by C. L. Donley
Holy shit, Amara.
“Okay ladies, I think that’s twelve rounds,” I step in.
Mya whirls around in my direction. “Is that you defending me?”
“Is that… what you want?” I ask quizzically.
Stoically, abruptly, Mya scoops up her things, grabs her keys and heads out of the kitchen. The now cold dinner plate she’s nursing falls in her haste and crashes to the floor, shattering in a few large pieces.
As she turns on her heels and walks out, none of us move until we hear the front door slam with a deafening roar.
Amara’s head immediately goes to her hands as she weeps, helplessly.
Thirty Two
Chapter 32
Mya
If I ever need a reminder that Amara is now a package deal, I just need to remember the sound of that calm yet stern voice from the corner of the room. I was too embarrassed to even look in its direction to find its source. Even Amara hadn’t wanted to look in my eyes. I’ve never felt so alone.
Say what’s on your mind, Amara said. As though it wasn’t a trap.
Then I did, and got pummeled by her husband.
My face is so hot I might actually be red. Mentally I’m practically out of body. I feel sick.
This is it. The last of my world, crumbling before my eyes. Is this like some metamorphosis shit I have to go through? Are there butterfly wings in my future? Is this a sign that I should definitely move to Holland?
My eyes blur with tears as I slam the door and make my way back to the car, relieved now to have been the last person to arrive.
I start the car, the anger now having subsided and leaving a shame-soaked resolve. I will never come back to this house.
I take a mental picture of the three of them in the kitchen, like some scene from a stage play that had been blocked out. I shrink a few centimeters each time I replay it. Watch yourself, Mya. Watch yourself, Mya. How will I face any of them again?
I numbly back out of the driveway and, after less than an hour in town, start the asinine trek back to my house an hour away in Palo Alto.
I’m only about ten minutes into the drive when my car’s warning lights start flashing. First the battery, then more reds and yellows of unrecognizable things.
“What the fuck,” I say aloud.
My car begins legitimately to shut down.
“WHAT THE FUCK,” I yell. I pull over on the shoulder.
I’m afraid to turn the car off, that if I do it won’t turn back on.
The car makes the decision for us both and shuts itself off.
“Shit!” I sob. I put the car in park.
I pull at the steering wheel and pound the dashboard. I’m about to make the most humbling phone call I will ever have to make.
But before that, I’m going to cry and scream.
It can’t wait for the solemnity of my bed, which is now much further out of reach than an hour long drive.
As I grip the wheel tight I commence unraveling, letting out a scream in the confines of my little box on the side of the road. A random string of cars zoom past me through the long stretches of quiet. I sob loudly, irrationally, as I hold my head at the temples. I feel some catharsis, but not yet enough to call Amara’s phone. In fact, hitchhiking never looked so appealing.
I notice a car’s bright lights coming up behind me, slowing down as if in traffic but there is none. The car’s lights get brighter at my back and then level off. Suddenly the car slows beside me and swerves to park itself right in front of me.
The familiar back end of a black luxury SUV.
Dale.
He isn’t the first person I want to see right now.
But he isn’t the last either.
Grayson
At the house, Amara’s sobs are the only sound that can be heard until I am the first to speak.
“Personally I think that was… healthy.”
“Says the guy who has full on, property-destroying meltdowns,” Dale says.
“You don’t agree?” I ask.
“I do, but still… it was pretty fucked up,” Dale opines.
“It was. Now the healing can begin.” I argue.
“Fuckin’ Deepak Chopra,” he says.
Amara is up, searching the nearby powder room for Kleenex.
“Having second thoughts about that whole ‘declaring love for her’ thing, Dale?” Amara asks.
“No. In fact I wasn’t talking about her, I was talking about you,” Dale says.
Amara stops in her tracks looking across the kitchen at him. I smirk. Yep, he’s a gonner. In the best way.
“What did I do?”
“You obviously knew how she felt,” Dale accuses her.
“No! I mean I had a suspicion, but no matter what I did, she wouldn’t talk to me,” Amara’s voice cracks.
“And you weren’t willing to be the bad guy, until just now? In front of everyone?”
Amara gives a bewildered, somewhat amused look to me.
“She was really fucking out of sorts tonight. You didn’t get that?” Dale asks.
Amara looks like she’s going to cry again, and I know it’s for a different reason.
Operation DaMya is a success. And it is more beautiful than she ever imagined. He truly cares about her.
Apologies could wait. Right now, the best thing she can do for her friend, if she truly loves her, is to make sure she gets laid tonight.
“I’m honestly worried for her driving back right now,” Dale continues.
“Then go after her,” Amara says.
“Why would she want to see me now, after I let her get ripped to shreds? She’s just gonna let me have it,” Dale reasons.
“Let her take it all out on you, bro,” I say.
Amara snickers. Dale glares at me.
“Go get your woman, Dale!” Amara shouts with renewed vigor.
Dale
Amara sends me after Mya armed with her phone number that I should’ve gotten ages ago, and I’m out the door.
I’m not quite sure why I’m chasing her in my car as well, but I feel like that’s what I should do. It’s the same instinct I had to turn back around to our old apartment, the night Grayson tried to hang himself.
Not that I think Mya’s upset to that extent, but still. I have that same gross feeling, the haunting realization that someone right under your nose is having an entire separate experience from you that you simply couldn’t, or wouldn’t see.
Mya’s phone goes straight to voicemail, and I don’t fucking like that at all. It’s too close for comfort.
I’d done the same thing eleven years ago. When I pulled up to the old apartment, everything seemed to be on the up and up at first. I thought I was just being paranoid. But then I put the key in the door I’d literally just walked out of, and I couldn’t open it— it seemed to be blocked.
When I hastily squeezed myself through the doorway I was greeted by broken drywall, a messy landscape of belongings I saw every day yet barely recognized. The unidentifiable insides of things, now on the outside. I didn’t even stop to inspect it, which was odd. It was so eerily quiet that I mostly wanted to turn around and run out, but my feet just kept moving— moving it seemed for days— not wanting to rest until I could lay his eyes on Grayson, and know that he was safe.
When I finally did, my eyes instantly regretted it, as they would for many nights to come.
I’d picked up a weed habit back then, no thanks to Bel. Right at the time we were starting to make too much money. I’d been carrying a pocket knife that night. A fancy one that my dad bought me as a… who knows? A “good job you’re a man, go cut a deer’s throat” gift?
Why did Dad buy me a gift at all for Webster going public? And why that? Why was I carrying it everywhere? Why had I made it through airport security with it? Why did the universe care who lived, who died, who botched their suicides and who didn’t? Why not skip all that and just… walk outside to a flat tire? Simply never the leave the house that night?
; I would hit the bong and ask myself, until I was disoriented with bewilderment, until the “why” got so big like a crater that I fell into it, onto another why, then repeated the process until tears and laughter mingled indistinguishable.
I don’t get far on the highway before I spot a white Honda Civic with ballet decals pulled over on the side of the road.
I don’t breathe a sigh of relief just yet, though my gut has relaxed. I get out of my car, my camel cashmere trench coat blowing in the wind that’s turning to a light drizzle. The cars on the highway are slowing down as I saunter to her driver side window, perhaps wondering if their eyes are correct about seeing the CEO of Webster on the side of the road. I’m cringing at the hyper awareness of my own celebrity, but I don’t want to cause a wreck. By the light of the passing cars I can see her in the driver seat, wiping her eyes in haste. Instead of lowering the window, she opens her door.
“You alright?” I say.
My mind goes back to me asking her that question in a very different context in Spain.
“I think my car had a heart attack,” she diagnoses.
I was talking about her emotional state, but turns out she just had car problems. Well that was a simple fix.
“Leave this shit on the side of the road and come with me,” I say.
“Maybe ‘this shit’ has been loyal to me and I don’t want to just leave it,” Mya counters, somewhat nonsensically. My very presence is discombobulating her, I can tell. But I don’t know why. She seems to be caught off guard by my invitation.
I give her a killer smile, my hair made unruly by the highway wind. I lean into the driver side so that I’m completely covering the doorway and standing over her. Her car smells like her.
“You drive a stick shift,” I notice.
Mya slowly nods and makes a face at the random observation.
“That’s so hot,” I muse.
She closes her eyes and laughs.
“Well your smile’s still working, so that’s good.”
“Did anyone ever tell you that you’re corny as hell?” she says.
“Anyone ever tell you that you’re beautiful as hell?” I counter.
Suddenly she’s back. My words infuse her with energy, which infuses me with energy. She eyes me carefully.
“What do you propose?” she asks.
“I propose we worry about this tomorrow. Right now I have an oversized bathtub at home with your name on it,” I reply.
More smiles. She says nothing, but she’s hesitating, even though her car is on the side of the road and she literally has no place else to go. Damn. I should’ve called. Even while sitting in her car her posture is perfect and it is killing me.
Finally she sighs. “Well how could I say no to that?”
I grab her things from the backseat. Mya retrieves her knee length black sweater and puts it on over her t-shirt and form fitting jeans. It’s an “I’ve given up” outfit, I sense. She’s far too young for all of that. Not that her ass has any intentions of quitting. Mya folds herself like a pretzel on the luxurious leather of the front seat. She puts on her seatbelt and wordlessly looks out the window as I drive us the short distance to my house.
My house is quite a bit larger than Grayson and Amara’s, and definitely fits the “palatial monstrosity” label Mya invented. But if she noticed, she doesn’t let on.
I pull into my massive five car driveway and we sit wordless for a moment once I kill the engine.
“Tonight was my fault,” I sigh. “It was my idea to invite you to dinner. So don’t blame Amara, blame me.”
Mya lets out a sigh of her own, a single hand on the side of her head as she glances out through the windshield looking dejected. She’s still beautiful, maybe more so, when she’s solemn. I gaze at her profile as she speaks.
“I don’t blame anyone. Except myself. I should’ve spoken up, I just didn’t think it mattered what I felt about someone else’s life. I thought I would just…get over it all. Eventually.” She runs her fingers through her hair and blinks away tears.
“I thought being a principal dancer in Swan Lake would help. I thought getting laid would help. I’m still not quite sure what it is I need to get over.”
“We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to. I just… wanted to apologize.”
“For what, wanting to see me?”
I smiled. I reach into her lap and grab her hand, resisting the urge to grab something else.
“For Amara’s house not being the safety zone I assumed it was.”
She chuckles but the tears are gathering again as she chews a thumbnail.
“Amara knows I tend to… bottle things up.”
“You’re kidding. You?” Mya cracks a sarcastic smile
“She was trying to help me.”
“Did she?”
“Too early to tell, I’m afraid.”
I don’t think of myself as the “bottled-up” type, but I can relate. It’s not so much a flaw as it is a strategy. A terrible one. I can’t help but wonder if there’s a boiling point in my future as well.
“I’m kinda hungry,” she says huskily. I smile.
“Not a fan of beef wellington?”
“My mom was a manager at The Omni Hotel and we lived off of pseudo-fancy leftovers for many, many years. So no. I do not care for beef wellington.”
“She’s not anymore?”
“Retired.”
“What about your dad?”
“Retired military.”
“Explains where you get your discipline.”
“Maybe,” she smiles.
“Where did he serve?”
“Air Force. I thought there was a bath in my future?”
“What’s the rush?” I ask.
“Why are you asking me about my life?”
I’m taken aback by Mya’s about face.
“Because… I want to know who you are?”
“I’m here, aren’t I Dale? And I can’t leave, so. You can relax.”
I scoff. This shit again.
“Maybe you should relax, Mya.”
She rolls her eyes, still facing the windshield.
I shake my head. What is she, fourteen? Does she even know she’s doing it?
“Is this where you chew me out too?” she asks flatly.
I stare at her astounded.
“Mya, your instincts with men are shit. They’re fuckin’ terrible. Like the worst I’ve ever seen.”
Mya laughs a bit and looks out the window at nothing. She disconnects from me and I’m locked out. Just when I thought I was navigating my way around her, I’m lost again. I have no idea what she thinks this is.
“You really think I just successfully lured you to my mansion. Is that what you think just happened?”
“Yes, okay we get it, you’re such a fuckin’ catch. Which I guess is why you’re still single?”
“Um, ditto,” I shoot back.
Mya stares back at me, connected again, but only to fight. I don’t want to fight. But if she wants to, I suppose it worked out pretty well for me last time.
“After what you just saw tonight, you really think that I give a shit that you’re rich?” she says.
“Yeah, I think you do. I think you care too much that I’m rich.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“You act as if we’ll just erode your character every second you’re around us if you don’t keep a guard up.”
Mya has no rebuttal.
“You think Amara’s not the same anymore because she’s rich? You may have known Amara longer than us, but I actually saw the change happen. When I met her she was directionless, unsure of herself. She sure as hell didn’t know what to make of us.”
“You used her,” Mya dares to utter more of her toxic inner monologue, “Like a plaything in your little sick rich bubble. Because you thought she was another dispensable skirt.”
“Is that what you think?”
“That’s what I know.”
I sigh. I
admire her convictions but she’s wrong about us, wrong about many things. Like Amara, she’s incredibly mature for her age, but her youth is showing right now. Her judgements hurt, but at least I’m back on the map.
“Look. Obviously it began poorly, okay? No one disputes that. And of course, I take the blame for some of that.”
“She walked around like a fucking ghost. For weeks,” Mya spits out angrily.
I’m starting to understand. I gotta admit, I can’t imagine what Grayson would’ve put Amara through to make her walk away from a million dollars just short of two days.
Mya had a front row seat for all the icky parts, but she’d hardly shared any of the good. And everytime she comes around, she picks up where we last left off. Only for her, that’s always at the point where Grayson had completely upended Amara’s life. As far as she knows, there’s no guarantee Grayson wouldn’t do the same again. Our actions had been far reaching. Mya is simply not letting us forget.
I sigh and crane my head upward on the headrest.
“My experience of Amara is not yours, is not Grayson’s,” I say. “I’ve only ever seen Amara when she’s happy.”
Mya grins a bit as if in recollection. Amara. The one common interest we have and we’ve hardly addressed it. Had we started there, perhaps our relationship would’ve been much less rocky.
“The first time I met Amara, I thought she was… interesting,” I begin. “Then when I saw how she was affecting Grayson, I thought she was one in a million. Then when she made him change, when she brought out this side of him that I had never fucking seen…” my voice trails off as I look out the driver side window. I keep my eye on the windshield as I continue.
“Finding love like they have, when you’re as successful as we are… you just don’t hope for it. You certainly don’t expect it. And if you’re not a complete moron, you hold onto it.”
Mya’s energy shifts at my words.
“Are you in love with her?” Mya asks.
I turn to look at her with a furrowed brow, a faint smile on my face. “Honestly, what is wrong with you?”
“You should see your face right now. It’s not an outlandish question from where I’m sitting.”
