all my fault. But I’m not quite ready to face reality yet.
I’m glad I’m here. This is a way better place to watch Bridget Jones’s Diary and listen to Taylor Swift while I cry into massive amounts of food. I definitely won’t starve.
The front door opens and then Gemma’s voice. “Gwen! Where are you? You’re supposed to be over at the Londons’.” A few seconds later, she finds me in my blanket fort.
“Have you even showered?”
I point my spoon at her. “Don’t judge me.”
“They’re waiting for us next door.”
“Good for them.”
“Stop being a child. You said you would come over.”
“I guess I did.”
“They really want to meet you. And it’s very casual, think yoga pants and sleepwear. You don’t even have to change.”
“Can I bring my blankets?”
“Ugh. Fine. Maybe it will help cover your stank.”
I put on my slippers and we tromp across the side yard and over to the neighbors.
