by Joey Bush
“Tell Sophie I said hi,” Levi said. He was stretched out on the couch, scrolling through Netflix.
“Thanks,” I said. “You sure you don’t want to come?”
“I’m fine here. You two should go enjoy a night together, without me. I know Sophie would prefer it.”
“She likes you,” I said, though we both knew that wasn’t true.
“Besides, you’ve got Netflix, HBO, Hulu, and Amazon Prime, so I am all set.”
He really did seem as though he was more than content to just hang out here. I was tempted to join him on the couch, but I knew I’d never hear the end of it from Sophie if I did. Besides, it would be nice if the two of us were able to have a little girl time together.
“Okay,” I said. “Well, I don’t think I’ll be too late. I think we’re going to get sushi. Want me to bring you anything back?”
“Nah, I’m good. Have fun.”
“I will.”
I went over to the couch and he sat up, gave me a kiss. “I’ll wait up for you,” he said.
Sophie was already at the sushi place when I got there, drinking hot tea out of a little cup with no handle.
“I ordered us sake,” she said. She looked over my shoulder. “What—no Levi?”
“No Levi.” I sat down and put my purse in the empty seat next to me. “He thought we should have a girls’ night.”
Sophie raised an eyebrow. “He thought?”
“Well, I mean, I wasn’t going to tell him that he wasn’t allowed to come out and get dinner with us, if he had wanted to.”
“Sheesh, Isla.”
“What?”
She set her tea cup down and reached for the little ceramic jug of sake. She poured herself some and took a sip, then looked at me. “I can’t even believe he’s here with you,” she said. “It’s so weird.”
“Why?”
“It’s like he’s in the wrong environment or something. He’s totally smitten with you, though.” She gave me a devilish grin. “Your plan is working! Ha! I only wish I could be there to see his face when you tell him to go eat a big bag of shit.”
I shifted uncomfortably and returned her smile. “Yeah. It’s actually been a little easier than I thought it would be . . . getting him interested.”
“Please!” she scoffed. “You’re seriously selling yourself short, Isla. The guy you eventually do end up with is going to be so lucky. You deserve someone so much better than Levi or Brian.”
“Brian was an ass,” I said. “So really, I should be thanking Shannon for sleeping with him, because that saved me from doing so. We saw her last night.”
“At Duquette?”
“Yeah. She was completely enamored with Levi. But he made a good point: if she hadn’t slept with Brian, I would have, and then who knows if I would’ve gotten involved with Levi at all, if I was still with Brian.”
Sophie raised her eyebrows. “You have feelings for him, don’t you?” she said accusingly. “Don’t even bother trying to deny it! I can tell.”
I sighed. “Okay, fine,” I said. “I felt weird keeping it from you anyway, so I won’t deny it. Yeah—I do have feelings for him.”
She shook her head. “Project Revenge was not about you falling in love with him. You were supposed to make him feel like shit—not reinforce the idea that he’s this guy that everyone wants. Which is not true actually; I wouldn’t sleep with him.”
“Really,” I said.
“Um, yes! Just because he’s hot doesn’t mean shit. Although based on your actions, you wouldn’t know that.”
“Geez, Soph,” I said. “You’re being a little harsh.”
But she didn’t crack a smile, or offer anything in the way of an apology. In fact, she looked even more pissed. “I’m not being harsh,” she said. “I’m being honest. And I’m a little disgusted with you, Isla, if I can continue to be honest here for a moment. You’re basically doing the exact opposite of what I thought you were doing. You do realize that, don’t you?”
“Maybe that whole thing is stupid anyway!” I said. “Project Revenge! I mean, what, are we still in high school?”
Now Sophie did laugh, though it was a short, barking sound that didn’t seem at all happy or amused. “Ha. No. Because if we were still in high school, you’d be overweight and Levi would be making his stupid fat jokes and not giving you a second glance. So no, Isla, we’re definitely not still in high school. But I knew you liked him then, too, even if he was making you feel like shit.”
“He’s different now,” I said softly, though there was no point in trying to convince Sophie otherwise. She’d made up her mind about him, and nothing I said was going to change that.
“It’s just pathetic,” she snapped. “This whole thing is pathetic. It’s like you’ve lost a bunch of weight, and now you’ve inherited this money, and suddenly you’re on the same level that he is, so he can be seen out in public with you. It’s okay now, but it sure as hell wasn’t ten years ago.”
“Stop it!” I shouted. “Seriously! You’re acting like you were the one he said all this stuff to! If I can get over it and move past it and forgive him, then you should be able to, too!”
“This is ridiculous,” she said. “I’m leaving. I’m not going to continue to have this conversation with you. No, he might not have been making fun of me, but I was the one on the phone with you every night hearing about it. I’m the one you called up crying all those times, telling me how fucking miserable you were there and how much you hated it. Oh, but I guess that’s all forgiven now that Levi has decided to grace you with his kindness.”
“Sophie,” I said. “Okay, I can see that you’re pretty pissed about this. I’m not trying to make you mad, I hope you realize this. And you’re right: You are the one I called up all those nights, and you were there for me and I am so incredibly thankful for that. But . . . that was a long time ago. Levi’s different now. If you’d give him a chance, I think that you’d see that, too.”
“I don’t give assholes like that a second chance,” she said. “You might be willing to, but I’m not. And it doesn’t matter that he never said anything specifically about me—he said all that shit to you, and seeing as you’re my best friend, he might as well have said it about me.”
“I don’t want to fight with you,” I said. “Let’s just forget about this whole thing, okay?”
She gave me a look as though I’d just suggested we scrape some dog shit off the sidewalk and make a sandwich with it.
“I’m not just going along with this,” she said. “Isla, if you want to completely degrade yourself and go out with someone who’s said all these shitty things about you, go ahead, but I in no way support that.”
“It’s not up to you, though,” I said. “Who I go out with.”
“You’re right. It’s not. But that doesn’t mean I have to be okay with it. Which I am so totally not. I have to go.” She stood up.
“So that’s it? You’re just going to leave? Are we never going to talk again or something?”
“I have completely lost my appetite, so it seems rather pointless to sit here at a restaurant.”
“You’re being serious?”
“I am.” And then she left.
I watched her go, my throat constricting. I didn’t care that the people sitting closest to us were sneaking looks at me. Sophie and I had never fought before. Sure, we’d have a disagreement every now and then, but nothing that wasn’t resolved in a day, usually less. This felt different, though. This felt like the sort of thing that might never get resolved.
I could understand where she was coming from, sort of. I tried to put myself in her shoes, if the roles had been reversed and she was getting involved with someone who had made her feel like shit the way Levi had used to make me feel. And yes, she was right—she was the person I’d confided in, that I’d called for support; she was the one who had been there for me. So was this wrong? Was I being foolish?
If only she’d let me explain. If she’d just let me expla
in how it was between Levi and me now, how he’d changed, how I would never allow myself to get involved with someone if he wasn’t going to be respectful . . . but I knew there was no way she’d ever give me the chance to tell her. As far as she was concerned, the conversation was done and over with.
I got my purse and got up, telling the waitress as I left that I wasn’t feeling well and I was sorry for taking up a table. That much was true, anyway; I definitely had a sick feeling in my stomach. I didn’t like fighting with anyone, but especially not Sophie.
I didn’t want to have to explain to Levi why I was home so early, so I drove around for a while before I went back home.
“Did you have a nice time?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, putting my purse down. “It was good. Did you enjoy yourself?”
“I enjoyed Netflix and chill for one, yes.” He stretched. “Cal’s been blowing up my phone like crazy. I’ve been ignoring him, but I should get back to the city.”
“Now?”
“No, not this very second. I’ve actually been enjoying my time here very much.”
I smiled grimly, wishing I could say the same. If anything, being back here was just making me feel more stressed out.
“What’s your plan?” he asked. “If you need to stay here, I can find my own way back.”
“How?” I asked.
“Oh, you know. Hitchhike.”
“You’re not hitchhiking back to New York.”
“I know, I was joking.”
“Though you’d probably have no problem getting someone to pick you up.”
“I can take a bus.”
“You don’t have a driver you could call?”
“I do, but I wouldn’t mind taking the bus, either. I’m not one of those people who’s afraid of using public transit.”
“Do those people exist?”
“They most certainly do. I had this friend growing up, and his mom refused to take the subway or a cab. They were loaded, so of course they had their own drivers and everything, so it usually wasn’t an issue, but one day I remember overhearing her say to one of her friends how she’d never be caught dead taking the train, that she couldn’t think of anything more humiliating than that.”
“Yeah, see, I don’t want to turn into one of those people.”
“You would never turn into that. You’re not someone who’s capable of having such a narrow view of things.”
“I’d like to think so.”
Levi got up off the couch and came over and hugged me. “Everything okay with you?” he asked. “You look about as stressed out as I feel.”
“Tonight actually wasn’t so great. Sophie and I got into a fight,” I said, realizing the second the words were out of my mouth that I shouldn’t have brought it up.
“Oh, shit,” he said. “That sucks. What happened?”
There was no way I could tell him the real reason that we’d been fighting. She’s pissed at me because I developed feelings for you when I was supposed to just be interested in you to get revenge. In fact, she even named it Project Revenge. No way in hell I was going to tell him that.
“Money can do that,” he said. I didn’t say anything; I’d let him think that was the real reason. “It sucks to admit, but it’s true.”
“We’ve had arguments and stuff before, but nothing like this. It just feels weird. Being here feels weird. I don’t know. If you want to go back to New York, I’m all for it.”
He gave me a playful look. “Are you inviting yourself over?”
“Yeah, I guess I am. Is that all right?”
“Absolutely,” he said, pulling me toward him. “And I think I’ve got an idea or two about how we can reduce some of this stress you’re feeling . . .”
*****
The doorbell woke me up the next morning. I could tell by the way the sunlight was slanting into the bedroom that it was fairly early; I reached over and picked my phone up off the bedside table and saw that it was quarter past eight. I sighed and got up, leaving Levi in bed, sound asleep and snoring lightly.
It was my mother.
“I’m sorry to drop in so early,” she said as she came in. “I’m on my way to work, but this is going to bother me all day if I don’t say something.” She looked around. “Is Levi still here?”
“He’s asleep. I think we’re heading back to New York later today. He’s got some work stuff that he needs to take care of.”
“And you’re going with him?”
“I am. I’m not really interested in whether or not you think it’s a good idea. I’m going with him to New York, and I’ll stay there for a little while, and then I might go somewhere else. Despite what you may think, I really haven’t gone crazy spending money; I haven’t gone out and bought a mansion in L.A. or a private jet or anything. Really, I went out and got some stuff for you, which you didn’t want. Fine, okay. You don’t have to take it, that’s your prerogative. But me going with Levi back to New York is my prerogative, and I don’t need your judgments about it.”
There was a part of me that felt bad for speaking like that to my mother, but I couldn’t deal with her coming over here to give me more shit.
“I just ran into Sophie while I was getting a coffee this morning. She said you two weren’t speaking at the moment.”
“I didn’t realize Sophie was such an early riser.”
“You two got into a fight?”
“That’s correct.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“People get into arguments. I’m hoping that we both just need some time to cool down and then we’ll be able to move on.” Yet even as I was saying it, I was aware there was a part of me that had my doubts of that happening. She’d been so angry—I’d never seen Sophie so mad about something before. This seemed to run deeper than a normal spat. “Did she say anything?” I asked.
My mother raised her eyebrows. “Other than you two weren’t currently seeing eye to eye on something? No, she didn’t say anything more than that, and I didn’t ask. Though I will ask you now.” She glanced toward the bathroom. “Is it because of Levi?”
“He had something to do with it. She doesn’t like him.”
“For good reason, wouldn’t you say?”
“What? Because of the things he said to me almost a decade ago? Do any of you people believe in forgiveness? Or do you just think I should hold a grudge against someone forever?”
“Isla, it’s not that we think you should hold a grudge forever,” Mom said. And just the way she said it, I knew that she and Sophie had talked a lot longer about this than she was letting on. They probably sat and drank a cup of coffee together while they talked about it. “But neither Sophie nor I want to see you get hurt. Levi hasn’t had the greatest track record with you in that department, and while I realize that all of that happened a while ago, it still doesn’t change the fact that it happened. And that there are so many other nice men out there that would be better suited to you.”
“Oh really?” I said. “Is that so? Where exactly are these other men? Are you hiding them from me? Is Sophie hoarding them all for herself? You’re making it sound like I’ve got guys lining up to the with me when that’s not the case at all! And even if it were, I like Levi! I like who he is now, and I like spending time with him, and, as I said when you first showed up, I’m not interested in hearing any of your judgments about it! I’m a grown ass woman and I don’t need to get your permission or approval regarding who I hang out with!”
My voice got louder with each word, so by the time I was finished talking, I was practically shouting. Levi could probably hear me, even over the shower.
“I think you should just leave,” I said. “It would be better if you left.”
“All right, Isla. I’ll go. I wasn’t coming over here looking to start a fight with you. I was actually coming over here to tell you that I was sorry that things have seemed strained between us since you’ve been back, but clearly you just want to continue that trend. For whatever
reason. Have a good time in New York.”
My mother and I were never good at arguing; there had certainly been a few times it had happened when I’d been growing up, but we tried to avoid it when we could. So I didn’t know what else to do but stand there as she left, and I watched her walk down the driveway to her car.
“Were you yelling at someone out here?” Levi asked. He was standing there, a towel wrapped around his waist, his hair damp. “I thought I heard yelling. Or was that just you protesting my singing in the shower?”
“No, that was me yelling. I couldn’t even hear you singing. My mother stopped by. I think to kind of apologize, but we ended up getting into an argument and I basically just kicked her out. Which feels weird. But her coming over here and being all judgmental also feels weird.” I brought my hands up to the side of my head and squeezed my temples. “I just really want to get away from all of this.”
Levi came over and wrapped his arms around me, his skin smooth and warm. I turned my head and rested the side of my face against his chest, wrapped my arms around his back.
“How about this,” he said. “We’ll go back to New York for a little while, you can relax and do whatever; hang out at my place, go spend the day at the spa, whatever you want. I’ll try to appease Cal, and then we’ll go back to Ibiza for a little while. Our sole purpose being just to enjoy ourselves and tune out all this other bullshit that people are trying to throw our way.”
“Yes, please,” I said.
“Hey,” he said. I lifted my head and looked at him. “I’m sorry everyone’s giving you such a hard time about us. I wish it didn’t have to be that way.”
“I do too, but it is. I think they just need to get used to it.”
It’s true that this wasn’t the original plan, that I hadn’t ever thought Levi and I would be together like this. And if I was really honest with myself then yes, I could admit that I certainly had feelings for him. Perhaps, if I was smart, I wouldn’t go back to New York with him, I wouldn’t continue to see him. It seemed to be what everyone else thought I should do.
