Lies In Rewind

by Tali Alexander

  As I watch and listen to Louis speak to his wife, I think back to Liam and his low opinion of this man. I wish we both got the chance to see what was on that video. I wish he knew Louis like I know him. Isa didn’t just fall in love with a handsome guy, she fell in love with Louis Bruel for the beautiful, loving man that he is, was, and always will be. But I don’t think Liam will ever accept and understand that. It’s ironic that I’m being held tightly in Jeff’s arms, the arms I’ve dreamt about every night for the last fifteen years of my life, and all I can think about is Liam.

  I see Louis walk deeper into the room and gently place Emily down on the untouched second bed, lowering his head to kiss her temple as he whispers something inaudible in her ear. She nods in agreement and turns to face the window. He then walks over to Jeffery, who continues to clutch me tightly, and without a single word, takes me from his arms and carries me over placing me next to Em.

  “Make it better, we’ll be downstairs,” he tells me and walks out of the room, motioning for Jeff to follow him.

  It’s scary when your best friend, who usually can’t shut up, is just silent. She stares out the window right past me as if I’m invisible, and in many ways, I wish I were. I wonder what’s going through her mind? I don’t know how to make it better. What can I possibly say to make her hate me less? I have no excuse for being a lying bitch my whole life. I’d rather have her near and not say a single world than have her torn away from me, too. I decide to just wait and say nothing. If she wants me to explain, I’ll tell her everything. Even if it hurts and rips me to shreds, I’ll tell her everything… I can’t protect her from my ugly truth with my beautiful lies anymore. It’s time she knows who I really am, and if she still wants to know me once I say the unsayable, I’ll count it as one of my rare blessings.

  She finally looks me in the eyes and says softly after a silence that felt like eternity, “‘Wind Beneath My Wings’ by Bette Midler.”

  That song is all I’ll ever need to know that I’m not alone, that I’ve never been alone. I don’t have words to express my emotions and the love I feel for this loyal woman who tolerates me. She’s the only one who ever really loved me. How could I ever question and agonize over her opinion of my choices? Why didn’t I trust her enough to know she would never judge or hate me? Wasn’t she the little girl sitting with flowers at my ballet recitals when nobody else remembered to come? Wasn’t she the first person and sometimes the only person to wish me a happy birthday at midnight? Isn’t she the only one who always tried to make me smile?

  That song is equivalent to the Holy Grail in our ‘80s dialect. She couldn’t have chosen a more meaningful song if she tried and she knows it. This is the song that started it all; the song that she sang and danced to in our sixth grade talent show. I fell in love with Emily Marcus almost twenty years ago when I heard her sing that song, which I’d felt she sang just for me. I knew at that moment she would be my best friend forever. I created our own secret language just to strengthen our bond more. Our mothers were already good friends and I wanted her to be just mine. My whole life, I tried to impress her, shock her, and I really didn’t need to. She would have loved me even if I wasn’t The Sara; she would be my best friend even if I were just Sara. All I needed was to be honest with her. Everybody makes mistakes and everybody hurts in different ways. I was a lying coward when all she gave me was unconditional love.

  “I love you so much. Please forgive me. I’m sorry about everything,” I say, squeezing her and melting into her embrace. “I should’ve told you everything. You wouldn’t hate me, you would understand. I’m such a loser; I was ashamed. Please forgive me for all the lies,” I cry out into her hair.

  “Sara, stop it! There is nothing for me to forgive. The only person that you need to ask for forgiveness is yourself. I’ve known you my whole life, and I’ve always known all the stories were a bunch of lies. I never believed for one second you were the slut you pretended to be. I let you be whatever you wanted to be because I love you. How could you be a slut if all you’ve ever wanted was love? Sluts don’t break down love songs and study them like the word of God. I always knew it was Jeffery. I could see him in your eyes and I could see the way he looked at you, I just didn’t understand what you two actually shared until now. I’m upset with myself because I know how much you’re hurting and I wish I could make it better, but I don’t know how.”

  Her words are a solace to my aching heart. She could’ve made hundreds of horrible, painful moments so much better if I had only let her. I always thought the truth would hurt everybody around me, but the truth would’ve made my life and all my stupid choices bearable.

  “I don’t know where to start. I have so much that I want to tell you. So much that you need to know about me.” I’m scared at the prospect of telling Emily the untellable.

  “Start where it doesn’t hurt,” she tells me, and I instantly think of Liam and his exact words to me only hours ago. Our time together feels like centuries ago.

  “‘If I Could Turn Back Time’ by Cher,” I instantly say, which makes us both smile through the tears. When shit gets real, we go ‘80s. I take her hands in mine and I begin rewinding to that night I first met the man I thought would be my everything.

  “What Kind Of Fool” by Barbra Streisand & Barry Gibb

  Emily and I have spent the last hour huddled in bed under the covers, making up for years of me being a stupid cow and keeping shit from her. I’ve described for her like I did for Liam how I first met Jeffery that night Eddie took us out to that club. I told her how I attacked him when he came to my room that night, and I then confessed to lying about having any interaction with him until he came to my sweet sixteen party a year later. I’ve told her everything up to my eighteenth birthday.

  I then described club Lunna and that night I decided to celebrate alone and make all my lies a reality. I even told her about Phillip Dashell, which made her cringe thinking that I could’ve been involved with him.

  “Such a small world we live in. You encountered one of Louis’ then best friend over a year before he and I ever met.” She still hasn’t asked me anything about Liam and I don’t want to go off course and start describing that train wreck, yet. We need to deal with one disaster at a time. Louis has peeked in twice already and sent in sandwiches with full tea service for us, which we devoured. I guess getting all worked up emotionally builds up a good appetite.

  I continue telling Em what happened once Phillip put me in a cab to go home, and I remember one of the most important nights of my life.

  I finally got home that dreadful, cold night. After the way I’d spoken to Jeff on the phone, I was sure he’d already left and would want nothing to do with me, but I was very wrong. My response must’ve fueled him; he was a man on a mission.

  When the cab pulled up to my house before I could get out, Jeff opened the door and got in. He gave the cab driver an address and off we went. I remember that cab ride like it was yesterday. Even after my traumatizing evening with Phillip, I was still excited to be this close to the boy that I’d lied and fantasied about for years. He looked furious with me, but he was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. He was all mine; he just didn’t know it yet. I replayed in my head the things he and I did in the fictional world I’d created for us. This was only the third time I’d seen him in three years, yet I felt like I knew him better than I knew myself.

  I remember Jeff finally speaking, and the first thing he said to me was, “Am I too late?”

  I looked at him, not understanding his question one bit. What was he too late for my birthday? So I said, “Yes, you’re too late.”

  He closed his eyes as if I had just said the worst thing I could possibly say. I couldn’t understand what he was freaking out about, but then it hit me! He was asking if I slept with Phillip. I started panicking and got closer to him to make sure he didn’t think that I had just had sex.

  “NO! NO! I didn’t have sex with him! I pushed him away, I didn’t want him�
��he wasn’t you! I just want you.” I remember frantically trying to make him understand.

  He looked at me and I looked at him, and I guess you could say that was the beginning of the end for us. From that moment on, I haven’t made it through a single day without thinking about him. When we finally came crashing down on each other, we were like two starving animals. That kiss in the back of the cab was beyond intense, it was a hunger three years in the making. I straddled him, letting him know he could have all of me. We weren’t thinking, we weren’t fighting; our feelings were on autopilot. I had no doubt in my mind that Jeffery Rossi was all mine. There wasn’t a possibility that we wouldn’t end up together after that night.

  That was the day I lost everything. Everything I thought was rightfully mine was only an illusion. It’s the part of my story where things got interesting and where I should’ve let my best friend tell me to run and never look back.

  “Sara, I waited so long for this. How am supposed to leave you and go back to school?” Jeff asked me after we’d made love for the second time that night. The first time I was in pain, but the second time was heaven. The way we fit together was perfection.

  We were in an apartment in the village that had a brand new mattress on the floor in the middle of the living room and one lonely chair by the window. The place was tiny; the size of my bedroom, but it was his and I thought it was the most romantic thing in the world. Jeff and my brother were still away in law school and he’d rented that apartment so he could stay in the city close to me. Well, that’s what I thought, anyway.

  “When will I see you again? Will you call me? Can I tell people we’re together?” I rambled off all these questions to him. I’d just had sex with the person I was infatuated with and I was giddy with excitement. I couldn’t wait to tell the whole world about it. I came up with songs that would perfectly describe my night. I wouldn’t have to lie about sex anymore! I’d actually know what I was talking about from experience.

  I remember looking into his eyes, admiring their dual colors and wondering if our kids would have two different eye colors, too. I just wished I could see these beautifully peculiar eyes every day for eternity. His answers to my simple questions should’ve told me something was off.

  “Let me work out a few things before we start telling everybody that we’re exclusive and together. I don’t want your brother to fuck me up. I’ll find the right time and tell him, my way. Meanwhile, we can use this place and I’ll try to come every weekend if I can.”

  And before I could react, he had me moaning again. To an eighteen-year-old girl, his response made sense. I did what he said and didn’t tell anybody about us. I would wait to get the green light from him and then shout my love for him from the rooftops.

  He came almost every week and I’d never felt more loved and adored in my whole life. He was amazing, sweet, and gentle in bed. He kept promising me the world and describing what our life would be like, endlessly feeding me hope. I could picture my whole life with him. I imagined my future children growing up together with your children. My life would be beautiful and I’d get to share it with the only man I ever loved since I was fifteen.

  It was a dream, but it wasn’t meant to be my dream.

  We had this secret love affair for over a year. He kept saying it wasn’t wise to tell Eddie, because he wouldn’t understand, since I was still technically in high school. I kinda sorta agreed with him. He was my whole life; I saw him at least three times a month, sometimes for two days at a time. When we’d be together in our apartment nothing and no one seemed to matter but us.

  A month before he was supposed to graduate, he stopped calling me. I waited at that apartment for days and he never showed up. I worried something had happened to him so I called Eddie to see if I could get some information; after all, they were roommates. Eddie picked up the phone and told me he was in the middle of a big celebration with Jeff and he couldn’t talk, but he’d call me back soon. When he said he and Jeff were celebrating, I was beyond angry—I was enraged. I must’ve left Jeffery at least three voice messages a day. I would cry myself to sleep every night because I didn’t know what I did wrong. I decided not to go to my brother’s graduation, I faked a cold; I couldn’t deal with seeing Jeff after being ignored for over a month.

  But he finally came to see me right after our high school graduation in June. He said we needed to talk. I needed closure after not speaking with him for over a month with no explanation. I wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, I wanted to tell him to forget he ever knew me and never say my name again, but I couldn’t; he was my everything. He was my only truth in my world of lies and I couldn’t be smart. I was in love.

  We drove to his poor excuse for a love pad to talk. After staring at each other for an hour, he finally started talking. “While I was waiting for you to grow up, I was having relations with this girl. She helped me in school and she was there when I couldn’t have you. I was going to break up with her once we graduated but something happened.”

  As he told me this, I could feel vomit rising from my stomach and my legs began to give out from under me. I remember thinking that this is all one big joke. I mean, he couldn’t fake what we had, right? I didn’t imagine it, right? I didn’t make it up. It was all real! He waited for me, I waited for him; he loved me, I loved him. What the fuck was he talking about? We were meant to be. Why was he telling me about some girl? If he had to fuck somebody while he waited for me I didn’t need to know about it.

  “Sara, say something. I’m sorry, but I didn’t know how to tell you.” He then added, “Jacqueline knows nothing about you.”

  When he gave the nameless girl a name, it became infinitely more painful. With every word out of his mouth, I died a little more. Once I stopped free falling off a cliff and finally worked through the haze, I started demanding some answers.

  “Jeff, we’ve been making love for over a year. Why didn’t you break up with her? You said you loved me. You said you waited for me.” I was still a child asking stupid questions from the person I had entrusted with my heart.

  “Sara, I don’t love her like I love you. You are everything to me, but every time I tried to break up with her, something came up, something that I needed her help with. I was just using her and I didn’t think it was anything serious. I was about to finally end it about a month ago when her father came to see me.”

  I remember Jeff’s eyes started to twitch as he told me the next part of his sordid tale.

  “He offered me the job of a lifetime once I graduated, and a partnership in his firm. People who graduate law school work years for that kind of opportunity and he was just giving it to me. He started telling me how he knew that his daughter and I were very much in love and he and his wife were very happy Jacqueline and I found each other. I was about to tell him that Jacqueline and I weren’t serious, when he told me that his beloved only daughter was very sick. That she was going to break up with me because she was diagnosed with late stage cervical cancer and the doctors didn’t think she had long to live. Her father was shaking and crying as he told me this horrible news. He said he knew we’d been seeing each other, and since her future wasn’t promised, he wanted me to marry his daughter right away. He and his wife would take care of everything, they just wanted to give their only daughter a few last happy memories.”

  I recall wondering if this was part of some soap opera or a joke. This shit didn’t really happen.

  “So what did you tell him?” I probed, as if I didn’t already know the answer. “Jeff, are you telling me you’re engaged?” I was on the verge of having a mental breakdown if he told me that he put a ring on her finger instead of mine.

  He nodded. “What was I supposed to do? Break up with her and let her die alone? If I told her about us, it would kill her, and then what? I would be an asshole and lose the job of a lifetime. You’re too young to even think about marriage, so I did the right thing. I will give this poor girl a few happy memories for a few months, or as long as she
has left to live, and then you and I will have a lifetime to be together.”

  He held my face in his hands and kissed my lips, telling me how this was the right thing to do. Why hurt a dying girl if he could just make the last month or year of her life beautiful, and then we would benefit our whole lives from this one right thing. “Sara, I love you,” he said. “I will always choose you, but this is different. This isn’t about making a choice, it’s about doing the right thing.”

  He made love to me that day for hours, promising me paradise with every kiss, every trusting word. It all made perfect sense when he explained it. He would marry Jacqueline, take care of her, and give her a few beautiful memories while I went to school. Once I finished, we would pick up where we left off. It was a brilliant plan. He just didn’t take into account that I was the girl dying inside, not Jacqueline.

  “Live To Tell” by Madonna

  “You think I’m an idiot, right?” I ask Emily, fully aware of how stupid and juvenile everything I just told her must sound. “You think I’m a dumb cow, don’t you? It’s okay; just say it! I think I’m a dumb cow at least twice a day.” The truth is I think I’m a dumb cow at least once an hour.

  “Shut up, you’re a dumb cow for thinking that I think you’re a dumb cow. I totally get it! When you’re in love shit that sounds crazy to someone else seems perfectly normal to you because you’re in a red fog. Do you remember when Louis and I first met? We used zero common sense. We just jumped and I agreed to marry him after knowing him for only a handful of weeks. It wasn’t logical; it was love! I don’t think you’re an idiot, but in hindsight, you ended up with nothing but promises.