“That’s because right now, you’re a fantasy to them,” he says, his voice rising, “and if you take that away, you’re just you, my girlfriend, my Halston, on display. It’s not safe, and it’s not happening.”
“I don’t need you to protect me. That didn’t work out so well for Rich, did it? Is that what you’re doing? Saving me from myself?”
“I’m the opposite of them.” He sounds strangled. “I’ve tried to be everything to you they’re not, to give you what they can’t. I’m not them.”
“No. You’re worse.” Tears fill my eyes, and I steady myself on a barstool. “You pretended to care. You lifted me up to get what you wanted—for what? Your career? Was it even an accident, running into you at the coffee shop that day? Or did you follow me there like you did to the art gallery, so you could convince me to do this with you?”
“I . . . that isn’t the reason, but—” He grabs his hair in a fist. “It wasn’t an accident. I was waiting for you.”
I turn around.
“Not because I wanted your journal . . . I mean, I did, but not for this—” He calls after me. “Where are you going?”
My chest hurts. He was supposed to be my everything. My rock, my soul mate. I trusted him. “Away from you.”
“I told—no, I asked you not to take off.” He follows me through the restaurant. He was right, the guests heard everything. They’re silent as we pass through. “I don’t know how to reason with you without coming off like your dad,” he says. “I’ve been walking on eggshells since we met, trying not to come off like him, but you know what I think? Maybe you haven’t been completely fair to him. You’re not being fair to me.”
Siding with my dad, just like Rich. I really fucked up, thinking this relationship was any different. Even if Rich tried to keep me in a box, at least he didn’t pretend he wasn’t doing that.
I want to see him.
The thought surprises me, but it’s true. I want to see Rich right now—as a friend. I don’t have many of those, and Rich was my closest one for two years. For all his faults, he’s always been there when I needed him. My dad lives an hour away and if I show up drunk to his house, he’ll never let me live it down.
I exit the building to hail a cab.
“You’re going home, right?” Finn asks behind me.
“I don’t want to go back to that fucking apartment. I feel like I’ve been cooped up there for months.”
“I thought you were happy there.” The hurt in his voice is evident, but then he speaks again. “I don’t think you should go out. I’m sorry, I know saying this won’t make things easier, but you don’t need to drink any more tonight.”
As a cab pulls over, I whirl on Finn. I want to lock him out the way he did to me, except that I have no control over anything in our business. That’s not true for our relationship, though. I want to hurt him. “I’ll go home when I feel like it. I’ll drink what I want, talk to who I want, post what I want.” My hands are in two tight fists. “I need you to change the password back.”
His tie is crooked, his honey-colored hair disheveled, but he looks nothing less than gorgeous and perfect. “No.”
“It’s my business too.”
“You can’t make such a huge decision while you’re in this state.”
“Change it back. Tonight.” I open the door to the cab’s backseat. “We’re this close to our goal—”
“I don’t give a shit about that,” he cries, taking my elbow to pull me from the car. “Who gives a fuck how many followers we have?”
“I do,” I say through a film of tears. “You made me care. You pushed me to do this, and now you’re trying to make me feel stupid for wanting it.”
“I never pushed you, Hals, and I’m not trying to make you feel stupid. I’m saying that’s not important right now—”
“To you. Let me go.”
“To us. And no.”
“You know what’s important to me?” I shove my palms into his chest, and he releases me but doesn’t budge. “You think you know better?” I ask.
“No.”
I try to take a deep breath, but I can’t catch one. “Why don’t you just put me back on the fucking drugs? What made me think you’d accept me like this?” I push him again, and he grabs my wrists. “Is this what you signed up for? A crazy person? Is it?”
He spins me around to hug me from behind. “This isn’t you,” he says, his hands cold and firm as they keep me in place. “You’re somewhere else right now. Come back to me, Hals.”
My heart pounds a mile a minute. I should’ve done this months ago, before I fell so hard. I knew deep down—nobody wants someone like me. I’m troubled. I make bad decisions. “This is me. Let go.”
“No.”
“You can’t handle me. Nobody can, and maybe I’m better off without any of you. Let go of me.”
“No. I’m not letting you go. You can fight me all you want, but I love you.”
“I’m going to Rich.” It just comes out.
After a few tense moments, he releases me all at once, like I’ve burnt him. “What?”
I stay where I am, back to him as I try to breathe. “I have to process all this—away from you. I’m going to see Rich, my friend, because that’s what I need right now.”
“If you go there, we’re done.”
I get in the backseat of the cab and shut the door, but the passenger’s side window is open.
“I can forgive you anything,” Finn says, “the scene you just made, overdrinking when I warned you not to, telling the people who hired me to do a job something so personal about us. But not this.”
I swipe my tears away. On some level, now that the thrill of our relationship is wearing off, I’m sure this is what he wants. But Finn’s too softhearted to leave someone who isn’t stable, someone who needs him like I do. Someone who’s obsessed with him. Sometimes he needs a push. This is best for both of us.
I give the driver Rich’s address.
30
Rich’s doorman looks suspicious as I do my best not to stumble across the apartment building’s lobby, but he lets me by with a wave. After all, even if I’ve been away a few months, I did spend two years coming in and out of this building.
I pound on Rich’s door until he yells from the other side, “All right, all right. Jesus. Who is it?”
“Me.”
The deadbolt slides open, and Rich peeks out, squinting. He looks less surprised to find me drunk on his doorstep in the middle of the night than I would’ve guessed. “Come in, Halston.”
“I need a place to crash.”
“I already said come in.” He opens the door wider. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, and I’m sleeping on the couch.”
He surrenders with both palms up and leads me into the kitchen. “You know where the linens are. I’ll get you some water.”
“I’m drunk.”
“No shit.”
“I’m sorry.” I steady myself on the kitchen island as he gets a glass from a cupboard. “I know you hate that.”
“Actually . . . no. In a way, I’m kind of, I guess, glad.”
Did he say glad? “Huh?”
He glances up from under his lashes as he pours me filtered water. “I’ve been waiting for this to happen, and I’d hoped you’d come here when it did. Where you feel safe.”
Is that true? Did I come crawling back here knowing the most dangerous feeling I might experience is tedium or Rich’s standard-grade condescension? “You’re not mad?”
“No.” He brings me the glass, stopping for Tylenol from a medicine drawer. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really. I just want to sleep.”
“Does it have to do with him? Is it over?”
I gulp down water and pills, looking at Rich over the rim of the glass. It doesn’t feel over—how could it be? How could all that love and passion just vanish into thin air? Finn said it, though. If I left, that was it. Defying Finn is less exhilarating no
w, less righteous, than it was twenty minutes ago.
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. Rich doesn’t need to know any of that. “Not over.”
He sighs on his way to the linen closet. “What’s with the bag?”
I almost forgot. I open the flap of Finn’s bag, but there’s nothing in there. Finn still has his camera. And the account, and anything that means something to me. My chest aches, also empty. “It’s his.”
“Ah.” Rich hands me a pile of folded sheets topped with a pillow and blanket. “I’ll let you get some sleep.”
I’m surprised he doesn’t have more to say, but I’m not about to argue. He follows me into the living room and turns off the lights before leaving me to it. I make up the couch.
While removing my shoes and tights, I topple onto the cushions. I leave my dress on, get under the blanket, and take out my cell. I have the urge to talk to Finn, but what is there to say? I’m still angry. I still don’t think he was right to cut me out like that. Does he even want to hear from me?
Instead, I open my camera roll. In here, I keep the photos Finn has sent me that we don’t share. The ones that’re just for us. Me, sitting up in bed first thing in the morning, the sheet pulled up around my breasts, barely hiding my nipples. My hair is mussed from a night of lovemaking. From Finn. My eyes water.
“Will you be warm enough?” Rich asks from the doorway.
Startled, I put a protective hand over my screen so he doesn’t see anything. “Yes.”
“Okay.” He clears his throat. Tonight’s half-moon casts some light into the room. “So he lets you get drunk alone at night in this city?”
“I knew it.” I’ll let you get some sleep. Can’t believe I fell for that. “I knew you couldn’t resist.”
“Sorry that I want you to be safe.”
“You just want to say you told me so.”
“So I did tell you so?” I can just make out the way his eyebrows shoot up. “You’re admitting I was right about him?”
“No.” I frown until I’m pouting. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Can I just tell you how things look from my perspective?” he asks. “Then maybe you’ll understand my concern. One night, out of the blue, no warning, no valid reason, you dump me. Over the phone. Right after you go off antidepressants. Whenever I see you at work, you have dark circles under your eyes or you look like you’ve been crying. Next thing I know, your bodyguard boyfriend is threatening me to stay away from you. It’s like you’re brainwashed or something.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I don’t know what hold he has over you, but something feels off. I’m worried he’s encouraging your patterns, or worse, he’s become one. I don’t want you to get involved with something dangerous, something that can’t be reversed, because you’re blinded by infatuation.”
Even in my inebriated state, Rich’s words hit close to home. He knows me well—how could he not after two years? What if he sees something I don’t? I never recognize a pattern until I’m already in too deep to get out on my own. With coffee, I was excited to find Lait Noir, a place that served it just how I liked it. I hadn’t realized anything was different until my dad congratulated me on getting my spending under control again. When had I stopped shopping and started drinking coffee by the gallon?
“You don’t need to worry about me,” I say.
“I disagree.”
“No, I mean . . . you don’t need to worry about me. I’m not your responsibility anymore. You and my dad are getting on fine without me, you don’t need to date me for him to like you.”
Crossing his arms, he looks out the window. “I don’t know why you so vehemently believe that I loved around you. I didn’t. I loved you. I still do.”
Rich doesn’t have a romantic bone in his body. Or does he? I didn’t think I’d hurt him very badly, or maybe I just didn’t think. I was too consumed by my own life. “I do love you, in a way, but I can be selfish. You knew that.”
“That’s not an excuse. You just left, no explanation, no second chances. Do you have any idea how much that hurt?”
I didn’t. Slowly, a thought creeps in. What if, all this time, Rich and my dad really have known what’s best for me? What if their protectiveness, and Finn’s too, has come out of wanting me to be happy, not a need to subdue me so I can be managed? They’ve said it, but I’ve never really heard it. I believe the pain in Rich’s voice, though, and it makes me think maybe he really was in love with me. More than he let on.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. It’s easier to say in the dark, even though the dark won’t stand still at the moment.
“You love the drama,” he says. “You always have, which is why you wanted to be on antidepressants. You crave the ups and downs, but they scare you.” Rich sighs and pulls the curtains shut, shrouding me in complete darkness. “I’ll leave a light on in the bathroom in case you need to throw up.”
“I won’t. I’m fine.”
I close my eyes but immediately open them when the world tilts.
He’s such a goddamn know-it-all.
When I’m alone, I unlock my phone and swipe through more photos Finn took of me. He isn’t in any of them. Dad, Rich, Finn—they love me, they do. Why is it so hard for me to accept that? Maybe controlling me isn’t the best way to show it, but Finn has also supported and encouraged me. He’s the reason I’ve bloomed these past few months.
Isn’t he allowed to be protective of what he loves?
* * *
I wake at the crack of dawn, and I mean the crack. I guess Rich didn’t shut the curtains all the way, because one asshole beam of light slices right through the dark and onto my face. I sit up too fast. My body protests almost as hard as my pounding temples. Stumbling to the window, I yank the blinds all the way closed, but with the sun rising fast, it’s still not dark.
I’m drudging back to the couch when I see him and nearly fall flat on my face.
George Fox.
He’s sleeping in the club chair next to the sofa, his burgundy cashmere sweater wrinkled like he’s a bourgeois vagrant. I blink a few times, rubbing my eyes in disbelief. “Dad?”
He shifts. After a moment, he lifts his head, squinting at me. “Banana?”
“What are you doing here?” I sit on the edge of the couch, facing him. “Did Rich call you?”
“He was worried. And before you go off on him, just know he’s been worried for a long time and kept it all to himself. Until last night.” He sits up, grimacing. “I’m too damn rickety to be sleeping on a chair, Halston. Are you trying to send your old man to an early grave?”
I look at the ground, my throat thickening with unshed tears. He drove an hour in the middle of the night to see me. It’s becoming clear that I’ve gone out of my way to hurt all the people who love me. It’s been a two-way street, but I’ve grown a lot the last few months and I can’t help wondering if much of my struggle the last ten years was imposed by myself.
“How much did he tell you?”
“You’re shacking up with some middle-aged artist?”
I roll my eyes. “He’s not middle-aged. He’s in his thirties. And we live together.”
“You should’ve told me. What if something had happened? I wouldn’t’ve been able to find you.”
“Like what?” I ask. “What else could possibly happen?”
He furrows his eyebrows, then leans his elbows on his knees. “I know you’re hurting. I just don’t know why you won’t let us help you.”
“I have to do it on my own, Dad. I want to heal, not numb myself forever. I never properly dealt with my feelings surrounding . . . that.”
“Minnie’s death.”
I inhale back tears. He rarely uses her name. I know it hurts him to even say it. “It felt like when you put me on that stuff, you just wanted to shut me up. Make me move on.”
“I wanted to stop the pain for you,” he says. “If you were going through even half of what I was—”
“Of cour
se I was. More, because it was my fault.”
“Oh, baby.” He rubs his face, his hands shaking. “It’s not your damn fault.”
My chest constricts. I don’t know if he realizes he’s never said that. “You made me think it was.”
He looks up. He’s crying. “I’m sorry. I didn’t take care of you. I couldn’t. Getting you treatment was the only way I could deal with the fact that I was falling apart. I was scared to bring you down with me, so I gave you to a professional.”
“Then why keep me there for ten years?”
He shakes his head. “I thought you were doing well. Weren’t you? You graduated college. Rich was good to you. You’ve been a productive, creative employee. She’d be so proud of you.”
I cover my face to hold in the tears. A blur of the provocative images Finn and I took flash through my mind. “No she wouldn’t.”
“Yes.” He reaches out and pulls one hand away by my wrist. “She is.”
After a few stuttering breaths, my sobs break through. Dad moves over to the couch and holds me while I cry. This is what I needed. All I ever needed. To be allowed to be sad, to have regrets, and for my parent to support me through it.
“I’ve screwed everything up,” I say into his chest. “All these years, I resented you when I should’ve embraced the fact that I still have you.”
He rests his cheek on top of my head. “We still have plenty of time, you and me. Time to make the changes we both need to.”
“Changes?” I look up at him. “How?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t want to go back to how things have been. I want to be part of your life, not just at work or during December. How do I do that?”
As soon as he asks, I know the answer. He won’t like it, but it might be the best road to repairing our relationship. I swallow through the lump in my throat at the same time a laugh bubbles up. I begin to giggle.
“Are you losing it?” he asks, frowning.
I shake my head. “Therapy. You and me, together. Not with Lumby, but with a new doctor. A fresh start.”
“Fuck.”
That makes me laugh harder. “It’s not so bad. Sometimes it’s actually nice to just talk to someone who won’t judge you. That’s why I write.”
Slip of the Tongue Series: The Complete Boxed Set Page 103
