All the Secrets

by Charlotte Byrd

  Emma

  I'm so embarrassed by the fact that Alex is here and yet I can't make him leave. I tried nudging him out into the adjoining hallway away from the conference room, but he doesn't budge.

  Instead he keeps telling me about how much he loves me and all the things that he wants to do to make up for what happened.

  He apologizes over and over again.

  I can't make him stop talking.

  I know that he is intoxicated and this is not the time to have this conversation. If he were in his right frame of mind, then he would take no for an answer.

  He isn't.

  I don't know what to do.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Shelby who is looking at me with a concerned expression. I wave her over while Alex continues to rant.

  “Hey, Alex,” Shelby says in a friendly voice. “I know that you two have a lot to talk about, but we're celebrating the release of our latest issue so maybe this isn’t the right time.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. This could be the way to get him out of here.

  At first, it seems to do the trick. The lines around Alex’s face relax and a serene expression floats to the surface.

  “I'll call you tomorrow,” I say. “I promise.”

  “No, you won't,” he says, leaning against the wall. “You’re just trying to get me out of here.”

  “Yes, of course I am!” I snap.

  Shelby glares at me and Alex chuckles.

  I don't always say what I mean, but in this situation the words just escape.

  I've put my hands into fists and then spread them out again, relaxing my fingers. There has to be a way out of this. There has to be some way that I can make him leave without making a scene.

  “Can you just follow me into the parking lot?” I plead. “Let's talk about it there.”

  “No, I don't think so,” he says, leaning firmly against the wall and even propping one of his legs up.

  His shoes are dirty and they leave scuff marks on the taupe wall.

  “Put your leg down,” I whisper, grabbing his elbow and trying to lead him out.

  “Is there a problem here?” Corrin asks. Her voice is loud and authoritative. We all snap to attention.

  “Hey, I remember you!” Alex says and my face gets flushed. “Corrin Matthews, right?”

  “Yes,” she says sternly.

  “Didn’t we chat at a bar a few years ago? Right before I met Emma?”

  “Can I help you?” Corrin asks, her facial expression unwavering and detached. “I heard Emma ask you to leave a few times, but you are refusing to do that.”

  “Yes, yes I am. She's my fiancée and I need to talk to her.”

  “She asked you to go and that means that you need to go.”

  He shakes his head.

  Corrin walks over to one of the phones at reception and calls downstairs.

  “Yes, there's a man here who is refusing to leave. I'd really like you to come up and escort him out.”

  Alex continues to protest and my embarrassment continues to grow. I have never been so humiliated in front of my coworkers before. It may be years before I'm able to get over this in their eyes.

  Eventually, Phil, the security guard, comes up and tries to escort Alex out. Dressed in uniform, he brings an air of authority with him and yet Alex still refuses to budge.

  Phil calls for backup and also calls the police. Eventually, the guards manage to get Alex out of the building, kicking and screaming, awaiting cops downstairs.

  “I'm so sorry about that,” I keep saying over and over again to Corrin who just waves her hand in my face.

  “Emma, you don't have to worry. He's an asshole. You deserve better. I'm sorry that he’s such a fuck-up.”

  This makes me feel better somewhat, but I still can't get over how embarrassed I am. I try to drown my sorrow in a few more glasses of wine, but it somehow makes it worse.

  Then Corrin pulls me aside and asks me to step into her office.

  “You did some really good work on this article,” Corrin says. “It's getting a lot of hits on Twitter and already got picked up by BuzzFeed and some other big online news sources. I even got a call from The New York Times.”

  “Really? The New York Times? What did they say?”

  “They wanted to confirm the story. They wanted to ask you some questions about your investigation. He's a really big deal.”

  I bite my lower lip, not knowing what to say.

  “When I asked you to do this, I had no idea that it would actually work out. I hope that it's going to reflect in circulation, but if it doesn't, it’s still important. Know that you did a good job.”

  “Thank you,” I say. “I really appreciate that.”

  “I know that things have been kind of off with us ever since I started dating Alex –" I start to say and then immediately regret it.

  “There is nothing that has been off with us,” Corrin says, shaking her head.

  My body goes rigid as I stand before her unable to move.

  Why did I bring that up?

  We are in such a good place now. Why did I have to say that?

  “Yes, of course,” I mumble, agreeing with her.

  “To tell you the truth, I'm glad that nothing ever happened between me and Alex. He seems like a real piece of shit.”

  Her bluntness takes me by surprise. I hang my head and nod in agreement.

  “Yes, he is,” I say. “He's very good at hiding it. I had no idea that he was this person until…”

  “Emma, you're a very capable writer and journalist. This whole thing that happened in your personal life, maybe it's for the best. It's a learning experience. In the meantime, you need to focus on what's important to you. If you write articles like this, and if you do research like this, you will go far in life.”

  “Wow.” I take a step back and exhale. “That really means a lot to hear you say that.”

  “This article is going to put us on the map. It's not exactly the direction that Coast has ventured in the past, but clearly our focus on interior design and fancy people's houses is not selling copies. I see this article and others like it as a way to go forward, to rebrand, and to show people that we are a lot more than just kitchen and living room layouts.”

  “You really want to take the magazine in another direction?” I ask. “Like in a very different direction?”

  “I do, yes. I'm trying to convince my uncle that's the best way to go. The more people that read our online articles, the bigger our buzz, the more convincing my argument will get.”

  “Yes, I understand,” I say.

  “In this business, you’re either swimming or sinking. There is no stable middle ground. So, I want to go in the direction of pushing boundaries.”

  “I like that,” I say, nodding my head. “That makes me really excited about the future.”

  “Good, because I have another idea for you.”

  I nod and wait for her to explain.

  “I want a follow-up article about D. B. Carter. Everyone's going to be talking about him. It's going to be some of the biggest news that the literary community has had in a while, but of course we are not limited to just that community. Stories like these sell copies. Anyway, you have an in with him. Everyone is writing follow-up stories right now, but they don’t have access to the source. I want you to pursue that angle. Get closer to him. Get him to trust you more. I want you to write a follow-up piece.”

  “About what?”

  “Who is he exactly? We know that he's a writer and we know some of his writing habits, but I want to know more. Who are his family? His friends? Where did he go to school? What are his political views? Is he married? Who is he sleeping with? Anything like that. The juicier the better.”

  My breath gets caught in the back of my throat.

  “I also want pictures. If we can get him to sit for the cover shoot, that would be awesome. If not, then maybe you can take some really good candid ones and we can go with that.”

 
“Cover shoot?”

  “I'm regretting that you didn't get any pictures of him already. We all know his name, but there are no pictures to go along with that and that's no good in this day and age.”

  I swallow hard.

  “You look shocked,” Corrin says.

  I am. I'm both excited by the fact that she wants me to write an official cover story for the magazine and petrified by the fact that a big story like this might combust my career.

  “Okay. You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

  “Why don’t you go celebrate, get really drunk tonight, have fun, and then in the morning, get to work?”

  8

  Emma

  I finally get home hours later. The air is crisp and cool from the unlikely rain that fell last night.

  The sidewalk near my home is slick with little puddles. Los Angeles gets very little rain year round so there are no storm drains for the water to escape. If there is enough rainfall, it simply collects on the streets making it difficult and dangerous to drive until it dries.

  I walk up the stairs to my apartment holding onto the railing feeling my body sway from side to side. I haven't had this much to drink in a long time.

  I can't wait to get out of these restrictive clothes and climb into my warm bed.

  Tomorrow is Saturday and, God willing, I’m going to sleep half the day.

  I search for my keys in my purse, rather unsuccessfully. Then I drop it down onto the floor and use the flashlight on my phone to try to find them.

  When I finally open the door, I climb out of my ankle boots, throwing them haphazardly by the stand-up mirror near the window and toss my purse onto the couch.

  To turn on the light, I have to walk all the way across the room and I stumble again catching myself on the dining room table, which I use as my office, right near the couch.

  My studio apartment is rather spacious and though I don't have a door leading to my bedroom, I do have a separate living space.

  I grope the lamp up and down searching for the string.

  After I turn it on, and the light engulfs the apartment, I see him and scream.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask with my breath lodged in the back of my throat.

  “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you,” he says calmly.

  Liam sits in the La-Z-Boy recliner that I found at the Angel View Thrift Store down the street.

  He has a book open face-down on his knee and he carefully puts it back on the bookshelf, face up, before approaching me.

  “How did you get in?” I demand to know.

  “I read the article,” he says.

  I swallow hard and take a step away from him. I doubt that he's a subscriber, but the online version just came out and the article has been cited and reprinted in a variety of other online magazines.

  “Do you have a Google alert set up for your name?” I ask.

  “Of course.”

  “How did you get in?” I ask again, staring directly at him.

  He's tall and broad shouldered. His hair is a little on the longer side, but lustrous and thick.

  The light from the faux Tiffany lamp twinkles in his eyes and I see something resembling a smile form around his mouth.

  “I came here to talk to you,” he says nonchalantly. “You came to my house, so I thought that I would return the favor.”

  “I knocked on your door. I waited for you outside. I didn't sneak in and sit in the dark like some sort of kidnapper.”

  “I'm only here to talk,” he says, pointing to the couch as if he's the one hosting me and not the other way around.

  Liam is dressed in jeans with scuff marks and tears at the bottom. They fit on his body so well that it's really a toss-up as to whether they are one of those $200 a pop kind with specific designed holes for aesthetic reasons or the ones that have developed naturally.

  He's wearing a white V-neck shirt that frames his thick pectoral muscles perfectly along with a leather jacket.

  “Do you want to sit down and tell me what happened?” he asks.

  Suddenly I feel like I am back in school and I've been called to the principal's office.

  Who does he think he is?

  “No,” I say, turning on the balls of my feet and heading to the kitchen.

  With anger coursing through my veins, I flip on the light with so much force that it actually pricks my index finger.

  “Ouch,” I say and pop it in my mouth.

  “Are you okay?” Liam asks, leaning on the frame of the doorway.

  When I was a teenager, I was really obsessed with the 70s and I saw a movie once where they had all of these beads strung in the doorways instead of doors.

  They are not only pretty but also useful, creating the illusion of separation. A while ago, I was looking for some interesting things to decorate my apartment with and I spotted one of them on Amazon.

  Little did I know that a man who could ruin my career and who I wanted to kiss more than I ever wanted to kiss anyone would be peeking his head through these liquid turquoise beads and watching me pour a glass of orange juice.

  “Do you want any?”

  “No thanks.”

  I take a few big gulps and then add some water to it. It's a bit too sweet, throwing an unwanted party on my taste buds.

  “You didn't have the right to publish any of that,” Liam says, getting right to the point.

  He walks into the kitchen and stands right in front of me, blocking my exit.

  There's nowhere to go.

  There's a small window looking outside, but my apartment is two floors up and I would never be able to squeeze out of it anyway.

  “I had no choice,” I finally say.

  I should apologize.

  I should beg for his forgiveness.

  I should do anything in my power to try to convince him to not make this public, but somehow instead of being nice and polite, I feel like making it a fight.

  “What do you mean you had no choice?”

  “Exactly what I said. I wasn't going to write it after you said that everything was off the record. Then I came back and my boss and her boss were there talking about the article. The magazine isn’t doing really well and I couldn’t say no. I had no idea it was going to blow up like this.”

  “I don't care about that,” Liam says. “You had no right to do what you did.”

  His voice is calm and collected.

  I wish that he would get mad and yell at me, but he doesn't.

  Somehow, it's scarier this way.

  “What do you want me to do?” I ask.

  “I want that article to not exist.”

  “Well, I can't do that. It's done.”

  He turns around on his heels and walks out of the kitchen. I wait for him to come back, but he doesn't.

  A few moments later, I follow him. I'm still drunk and dehydrated.

  I don't think that I'm making sense and I'm not really saying the right things.

  I know that I should apologize, but for some reason I can't.

  “You know what,” Liam says, pointing his finger in my face, “I thought you were different. I thought that you weren’t like the rest of them.”

  “The rest of who?”

  “The rest of humanity. I thought that you weren’t a liar. I thought I could trust you.”

  This takes me back.

  I realize that I have hurt him, perhaps even more profoundly than I thought, up until that point.

  “I wasn't going to write the article,” I say. “I drove back and I was really just going to forget that we ever had that conversation. Especially after that awful offer you made me.”

  He tilts his head a little bit to the side but doesn't erase the smirk off his face. He waits for me to continue.

  “You agree that your offer was ridiculous, right?”

  “If you had taken me up on it, then you would've had your article.”

  “That's what I don't understand. Why not just give it to me?”

  He
takes a few steps forward.

  We are so close that I can feel his breath on my face. It has a slight minty fresh scent and it makes my knees weak.

  “I didn't give it to you because you have to learn that you can't just get everything you want.”

  I furrow my brows.

  Anger rises out of me and I raise my hand.

  Before I can slap him, he catches my wrist and pulls it aside.

  I have no idea what came over me. I've never hit another person before, but for some reason this man knows exactly what to say to get a rise out of me.

  “You think that's the kind of person that I am,” I say, pulling my wrist away from him. “You think I always get what I want?”

  “I've seen where you grew up. I've seen your parents’ palatial estate.”

  “Do you also see this? Do you see the studio apartment where I live? Do you smell the urine that permeates from the parking lot outside that the local homeless people always use as their toilet? I don't take any money from my parents and I thought that was clear. Not that I need to explain myself to you.”

  “You don't,” he says calmly.

  “Yes, you're right. I don't. So why don't you just leave?”

  The expression on his face changes as he stares at me without blinking.

  “You had no right to publish the article without my permission. I told you that what I said was off the record.”

  “I don't need your permission to publish my experience of what happened.” I try to defend myself even though I know that isn’t right.

  “Yeah, be that as it may, but I read what you wrote. It had quotes about what I said about writing, my process, and my publishing. You wrote about the money that I made and about everything that I said.”

  “How secret could you have wanted it to be?” I ask. “I mean, we just met and you came out and started telling me all of these things about your life.”

  Finally, I hit upon something.

  A nerve.

  His eyes narrow and the blank expression disappears.

  “I told you those things because I thought that you were my friend,” he says, his voice is rushed and out-of-control. “I liked you and I haven't liked anyone in a long time.”

  “I don't care about that,” I say, lying through my teeth.