Lose Me: (New Adult Billionaire Romance) (Broken Idols)

by M. C. Frank

  As I took it out of the flat envelope, a note fell out.

  It just read: “to Goldie, with love. -Jamie”

  Yep. He went there.

  I love that dude, I miss him so badly.

  Then I went online and ordered a purple wig, just for him. I put it on and showed it to him on skype and he laughed so hard he fell from his chair.

  6. The note

  The last item on this list, and then it closes. We’re done. Da-duuum.

  I’m talking, of course, about The Note. The note Wes left me in the hospital, the one he wrote to me as soon as I woke up, but they wouldn’t let him see me, so he never gave it to me in person. (He left it with dad). I finally found the guts to read it the last day before I left the hospital.

  I’ll copy it right here and then try not to think about it EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

  There are aspects to it that I didn’t understand when I first read it, and I still haven’t. There are some things that he wrote that break my heart just to think about. And then there’s his handwriting and his name signed elegantly at the bottom, and it’s a bit crumpled at the edges as though he wrote it somewhere on a chair.

  I imagine him as I last saw him, his eyes red with lack of sleep, his hair a bit too long, his eyes as green as the clear surface of the sea when the sun’s rays hit it at noon. His lips are set, but his hand is reaching out to touch my shoulder, my face, to somehow comfort me, although he’s freaked out as well, but he doesn’t want to let me see.

  Then he leans down to kiss me. . .

  And then my memories of him end. I’m the one who ends them.

  ___

  It’s over, Ari. Over.

  The pain, the fear, the suffering. I’m so happy. . . no, happy doesn’t begin to cover it. I have you back. Words fail.

  There is so much to be thankful for, so much to say to you, I’ll try to be patient and wait for you to be well enough to talk to me. But until that moment, I want you to have something of mine close to you, so that I can feel I’ve not left you alone.

  (Please excuse my terrible writing and the run-on sentences. I haven’t slept at all—how could I? Plus, I’ve had about seven minor heart attacks, because my heart kept missing a beat every time someone came out of the operation room.)

  OK. One.

  You’ve been through so much, Ari. I can’t even. . . my mind stops when I try to think of what you’ve been going through all these months, and especially these past few days. I know your journey towards recuperation is just starting now, so I wanted to ask you to be kind to yourself.

  I know you, Ari. I know how you detest to show any kind of weakness, how hard you are on yourself and how much you expect of yourself. But this is different.

  You’ll be scared, it’s only normal. I am scared out of my mind, and I’m not even the one who was sick.

  So take it slow. Give yourself time to grieve and to be scared and to feel the pain you refused to feel for all these months, because you had to be brave for the rest of us. You’ll be as good as before, better even. I promise you. But you have to take your time. All right?

  All those unpleasant, scary feelings might resurface and you might have a hard time of it for a while. I just want you to know that I’ll be there, day or night, whenever you need me. Just one phone call away. Talk to me. Or don’t talk, just let me sit next to you in silence. I want to be there for you. I’ve. . . I’ve never been there for anyone in my life. No one ever needed me, and no one ever felt they could depend on me.

  But this is it. You’re it.

  I’m here. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.

  All right, next page. One last thing, and the rest I’ll tell you in person.

  Something weird happened. A miracle, an impossibility, I don’t even know what to call it. I’ll just lay the facts before you and let you be the judge.

  I’m not sure whether you’ve been told about this yet, and maybe your dad won’t even mention it, but. . . you died Ari. Not almost, you did.

  This is what happened:

  I was in the waiting room, biting my nails almost to the bone, and suddenly I had the urge to pray. Now I haven’t yet told you about this, but do you remember that you asked me to pray, back in Corfu?

  Well, I did.

  I started by saying the few standard words I was taught as a kid, which I’m not sure I even remembered right, but then something happened. In my hotel room I found a book. One of these black, Gideon copies that are printed in three languages—you see them in every hotel room, at least I do, that it gets to the point where I don’t even notice them anymore. But this time I did. I didn’t immediately make the connection between the ‘praying’ you’d asked and the plain black book.

  I opened it and leafed through it randomly, wondering when you’d speak to me again. You’d asked for two days and already I was feeling the darkness descending on me. And you weren’t there to chase it away with your smile and your sass, like you’d done from the first moment I met you. I knew I couldn’t stay away from it long. I was already reaching for the bottle.

  And that’s when I came across it. The thing I’m trying to tell you; that’s when I read it.

  I found that page by chance, I don’t even know why my eyes strayed to that particular phrase, of all the millions of words in that thick book.

  It was there, in the right-hand corner on one of the last pages, in this really small print. It read:

  ‘I loved you at your darkest.’

  And that’s when it hit me. It had been a person I’d been praying to. Not just an idea, a thought, an infinite void. A person with feelings, with a capacity to love. I read the whole damn chapter that day, I didn’t lift my head from that book until morning.

  By then I could feel something happening inside me. I could feel myself changing. Being transformed.

  I still didn’t know why on earth you wanted me to pray for you, I had no idea then what you were going through, no idea how close I was to losing you. But I knew that that string of words put together had messed with my head. No, not my head. My heart.

  So, back to the present, or rather a few hours ago.

  I’m sitting here, trying to keep myself sane while you’re fighting for your life in the next room. And I’m fighting with you. Only I’m not alone. It’s me and Him. He’s doing the fighting, I’m doing the praying.

  If He loved me at my darkest, and someone must have, because believe me, my darkest was very dark indeed and many people have said I had no business surviving it. . . But if He loved me during that, then He sure was the right person to talk to right now.

  So I prayed like I breathed.

  Suddenly I felt the urge to start begging for your life. ‘Save her,’ that was all I said, pacing on the floor—I couldn’t sit still. Over and over again. And then some more after that.

  In a few minutes that particular agony faded to a dull throb in my heart, and I just sat back down to wait. After an eon, the doctor came out.

  What he said. . . it still makes me start to shake.

  Ari, you’d died. You’d flatlined on them at some point during the operation, gone into cardiac arrest. I got up, out of my mind with worry, I hardly knew what I did. “When?” I yelled. Everyone in the waiting room turned to look at me, I didn’t even care. “When did that happen?”

  Your dad looked like he was about to puke. One of the doctors told me the time. It was right at that moment when I said “save her”. Do you believe me? I swear I wouldn’t believe me. But it’s true. I was there, it happened.

  What do I do now? How do I live, after what happened? I can’t continue to live the same way as before, that’s for sure. But how to change? I don’t know what to make of it, but I’m sure we can figure it out together.

  I want to change, Ari. I want to turn my life around. For you and for that. . . for the person who saved you that day.

  I know I’m still not who I want to be, no matter how much I’ve read or how much I’ve thought, and I know it’s going to
take work and dedication. . . I’m not sure I know how to become who I want to become, but I’m starting. Right now. I don’t even know if I’m strong enough to do it by myself—I’m not like you.

  But I want to be someone who deserves you. I want to be the guy you made me want to be that day I grabbed you from the water. I don’t want to be the guy who crashed the car with you in it. I want to be as far away as possible from that guy I was the first time I met you when I made that stupid gaffer comment. Would you forgive me for that, by the way? There’s so much I want to ask your forgiveness for.

  I’m not the ‘amazing person’ you said I was that morning on the L&H, we both know that, but I’m not the same guy I was that day. I’m not the same guy I was this morning. The guy who walked beside you on the way to that operating room isn’t the guy I am right now.

  And I know that people, least of all me, don’t change so fast, so I’m not saying I’ve changed. Not yet. I will, though. I’m someone else now. Someone who has something good growing inside of him. Someone with a future.

  I can’t wait, Ari. I can’t wait to see you, to talk to you, to. . . just be with you again. Are you laughing at me as you’re reading this? I bet you are. I bet you’re thinking that I’m hopeless. Well, I don’t care. When I’m with you I’m absolutely invincible. And now that I have you back. . . Just try and stop me.

  Hurry and wake up so we can laugh at me together, yeah?

  Your dude.

  -Wes

  __

  And this, my dear Jamie, is the end of this journal. It did all it could do, although I don’t think that’s exactly what you had in mind when you suggested I start it.

  I leave you with a puzzle. Even you wouldn’t be able to figure this one out—me and him, I mean.

  P.S. I opened my phone one last time before I’ll have to lock it away with this journal. I might as well write down here what I found.

  He hadn’t answered with a text.

  He’d called me, then left voice mail when he found it was off.

  I hadn’t expected to hear his voice again, so soon after our last phone call (it was about a week later, I think, and my heart was still scraped raw from that). I sank to the bed, blown away by the force of the feelings that assaulted me. I had to remind myself a couple of times that this was before we’d talked, before the irreversible words that had passed between us.

  “Ari.” He just said my name at first, then paused. “What’s happened to you? Did you read the note I left you? I guess not. I guess this is it. Well, you need to do what you need to do, I understand. Don’t survive. Live. That’s all there is now for you. Just. . . just do this one last thing for me, okay? Don’t look back, Ari. I’ll—I’ll try to do the same. This is goodbye if you want it to be. And as for not contacting you again. . . well, maybe you shouldn’t contact me either, yeah? I don’t think, um. . . there would be no point, you see, opening up old wounds.”

  His voice sounded hoarse by now. And mad.

  “What else is there to say? Don’t ever thank me again, please. I can’t stand it. Goodbye, Ari.”

  It was only after I’d listened to it a couple of times that I realized: he’d just left me that message, when I called him. He’d just asked me not to contact him. Maybe that’s why he ended up being so cruel to me a few minutes later, when I’d called him as per Katia’s advice. I mean, he’d written in his note, a month ago, that he wanted to change, but wanting to change isn’t the same as actually changing. It’s merely a step in the right direction. And if things don’t go right after that. . . maybe you abandon the effort.

  I’m the ‘thing’ that went wrong. Or maybe I’m giving too much credit to myself. One human being can’t change just because of or for the sake of another. And if they did, how real would that be? Anyway, I’m getting in over my head here.

  The thing is that this voice mail had sounded more like the old Wes, at the beginning at least, and that sliced me right through. Of course the more I listened to it, the more I realized how strained his voice sounded, how stilted. As though he was barely keeping it together.

  But I guess, by the end of our one and only phone call, he really hated my guts. Even now, writing it, I’ve lost count of the things we’ve done to each other. What a mess.

  After listening to the voice mail, I cried like a baby, stifling the sound into my pillow. I cried ugly, tearing sobs until morning, and then I got up and went out to meet Coach at the gym.

  Now it’s midnight again.

  And, as this journal is coming to an end, and with it, the whole “hospital” chapter of my life as well (hopefully), here is what I keep thinking about: fake dolphins.

  Fake dolphins.

  When the movie, our movie, First Sentences, is released, people will see a gorgeous underwater scene, with Elle (although it will be my body) swimming smoothly between two sleek dolphins, and then jumping through the air to land in a pool of foam between them. Probably an upbeat, summery music will be playing in the background.

  But the reality of creating that scene on camera was nothing like that.

  It was all an illusion, a magic trick, a lie.

  Wes’ entire world is like that. The paparazzi, the agents, the fans, the Christinas. I mean, we all had to sign elaborate contracts that stated we wouldn’t even disclose the location of the shoot for six months. And an army of assistants, bodyguards, drivers and various other people kept following Wes like a cloud of bees wherever he went. Let’s face it, I’ve never lived like that. How do you know where reality ends and the fake dolphins begin? Maybe he deluded himself into believing that there was something between us that never was. Maybe I did too. We both did.

  Sometimes I wake up in the night, sweating, in the grip of a panic attack, but I know how to handle them now. I slow my own breathing and visualize a calm scene, like the therapist taught me. But I always, always, remember that first time it happened to me, and how Wes was there, holding me together.

  It would be so easy to slip back into being that girl. That girl who needed him, who kept a part of herself secret from him and from anyone, just so that she could stay alive (and sane).

  But I’m not her any more.

  I’m someone who can’t stay away from the truth any longer. I’m someone who is still fighting for her life. Even though people can’t see, there’s a battle inside of me.

  And this one I’ll have to win alone.

  Well, at least let’s say I’ll have to fight it alone. Besides, Wes is no longer an option. I’d better delete him from my brain, like he asked me to.

  Now how to delete the fear. That’s the real issue.

  _____

  I’m locking this thing up. No point in remembering anything else except that I’m alive. That’s all that matters, right?

  PART THREE

  Sweet Prince

  THIRTEEN

  London

  One month later

  The first thing I hear as I walk in through the elegant, steel doors of the London Academy of Creative and Dramatic Art, is yelling.

  Now that’s what I call a promising beginning.

  I cringe as the harsh sound of angry voices meets my ears. I was expecting a lot of things, but not this: I was expecting red velvet theatre seats and polished hardwood floors, and a large, echoey room. I wasn’t expecting this cacophony of voices, followed by an uncomfortable silence, as everyone hears me open the door. The voices subside to muttering, and the cluster of students I can see up ahead stop talking and turn towards me.

  The stage is even bigger than I had imagined, and a sudden nervousness grips me. You can do this, I tell myself, as more than fifteen people crane their necks to look at me, measuring me up.

  I walk on, head bent, duffel bag slung over my shoulder, trying to look professional. And then the whispering starts. Voices asking questions, mingling with the remnants of the angry yells, which haven’t yet completely subsided at the other side of the room.

  Welcome to adulthood.

  ◊�
��◊

  My plane landed at Heathrow airport just a few hours ago, and I emerged into a chilly English afternoon with just a few hours to spare until my audition.

  The sky was overcast, so I draped one of Jamie’s scarves more securely around my throat, blowing on my freezing fingers to warm them. Perfect weather for a brand new start, I told myself wryly.

  I got in a cab, giving the driver a slip of paper with the address on. He drove me to Camden, to the little room I’ve rented, but all I had time to do was leave my luggage and take a quick shower. Then I got out again and hopped on a bus, as the evening gently enveloped the wet streets in an icy blue December night.

  It took me about twenty minutes to get to my destination. Finding my way around was surprisingly easy, considering I’ve never set foot in London before, but the GPS on my phone made everything simpler. I just sat back and gazed out the window as we passed King’s Cross, Regent’s Park and then finally, the impressive, looming silhouette of the British Library.

  In another life—or, rather, three months ago—this would have been the perfect opportunity to call Katia or text her, but before coming here I’d told myself that I would do this by myself. Stand on my own two feet and all that.

  Jamie’s words to me when I was in hospital, about pushing everyone out of my life in order to get over my fears, kept bugging me, but I pushed them firmly aside.

  This isn’t about that, I kept telling myself. I’m just doing things on my own, that’s all. About time.

  And speaking of doing things on my own, I can still remember my conversation with Christina from about two months ago, when she offered me a personal assistant, an agent and a driver (among other things).

  I told her it was too soon for all that, and that I was just taking the next step, for now, and she’d replied: