Never Be the Same

by M. A. Binfield

  “Her name’s Olivia, not Susie.”

  “Of course it is.” The smile Hannah offered her wasn’t a warm one. “Either way, you two look surprisingly good together. I just hope you’re going to be okay when she moves on to cozy up with her next driver. I mean, you don’t always cope well with breakups.”

  Casey couldn’t understand why Hannah was bothered enough to even try to push her buttons. She surely couldn’t care less about Casey, not after all this time. Hannah didn’t care much about anyone but herself. But maybe not being the most important, the most famous person at the party annoyed her. Casey corrected herself mentally. There was no maybe about it. Of course it did.

  “Not that it matters, but David invited them, not me. It’s Pride. They don’t know anyone in London and they wanted to party. And he didn’t seem to worry about being upstaged by them. He’s enjoying having them here. Maybe not everyone thinks the way you do.”

  “Well, Olivia Lang clearly ‘knows’ you. And I can’t pretend I’m not surprised. I didn’t think celebrity was your thing. You must have told me a thousand different ways how it wasn’t.” Hannah tried to keep her tone friendly, but Casey could hear the hostility underneath.

  Casey stood. She could have told Hannah that Olivia was appealing to her because, although she was famous, she didn’t want to be. And it didn’t define her, it didn’t represent everything Olivia wanted from life. She was nothing like Hannah in that way. But Casey had no intention of staying and talking to Hannah. She had nothing to say to her. Hannah was unpleasant, irrelevant, and in her past. She had Olivia. And she could have David, Mercy, even Naomi in her life, without having to give a toss about Hannah. She’d been stupid not to realize that sooner.

  “I’m heading out. I’m glad the channel’s going well. Enjoy the rest of your evening.” Casey pushed her stool back under the breakfast bar.

  “I will. And I’m super happy you seem so well.” She didn’t sound happy. “You left and just ducked out of sight and no one knew how you were doing. We were all so worried about you, concerned about how you were coping. It was a lot for you to lose—me, your job, your friends. It’s good to see that you’re mostly okay, even if you did feel the need to turn up here and try and show off a little.”

  Every one of Hannah’s words had been chosen to rile Casey, to remind her that they “all” talked about her after she left, to remind her that, thanks to Hannah, she had lost everything, even to suggest maybe she wasn’t quite over it. And Hannah needing to remind her of it all so spitefully was what? To pay her back for daring to turn up, with Olivia and the others, looking like she was enjoying herself.

  “You were worried about me?” Casey felt herself heat up. It was anger, but she was determined to control it. She took in a breath and let it out again. “Of course you were. I imagine the guilt was hard to bear. Getting me arrested, making all those videos about our breakup, full of lies, the stories you told to turn everyone against me, to make it easier to hide all the bad things you did. Are they still up on the channel making you money? I hope so. At least my misery and the destruction of my reputation was lucrative for you.” Casey kept her voice calm. It took a lot of effort. “But do you know what? I don’t care about any of it anymore. And I’m surprised you do.”

  “I don’t. I’d be happy to let it all go. But it’s impossible. I come and say a friendly hello and here you are still talking about it, still blaming me for what happened to you. And you never think about your part in it. You were impossible to live with, you wouldn’t support me with the channel—”

  “I was busy. I had a proper fucking job.” Casey couldn’t help but interrupt. Hannah’s version was bullshit.

  “And you got yourself into trouble, not me. I didn’t have you arrested for nothing. You forget that. Even now, look…” She hesitated. It was as if even Hannah couldn’t believe the nerve she had. “You’re getting all angry again for no reason.”

  Casey turned to leave and then stopped. Olivia was in the doorway, looking at her with an expression full of worry. She stepped into the kitchen, and Casey had no idea just how much of the exchange with Hannah she’d heard.

  “I just came to say I’m ready to go now.” Olivia looked from Casey to Hannah. And Casey fought the urge to tell her to leave. She didn’t want Olivia anywhere near her past, anywhere near Hannah or her poison.

  “You’re leaving already? That’s a shame, I was hoping we might have a chance to get acquainted.” Hannah got up from her stool and offered Olivia a hand to shake. “I’m Hannah Wilson. From the Rainbow Endeavors channel. Maybe you’ve heard of it. We’re closing in on half a million subscribers. The podcast is kind of new, but the audience is growing fast.”

  Casey watched in amazement. Minutes ago, Hannah had been digging up the past, digging at her, accusing her of using Olivia and the others to get back at her somehow. It was ridiculous and unpleasant. But now she was all business. A convincing smile on her face and a lightness in her tone. This ability to pretend, to play both sides, was why she never belonged in Hannah’s world.

  Olivia ignored the outstretched hand, and Casey wanted to hug her for it. But it didn’t seem to faze Hannah at all. She dropped her hand to her side and kept talking.

  “We reached out to your people. We were hoping for an interview while you were in town. You, Billie, any of the cast really. But no response…” She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “But we made this great Pride video today. It’s still to be edited, so we could absolutely include a segment from tonight if you were up for it. The three of you, enjoying an authentic Pride party in queer old Clapham Town. It would be fun and really good publicity.”

  “For who?”

  Olivia moved to Casey’s side. The feel of her close by was settling to Casey somehow.

  “For both of us.”

  “You think I’m going to gain from being on your channel?” Olivia’s tone was even, but Casey could tell how annoyed she was. “The West Side has an audience of three million, and every one of us has over a million followers on Instagram. The studio has one of the best PR teams in the business, and in the past two weeks, we’ve done every queer-themed radio, TV, and web-based channel in London that’s worth doing. If they didn’t respond to Rainbow Endeavors’ request for an interview, there’s a good reason for that.”

  Hannah looked at Olivia like she’d just been slapped.

  “But even if it was worth doing, asking me now, here, at a party when I’m clearly off-duty and enjoying myself…” Olivia looked at Casey as she said the last part. “Well, I don’t mean to be rude, Hannah, but it’s kind of crass.” She reached down for Casey’s hand and squeezed it. “Shall we go?”

  Casey looked at Olivia and nodded. It was all she could manage. In front of them, Hannah opened and closed her mouth like a fish. A moment, however brief, of her being affected by Olivia’s brutal dismissal of her. But Casey saw the way she quickly composed herself, the stiffening of her posture, the fixing of her expression.

  “It’s all the same to me.” Hannah sat back down on the stool. “I mean, I’ve got a story to tell either way. The mighty Olivia Lang—with none of Susie’s street smarts—letting herself fall for yet another unsuitable woman, seemingly learning no lessons from her past.”

  Casey felt the anxiety start in her feet and creep slowly up her body. She should have turned and ran, gotten Olivia as far away from Hannah as she could. But for some reason, she couldn’t move. It was like knowing you were going to crash but not knowing how to stop it.

  “You don’t know a thing about me.”

  “I know enough. I mean, it’s hard to keep secrets in your business.” Hannah looked at Olivia neutrally, seeming completely unbothered by the way the conversation had gone. But Casey’s heart was beating its way out of her chest. “It’s why I’m surprised that you’d let yourself get involved with someone like Casey. Broken home, arrest record, anger management
problems. I mean, I can’t imagine your PR team would think that’s good for your brand.”

  Casey pulled at Olivia’s hand, wanting to leave. It wasn’t true that she couldn’t control her anger, not in the way that Hannah meant, but she could feel her temper rising and she didn’t want to have an argument with Hannah at the party. To ruin things for David or to spoil her last night with Olivia.

  “If you’re talking about getting Casey arrested for breaking your camera and hoping to shock me with it, then try a bit harder. I already know and I don’t care. And not that it’s any of your fucking business, but Casey makes me happy and happy is the only ‘brand’ I’m interested in. Feel free to make one of your story videos about that. I think most people would understand. Unlike you, they might even be happy for us.”

  Olivia turned her back on Hannah, and Olivia’s defense of her gave Casey the strength to do the same. They walked hand in hand toward the hallway.

  “Fair enough,” Hannah said as they reached the door, raising her voice so they had no choice but to hear her. “But when you have your first bit of trouble in paradise and she’s angry and jealous enough to want to cause you some harm, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She laughed bitterly. “You think I had her arrested because I cared about a camera? I had loads of them. I had her arrested to stop her from uploading private videos to my channel, videos that the two of us had recorded on her phone years before. And maybe she didn’t do it for money like that ex of yours, but it was done to harm me, to harm my reputation.” Hannah smiled a sly smile. “But if that’s the kind of person who makes you happy, Olivia, go for it.”

  Hannah’s words caused a tightness in Casey’s chest. In two sentences, Hannah had laid bare everything she had dreaded telling Olivia, everything she knew she should have explained as they stood in the supermarket hours before. For a few seconds, Olivia didn’t react. They kept walking hand in hand, and Casey had a ridiculous hope that maybe she hadn’t heard. But Olivia released her hand, opened the front door, and stepped outside, and when she finally turned to Casey, the look in her eyes was fearful.

  “Tell me it’s not true.”

  The panic was coursing through Casey’s body. Everything she dreaded about the party had come true. She leaned back against the front door to steady herself.

  “They weren’t sexual. Not at all. Nothing like that. I promise. It was just Hannah complaining about sponsors—”

  Olivia took a step away from her.

  “It’s true?” The expression on her face was one of disbelief and then upset. “You put private videos of her online. What—why the hell would you do that?”

  “She cheated on me, she humiliated me. She made all these videos about me, about us breaking up, about why it was my fault. And it wasn’t fair…they were full of lies. I didn’t know what to do. How to make her stop. I thought—”

  At the time, Casey hadn’t made herself stop and think. That was the problem. She was hurting and she wanted to hurt Hannah in return, so she’d used the only thing she had.

  “There were just two of them, they were so short. Little video clips we recorded on my phone when we were messing about. I forgot all about them, and then when she did all that to me—” Casey couldn’t get the words out quick enough, and when she did, she knew they weren’t enough. The expression of dismay on Olivia’s face was awful to see. “I was drunk, feeling mad at her. It was the middle of the night, hardly anyone saw them. I woke up. I knew it was the wrong thing to do, so I took them down.”

  “You want credit for taking them down? It doesn’t matter that you took them down, you put them up in the first place. You had no right. It’s a—” Olivia seemed to be struggling to speak. “It’s a complete breach of trust. It doesn’t matter if you’re drunk, or angry. You have no right to publish private videos without consent.”

  “I know what happened to you with Kristin was terrible, hurtful, but this isn’t the same—”

  “You knew what happened to me and that’s why you didn’t tell me,” Olivia said, her face flushed with upset. “Telling me the half of the story of what happened with Hannah that would make me feel sorry for you. But not telling me the part that made you look bad. And if Hannah hadn’t been so vindictive, I wouldn’t ever have known. Not until the first time you got mad at me for something and decided to do the same to me.” Olivia was struggling not to cry, and Casey wanted to go to her, to hold her. But she didn’t dare.

  “I would never do that to you. Because it’s you, because I don’t believe you would ever hurt me the way Hannah hurt me, and—” Casey was finding it hard to speak, her own fear and upset had the words sticking in her throat. “And because I do know it was wrong.”

  Olivia began pacing along the path that crisscrossed David’s small front yard. Casey didn’t know what to say or do. She had tried to leave what happened with Hannah in the past, but now it was screwing up the future she’d hoped to have with Olivia. Casey tried to calm herself, to find a way to explain better.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I know I should have. I just didn’t want to admit to it, to explain how low I’d had to go to get her to stop telling people things about me that weren’t true. And I hoped it wouldn’t matter to you because it was so long ago and I’m a different person now.”

  “It matters, Casey, of course it does. She might have treated you badly, but that didn’t give you the right to use what she obviously imagined were private moments to try to ruin her reputation, her career. I know better than anyone how much that stuff sticks to you when you’re in the public eye. There’s no excusing it.”

  “What about my reputation and my career?” Casey couldn’t help raising her voice. She couldn’t believe Olivia was taking Hannah’s side and her frustration boiled over. “Hannah cost me my job. A job I loved, a job I was good at. A job which, if we’re being honest, was a lot more important than making lifestyle videos or being on TV. But maybe me losing my job doesn’t count, maybe it’s only you famous people who get to worry and whine about having their reputations destroyed. I should probably be thankful to Hannah too—for showing me the total fucking double standards you operate under.”

  As soon as she said it, Casey realized she’d gone too far. Yards away, Olivia was now standing, stiff as a board, staring at her. The hurt was visible. Her eyes were full of tears she was fighting not to shed. And then Olivia turned, walked out of the yard, and along the street, away from her.

  Casey hurried out onto the sidewalk and called after her.

  “Olivia, wait. I’m sorry. I—” She stopped, her frustration, her sorrow, overtaking her. She doubled over, hands on her knees, fighting for composure. What could Casey say? Nothing that could change the past and nothing that would change the way Olivia felt about it. Olivia was right. She had chosen not to tell her about the videos because she was worried about her reaction. But she hadn’t expected Olivia to be so disgusted by it, to so rapidly identify with Hannah and to not let Casey explain. For the past two weeks, Casey had been worrying about how hard it might be to overcome the differences between the lives they led, and in three long minutes, Olivia had shown her why she’d been right to worry.

  Casey let the night air wash over her, taking deep breaths until the large fist that felt like it was pressing against her heart shrunk to a size that allowed her to breathe again. She felt paralyzed. There was no way she was going back inside, but following Olivia back to the hotel didn’t seem like a good idea either. Olivia had made her feelings plain.

  She pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed.

  “Sorry, did I wake you?”

  Her mom sounded sleepy.

  “Can I stay at yours tonight? No, it’s okay, honestly, Mom. I just need somewhere to sleep that isn’t the hotel.”

  Her mom was full of questions Casey didn’t want to answer.

  “We just had an argument, that’s all.” Casey knew that wasn’t
all it was. The argument had exposed everything that was wrong between them. And the realization caused unexpected tears in her eyes and a heaviness in her chest.

  She ended the call and set off toward the tube station that would carry her to her mom’s. She couldn’t believe their last night had ended like this. Casey stopped walking.

  “Our last London night.”

  She made herself say it out loud. Surely it couldn’t end like this. With Hannah ruining her life for a second time. But then she remembered how Olivia had been so quick to judge her, not caring about what had driven her to it. And she was hurt by it all over again. Maybe this was a wakeup call, a bullet dodged. She took in another deep breath and willed herself to just keep walking.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Merci, monsieur. Je t’aime. Voulez vous coucher avec moi, ce soir? I’m remembering more than I expected, Liv. It’s bon. Tres bon. I’m going to drive Liam wild whispering to him in French when we’re making the amour.”

  Louise was sitting on the edge of Olivia’s bed. Her French was hurting Olivia’s ears, but she didn’t have the energy to protest. This was their third day in Paris, and she hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since leaving London. Or more accurately, since leaving Casey in David’s front yard. They had just finished yet another round of TV interviews and she had gone to her room, hoping for a nap. But Louise followed, claiming to have something important to talk about.

  “Are you even listening, ma cherie?” Louise lay down next to her.

  “I’m listening. But I’m tired and I’m not in the mood for hearing about you seducing Liam with your bad French. Sorry.” Olivia didn’t even try to hide her bad mood. Why should she? Everything had gone wrong on this trip to Europe. Not just Casey—falling in love with her and then being stupid enough to lose her—but the show, Billie, her feelings about all of it. Everything had changed. And she was tired. Tired of playing the argument with Casey over and over in her mind, tired of crying, tired of being Susie, and tired of not sleeping. And right then, all she wanted was a nap. A nap Louise seemed unwilling to let her have.