Chapter 20
James
OH, FUCK! LOLA’S REALLY PISSED. This is the maddest I’ve ever seen her. Her hands are balled into little fists, the vein in her forehead is bulging, and she’s shaking a little like she could go all Mount St. Helens on me.
“How could you do that to me?” she asks, her voice low and gravelly.
Hold up. Before I go confessing to anything, I need to see what she’s mad about. This could just be about me kicking her out last night and not about the horrible thing I’m praying she’s still blissfully unaware of.
“Lo, I—” I begin, but she cuts me off.
“You recorded it? And you were going to sell it to that woman?” She trembles, angry tears springing to her eyes. “You piece of shit! You were going to fuck me and sell it to that bitch, the one who tortured you and made your life a living hell, the one that I’ve been trying to help you get away from this entire time?”
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
“That’s the real reason you didn’t want me to have sex with anyone, because you wanted to fuck me on film and make a quick buck off of it.” She glares at me. “How long have you been plotting this, James? How long have you been crafting this little scheme, huh? You were certainly very insistent that I didn’t have sex with Eric and now I know why! There was no money in it!”
“Lola, I swear to you, it wasn’t—”
“It’s all been a lie, hasn’t it?” She’s fully crying now, and each tear that runs down her cheek is like a knife in my heart. “I thought you cared about me, James. I really thought all this was real, all these wonderful things you said to me, the way you kissed me, the way you looked at me. I thought you loved me, but it was all a setup.”
“Lola, I swear to God, none of that stuff was a lie. I meant everything I said to you. I do love you, Lo. I really, really do!”
“Lies.” She shakes her head. “More lies.”
“Please, Lola, you have to believe me,” I say, my throat tight with a combination of sadness and guilt. “I never wanted to hurt you. I was going to do it where nobody would be able to see your face, so nobody would find out it was you, and I thought—”
“And that’s supposed to make it better?” she snaps.
“No, I didn’t mean—I’m not trying to make an excuse. I just—”
“How could you, James? How could you?” She’s sobbing while she’s yelling at me. “Never in my life did I think that you could do something this despicable, that you could sink this low. How could you betray me in such an epic and intimate way?”
“I didn’t think you’d ever find out,” I say, immediately regretting the way that sounded. “How did you find out?”
“I’ve been meeting with Stacey—Savannah Slade. I’m trying to get Eva arrested for making her do films when she was underage because I thought I could save your sorry ass and get you out of this whole thing,” she replies weakly. “She told me that ‘Mistress’ wasn’t happy with the tape because there was no actual sex. I asked her what she was talking about, and she told me.”
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! The love of my life is weeping in front of me and I’m also going to face the wrath of a pissed off sadist who knows I tried to con her. How many more ways can I fuck up my life?
“I’ve never once judged you for what you do.” She sniffles. “I’ve never looked down on you, never thought less of you because you were in porn. But I never wanted to be in porn. You’ve made me an unwilling participant in a fucking porn tape, and God knows how far that shit will spread around the Internet! What is my mom going to say, James? You might have ruined your relationship with your family because of this shit, but now you’re ruining mine too!”
“I just…I didn’t think…I’m so sorry.” I struggle to explain because there is no excuse, and I can completely understand why she’s furious.
“I just can’t believe it, James,” she says with a baffled expression. “I can’t believe you sold me out like that. I loved you so much. I wasn’t playing a game. I truly cared for you, but you were playing me the whole time.”
“I wasn’t, Lola, I swear to you,” I say, my voice shaky.
“I should have known.” She shakes her head like she’s mad at herself. “I knew I was going to get hurt. I knew you could never love me, that you could never love anyone but yourself.”
“I do love you, Lola!” My voice cracks and my chest burns.
She looks at me silently for a few moments. Her eyes look so sad, so cold, so disappointed. It reminds me of the look on my mom’s face when my parents discovered what I was doing for a living. That was easily the worst day of my life—until today, that is.
I reach out to her, but she recoils with disgust. It cuts me so deep to think that she doesn’t want me to even touch her, and I can feel my eyes stinging with tears.
“Lola, please,” I say, reaching out to her again. She slaps my hand away and glares at me.
“Don’t fucking touch me!” she spits like a venomous snake.
“Please,” I beg, fully crying now. “Please, Lo. I didn’t mean…I’m so sorry, Lola. I’m so, so sorry.”
“I never would have expected this from you.” The disappointment is seeping through every word. “I always wanted to believe that what we had was special, that you would never hurt me, but I was wrong.”
“Lola,” I plead, “let me just—”
“No more, James.” She holds up her hand. She sounds worn down, like she can’t muster the energy to keep talking to me. “This is the end for you and me.”
With that, she turns around and heads out the door.
My heart stops. I can’t breathe. My mouth hangs open in horrified shock, and my whole body shakes. I can’t even process the necessary biological functions to cry. Lola left. She left me. More than likely forever. I’m queasy and I dry heave. There isn’t a single person in my entire world who is as important to me as this girl, and now she’s gone. She’s done with me, just like my family, just like most of my friends from back home, just like anyone I’ve ever been really close to.
What am I going to do? What the fuck am I going to do?
Chapter 21
Lola
I’VE BEEN DRIVING FOR HOURS. I watched the sun come up on one interstate and watched it set on another. I pull up in front of the little yellow house with “Caraway” on the mailbox in white paint. I remember painting it with James and my mom when I was nine and how I got paint handprints all over everything.
I glance next door at the perfectly manicured yard of the Laird residence, the house where James grew up. I can see what used to be his bedroom window, which was directly across from mine. We used to use flashlights as code to talk to each other when we were little kids. Now the sight of it just makes me sick.
“Oh, honey!” I hear my mom’s voice call out to me. She darts out of the front door and rushes toward my car.
I get out and hug her. I can’t cry anymore. I’ve cried for the entire journey, and I’m so worn out that I can’t process any emotion beyond my exhaustion.
“Oh, sweetheart!” She sounds terrified. I must look as bad as I feel. “Come on in, baby. Let me take care of you.”
She makes me some tea and rubs my shoulders while she tries to break through the permafrost that encases me.
“It’s all right. I’m okay,” I lie to her with the energy level of an unwatered houseplant.
“What happened, sweetheart?” She comes around to look at me, her expression pained and concerned.
“I got in a big fight with James.”
“Must have been some fight if you packed up and came all the way back home.” She raises her eyebrows.
“I think we’ve just grown apart. I’m not sure we can be friends anymore,” I say, trying to stay vague. I can’t exactly tell her that James secretly taped our steamy escapade and sold it to a porn producer.
“You and James have been friends for so long, I doubt that anything could be bad enough to keep you two kids apart.”
&nbs
p; “It’s pretty bad, Mom.” I shake my head. “The business…it’s just totally corrupted him. He’s not the same guy he used to be.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” she sympathetically offers.
“No! Believe me, Mom, you don’t want to know.”
“All right,” she says, chuckling, “maybe you’re right.”
I snicker and I feel a little brighter. My parents divorced when I was a little kid, and my mom was always incredibly loving and supportive of me. Even after James’s porn fiasco, she accepted that he was still my friend and that he always would be—at least I thought he always would be.
“Can I make you some dinner?” she offers sweetly. “You look a little sick, honey.”
“I just really want to lie down.” Now that I’ve arrived at my destination, all the built-up exhaustion hits me like a sack of bricks and I’m completely wiped out.
“Okay, well there are clean sheets on your bed. Bubble bath is under the sink in case you want to take a bath and try to unwind a little. If you need me, for any reason, baby, just—”
“I know, Mom.” I smile at her.
“The shuttle is coming to take me to the airport tomorrow at eleven. If you’re up, I can make you some breakfast. If not, the fridge is stocked up.” I know she feels bad for leaving when I’ve just arrived home in such a state, but she’s had a business trip planned for months. How could she have known her daughter would show up on her doorstep with a broken heart?
“I’ll be fine, Mom. Don’t worry about me. I’m at home. I’m feeling better already.”
“Okay, honey,” she says, kissing my forehead and heading toward her bedroom.
I sink into the warm bubbles and try to block out all the memories of James, how shocked and scared he looked when I was yelling at him and how horrible I know he felt. He was completely devastated, and I could tell. He’s pretty easy to read…at least I thought he was pretty easy to read. Maybe I’ve been wrong about him all along.
No, I just don’t think that’s true. James has never been that good of a liar, especially with me, so it couldn’t have all been a lie. He’s not a good enough actor to put up an elaborate front to lure me into an amateur porn video. He’s not deceitful; he’s just stupid. He saw an easy answer to a problem and he went for it. Easy answers have never failed him before. It was easy to let Becky Callahan write his American history papers, easy to flirt Mrs. Peterson into giving him a D instead of an F in geography, easy to kick back and nail a housewife while his dad and his brother did all the work in the family landscaping business. Nothing has ever been that hard for James; his life’s been a breeze, so it does make sense that he’d take the easiest possible way out of a problem.
As I crawl into my old bed, the porch light from his parents’ house is shining in my window, and I think back to the night after my first high school dance. He came to my widow and I felt like Juliet when I looked down at him. That was back during his Heath-Ledger-in-10-Things-I-Hate-About-You, sexy, dangerous-bad-boy phase, and he had his long hair pulled back in a messy, just-fucked bun. He wore black pants and a burgundy button-down shirt, which he left open so you could see his pecs in his thin wifebeater. He looked so hot—handsome with a little dangerous edge. It was no wonder that I felt so fluttery when he was tickling me on the couch in my basement that night.
That memory triggers another: this one of Dave Keegan’s pool party. Keegan was a year ahead of me and a year behind James in school, so he hung out with both of us. He was never the leader of the gang, but his parents were rich and he had a pool, so he was a welcome member in any social circle.
I remember how he was checking me out all day, thinking I didn’t notice that his eyes were practically glued to my tits. James kept interjecting whenever he spotted Keegan scoping me out, and I could tell he was trying to run interference, like always. I went inside to get some lemonade, and James went in a few seconds after me. We were in the hallway, and James turned and gave me this look of unbridled lust. He pushed me back against the wall and started kissing my neck as he groped my breasts. He pulled the triangles of my bikini top to the side, and his thumbs rubbed circles over my nipples. It was the hottest thing I’d ever experienced. It was the first time a boy had seen my bare breasts, let alone touched them.
All too quickly, it ended when he came to his senses and snapped out of it. He went back out to the pool, and I stood in the hallway for a moment, trying to catch my breath and process what the hell just happened.
He wanted me even then—I realize that now. He kept it in check, but I remember how I’d sometimes catch him looking at me like he had a lot more on his mind than just playing Nintendo. I never really thought I wanted him too, but I did. When he’d tell me those sordid sex stories about having a three-way with two girls at the reservoir or getting a blowjob in front of everyone during truth or dare, it seemed so scandalous and lurid, but it was also titillating. James started having sex when he was thirteen. I was younger and desperately inexperienced, but when he’d go into vivid details it would make me feel…funny. I couldn’t identify arousal at that age, but as I look back, that’s exactly what it was. James turned me on; he’s always turned me on.
I think back to the night he saved me from Eric. He was so sweet and loving, the way he held me while I cried or how he rubbed my shoulders when I was in the bathtub. Of course, I also remember the feel of his fingers…and his lips…and his tongue…and how my whole body felt like it was lighting up from the inside.
I flush a little and remind myself that I hate him right now. Yes, yes, I’m mad at him, terribly mad at him. Thinking about the way his expert fingers caressed me or how his body pressed against me won’t help me maintain my anger, so I have to put all that immensely pleasurable stuff on the shelf and concentrate on how much I hate him for recording me.
It takes ages for me to fall asleep, but when I do, I sleep hard. The past few days have been draining in every possible sense, but being in these familiar surroundings makes me feel safe and sound. I need to be away from James, and this town is like his Kryptonite. He has no idea where I am, and even if he finds out, he’s definitely not setting foot back here, so I’ve got a safe haven, a Fortress of Solitude, if you will.
I wake up early the next morning to see my mom off. I know she’s worried about me. I’m not an impulsive kind of girl, so for me to pack up and drive all the way home from California on a whim must make her think I’ve had a complete mental breakdown. I try to show her that I’m perfectly sane—emotionally damaged, but perfectly sane—as we eat breakfast.
“You seem really down, honey.” She reaches out to put her hand on mine on the kitchen table.
“I’m just sad,” I murmur. “I feel like someone died. James and I have been practically attached at the hip for the past seventeen years, and it bums me out to watch him slip away into this…black hole.”
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay when I’m gone?” she says with concern. When I’m blue like this, she treats me like I’m a little kid and she wants to take care of me.
“I’m gonna be fine, Mom.” I shrug my shoulders, trying to convince her that my heart hasn’t been irreparably shattered. “I’m depressed and I’m pissed off, but I’m going to be fine. I plan to sleep and recharge, try to make myself feel better.”
“Okay.”
I’m not entirely sure if she buys it, but she’s not pressing for details.
“I’m a short flight away if you need me. Don’t hesitate to call me if there’s any kind of emergency.”
“I know.” I smile and roll my eyes.
The SuperShuttle pulls up, and I see my mom to the curb. She pulls me in for a big hug, and I can feel her concern for me coming through the embrace. I put on my best happy face and wave goodbye to her.
As I turn to go back up the path to the house, I spot James’s dad coming out of the front door of their house. I look a mess with wild hair and baggy old pajamas with a cupcake pattern, but it’s just James’s dad and
I’m exhausted, so I don’t let it bother me.
“Lola! Is that you?” he says with a big smile.
“Hi, Jon.” I wave back.
He starts walking over to me, and we meet in the driveway of his garage, where he gives me a big, warm, bear hug.
“What are you doing back in town?” Both of James’s parents love me. They always used to ask him why he couldn’t be more like “that Caraway girl” when he’d get into trouble.
“Just came home for a few days to recharge. I might be moving back here for a little bit before I decide where I want to be,” I admit.
“You’re moving out of LA then?” His eyebrows rise high with surprise.
“Things aren’t exactly how I thought they would be there.” I sigh. “I kind of feel like I need to get away for a while.”
He pauses and looks at me. “If that boy has done anything to hurt you in any way, Lola, I swear to God I’ll fly there myself and knock some sense into him!”
How does everyone instantly know that my depression is directly linked to James? First Stacey pinpointed it in a second, now Jon has leapt to the correct conclusion after only a few sentences.
“No, no, Jon.” I chuckle, waving my hand to dismiss the idea. “It’s okay.”
“All right.” He nods, but I can tell he’s still angry.
I was always the little angel, and James’s parents used to yell at him whenever they thought he was getting me into trouble. His dad used to call him a little shit and tell him to straighten up and treat me like a lady. If he only knew what happened a few days ago!
“I love your yard, Jon. That water feature is beautiful,” I say, looking at the brand new fountain area by the willow tree, hoping some praise will redirect the conversation.
James’s dad started Laird Landscaping during college, and it grew into a successful business over the years, which was why they moved out of the sticks and into the house next door. The Lairds’ yard was always the jewel of the entire neighborhood.
Captured (Vice, Virtue & Video Book 2) Page 19
