by Lily Zante
I take a slurp of my milkshake, frowning. “Cost me? As in with the studio?”
She dismisses that notion with a wave of her hand. “I’m sure that stuff can be fixed. Maybe not the way you want it, but it can probably be fixed. Cost you with a certain Ms. Cardoza is what I mean.”
Thinking about it like that, it cost me because Nina doesn’t want anything to do with me. “She’s not too pleased with me, as you can see.”
“Oh, I can see alright,” Frankie replies, smoothly. “Lemme guess, you’re waiting for this situation to fix itself, by giving Nina more time.”
I shrug.
“You can have all the time in the world but that little lady isn’t going to come waltzing back to your door.” She lowers her voice. “Just so you know, you got to her, and she’s in full retreat mode.”
This doesn’t make sense. “I messed up. I did,” I insist when Frankie rolls her eyes. “I was supposed to be at the fight, she asked me to, but I couldn’t make it.”
“I heard about that. The waitresses talk about everything you get up to, and who you get up to it with.”
“None of that is true,” I point out. “All that Alyssa stuff, it’s made up.”
“Oh, I don’t believe that rubbish. I know most of it’s not true. You probably did eat at a certain restaurant, but I doubt that you’re about to swan off to the Bahamas and propose marriage to someone you barely know let alone care about.”
I smile. “You’re smarter than you think.”
“How do you think Frankie’s Kitchen became such a popular place?” She grins at me. “Now, how are you going to fix this? You know what I’m talking about.”
“I figured I would wait it out,” I tell her. I’m not going to put Nina under any pressure. She’ll come to me when she’s good and ready.
Frankie snorts with laughter. “You’ll be shooting another film before she even thinks about it.”
“I don’t want to pressure her.” She’s too fragile. I won’t push her.
“Then say goodbye,” Frankie says.
I twist my lips, about to disagree.
“Say goodbye,” Frankie repeats.
“You don’t understand Nina.”
“Oh, I understand her just fine,” Frankie retorts. “You don’t give her all the time in the world, you make her see sense. The thing she wants you to think she’s angry about, is not the thing that’s the problem.”
I blink as I try to process what she just said.
“If you want her, you’ll have to go up and claim her.”
I don’t see how this will work. I’ve worked Nina out. I think I have. There’s no way I’ll ever go up to her and impose my will, or demand to be heard.
As if she knows what I’m thinking, Frankie gives me a withering look as she slides out of the booth, “Okay then, suit yourself. Do it your way, because what you’ve been doing is working, huh?”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
NINA
* * *
At least Ernesto believes in Elias more than Lou or I do. I believe in him, but I know what went wrong, and I want to help him fix it.
Harper calls me as soon as she and Elias return from Chicago. I want to go over and see Elias but she cautions me against it, and suggests that she comes over to my place, so that’s what she’s doing this evening. I’ve made dinner, in the hope that Harper will take some back for Elias. I’ve made his favorite chicken dish.
In all this, I’ve since discovered that the clip of the fight at the diner between Callum and Rhys has gone all over the internet.
Joni is still sour about Rhys getting banned from the diner, and there is more animosity between us than tolerance. Where and how did it go so wrong between us? I tried to help her, I tried to make her see, but there are some people who can’t be helped; who don’t want to be helped.
I can’t help fix Joni, but I can help fix Elias. I can put him back together again.
I feel bad for Callum. Now that a few days have passed, I have calmed down and besides, so many things have happened that I feel less angry towards him. I know what I am doing, weaning myself off him. I got too close this time.
But I don’t think about us. He said he wanted to talk and fix things between us, but there is no future for us. It’s easier for me to discount these things—the good times in LA, getting to know him when we got back to Chicago, everything. The path to finding a new me. I thought I could become my alter ego and be the woman who could lead a normal life, untainted by past baggage. Now everything has reset back to my default.
While we eat, Harper tells me about that happened in New York in the days after the fight. It sounds like they spent a lot of time just mulling around and sightseeing once the interviews were done and out of the way. Sightseeing isn’t something Elias would have done willingly, not in his current frame of mind, but I am thankful that Harper insisted and dragged him around everywhere instead of him being stuck inside with nothing but bad memories and guilt eating away at him. I’m certain he’s feeling guilty, because that’s how I felt when I found out about his abuse. Guilt that it happened to him, even though I couldn’t have done anything about it because I didn’t know. Guilt, and hate, and utter wretchedness that the janitor tricked us both.
“He’s hopeful,” she says, when I ask her how he feels about a rematch. “He wants to get all his titles back.”
“Did he say anything?” I fish for clues, trying to figure out where he’s at.
“About?”
“About how he’s feeling? What happened that night?” What was on his mind? What went wrong?
Harper scoffs. “I don’t ask him about what happened that night. That’s for Lou to work out. I keep his boxing life and our life separate.”
“I want to see him.”
“You should. He said he hadn’t spoken to you properly, since that day … he said he needed to. Give him a day to unwind, then go and see him.”
“I’ve been trying to. None of you people would even let me near him before the fight.” My anger bubbles up. “You kept me out. I sat in the arena by myself, wondering how he was doing. I know that what he heard about me messed with his brain.”
“Then it was better I kept you away,” Harper says softly. “Elias loves you. That bond the two of you have is like nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s watertight. I love that you are both that close.”
Watertight.
Seems like the seal broke and has stayed broken.
“Him losing wasn’t your fault, you know that, right?” She’s trying. I’ll give her that. “He overheard and maybe it’s a good thing he did.”
She thinks Elias hearing about my abuse was a good thing? In which messed up universe would something like this be a good thing? “It’s a good thing? How can it be when he lost the fight?”
“It’s a good thing for both of you, otherwise you would never have told him.”
“He never needed to know,” I shoot back.
“But you didn’t need to keep that all bottled up inside you.”
I put down my fork. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Then let’s talk about Callum.” She sets down her fork. “What happened? Why couldn’t he make it that night?”
“He had dinner with his co-star.”
“I saw.” She cocks her head. “I also saw the clip of him fighting some guy in the diner, and then the two of you sitting down talking.”
I let out an I-don’t-want-to-talk-about-it groan.
“No one believes the stuff about him and his co-star,” she says. “It’s so obviously contrived. But you …” She sits forward and puts her elbows on the table. The mischievous glint is back in her eyes. “You and him, that’s the real story. The actor and the waitress. That’s the stuff of dreams. That’s the fabric of fairytales.”
I snort. “There is no story. There are no dreams, and there sure as hell aren’t any fairytales.”
“He doesn’t know about what happened to you, does he?”
I shake my head.
“Why not?”
“He doesn’t need to know.” My past was responsible for my inability to trust anyone. I made an exception with him. I moved out of my comfort zone, put down my walls and I let Callum in. I almost told him, but I see what a huge mistake that would have been. Now I’m determined that he will never know. Soon, he will be gone, and none of my life will matter to him anymore. “We’re not together, not that we ever really—”
“I call bullshit.”
I blink because Harper is not one to swear. Elias is rubbing off on her.
“You were together. You were starting to be together. You can deny it all you want, Nina, but I’ve seen a change in you these last few weeks. You going to LA for a weekend with a guy? You’ve never so much as talked about a guy, let alone get up and gone away with him, and it being a mega movie star to boot. You changed. He changed you. Something about him made you get up and do the things that have scared you in the past—things like trusting, and believing and being. Letting go and having fun.”
Harper is on a roll.
I open my mouth, but soon realize that I can’t interrupt or reject anything she’s saying, because what she’s saying is the truth.
“Callum was the reason you did all those things.” She huffs out a breath. “He didn’t need to pursue you the way he did, for as long as he did, as relentlessly as he did, and probably, as gently as he did. He must have been patient with you because you’re quick to ward people off. I’ve seen you do it at the diner. I’ve heard your witty one-liners when guys show an interest. So for Callum to have convinced you to step out of your normal routine and do the unthinkable, that must have taken something.”
I swallow. It feels like I’m getting a dressing down. I can see why Elias went sight-seeing in New York when he didn’t want to. If Harper can make a boxing champ see reason, she’s going to make me see reason no matter how much I resist.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
NINA
* * *
“Thanks for the chicken.”
“I knew you’d like it.”
I’m in Elias’s living room. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since the night of the fight. He looks a little gaunt, and I’m not sure if it’s the fight or other stuff. I look away. Now that he knows about me, I find it hard to look him in the eye.
This is more awkward than I thought it would be.
“Do you want a drink or something?” he asks, leading me towards the kitchen. I’m relieved that we’re heading into the kitchen, and not sitting on the sofas. I already feel panicky and fidgety.
“When’s Harper back?” He told me she was having an overnight stay at a tech conference and I’m guessing that’s why he invited me over tonight.
“Tomorrow.”
Why does it feel so awkward? I’ve wanted to talk to him, ever since that day, but now that I have my chance, I’d much rather run away and hide. He opens up a bottle filled with dark green liquid. It looks gross. Like someone pureed spinach and added it to water.
“What is that?” I ask him, as I settle myself on a bar stool.
“A bottle of goodness.”
“No, seriously, what is it?” He pulls open the refrigerator and pulls out a second bottle. “I made it for you.” He hands it to me. “It’s spinach, mango, pineapple, celery and kale. All good stuff. You should try it.”
I wrinkle my nose when I open it and take a whiff.
“You should take more of the things that are good for you, Nina.”
I look at him, unsure, then take a sip. It’s actually not as bad as I thought it would be.
“It takes some time, getting used to it.” He sits himself down next to me.
I take another sip. “It’s not so bad. More like an acquired taste.”
He smiles. The air is tense for a moment. I feel more awkward than ever.
“Harper says you feel responsible, that you think I lost the fight because of what you said about Grampton House and Sw—”
“Don’t say his name. Please, don’t say his name.” I look away, but my insides are churning.
So quickly? I didn’t expect him to move to the topic straightaway. Elias puts his hand around my shoulder, reassuring. “I didn’t know he did that to you.” His voice falters. It can’t be easy for him either. Neither of us are looking at each other. I stare at the table, my head lowered because this is hard to hear. I can’t talk. “I haven’t been able to get it out of my head, Nina. I know now why you reacted the way you did when you found out about me.”
There is more awkward silence and I can’t bring myself to say anything because the pain of revisiting the past is sharp and heavy.
Elias squeezes my shoulder gently, and the weight of his around me is a comfort I so badly need. “I don’t want you to blame yourself for me losing. I should have been able to put that behind me. I should have been able to focus on the fight. Me losing is on me.”
“But it’s not,” I protest, remembering how I couldn’t function when I found out.
“The reason I can talk about what happened, the reason why I can say his name, is because I’ve been able to talk to people. I’ve got Harper, and I started seeing a therapist. I wonder if the thing that gave me my fighting edge was the anger bottled up inside me. I wonder if now that I can talk about my past, I have no rage. I’ve gone soft.”
“You haven’t gone all soft,” I say. “You still have the anger to fuel you when it counts. Lou said you trained like a mad man.”
“You spoke to Lou?”
“I was worried about you. You and I haven’t spoken since that day. No one let me into the locker room on the night. And then I saw you fight, and then lose and I didn’t know what to do, or how to reach you or tell you that I felt so bad.”
“It’s not your place to feel bad about a fight I lost, no matter what you say, or how you try to make it your responsibility and your fault for everything that goes wrong for me.”
“If you hadn’t heard. If I hadn’t told Harper, you wouldn’t have lost.” I feel the energy leak out of me. What we’re talking about drains me. Living in the past is an energy suck. Living in my past is deadly.
“You convinced yourself that it was only you who was to blame?” He hugs me to him. “You’ve always been more than a bigger sister to me. More than the mom we never had. You’ve looked out for me and protected me and you’ve always been there for me, Nina.”
“We’ve always been there for each other,” I correct.
“You’ve always done the right thing for me, but never the right thing for you,” he whispers. “We can’t let the past have any more power. I lost maybe because I got complacent, or I lost my edge, or talking to my therapist made me all soft. Maybe I lost because I walked in on a conversation I shouldn’t have eavesdropped on. We’ll never know. But I lost, and you had nothing to do with it. Got that?” He hugs me tighter. “Got that?” he says again, when I don’t reply.
I don’t reply because I don’t agree.
“You overthink things, Nina. You live in the past. You don’t talk. You wouldn’t have ever told me, if I hadn’t overhead, would you have?”
“Would you have?” I ask him. He didn’t tell me either.
He takes a sip from his bottle. “So maybe it’s not such a bad thing that I overheard. I needed to know. We both did. Because my story came out, I could deal with it, and part of that dealing with it is the thing that helps you to heal. We’re broken people otherwise, Nina. Broken. I don’t want to be broken anymore. Being complete is a whole lot better.”
I frown, still not getting how the whole world knowing his business is a good thing.
“You don’t get it, do you?” he says, his voice barely audible. “To heal and to move on, I want that for you more badly than I want it for myself.” I look up at him again, more confused than enlightened. “You spend your life fixing things. Worrying about things, blaming yourself about things that you are blameless in. I don’t want you to spend your life thinki
ng and worrying about anyone else anymore. I want all the good things for you. I want you to be happy. Nina?” He studies my face. “Say something.”
He wants me to take his advice and say I will be fine. He wants to hear it as badly as I want to fix things. “You want to talk about the future and I want to tell you I’m sorry about the past.”
“The past is not your fault. Nothing is your fault. You were a girl. An eight year old girl.” He loses it then, and the mask slips. He looks away.
It hurts. Knowing the truth of it hurts.
“What happened to us back then, doesn’t define who we are today,” he says, nodding his head as if he’s talking himself off the ledge of pain. “We can’t let Sw—” He stops, “We can’t let that man have the power, because if we can’t move on from this, he wins. It means that even in death, he still has a hold on us, and I don’t want him to have a hold, do you, Nina?”
I shake my head. “I don’t want any part of him. No memories, no nightmares, no nothing.”
“And the best way to do that is to find the thing that makes you happy and run with it. And never let it go.”
I lift my head.
“You have that thing, don’t you?” he asks.
I roll my lips together, thinking.
“Maybe you need to take another look,” he suggests.
I wonder what Harper has been telling him.
“I’m taking a couple of weeks off, me and Harper and Lou and his wife are heading back to Dwayne’s place. Dwayne thinks it will be a good idea for me to go out there and clear my head. Why don’t you and Callum come along?”
“Callum?” I don’t want to get into an explanation about Callum. “I don’t know. I’ll see.”
“You’ll see?”
“Yeah.”
“We good?” he asks, sounding like a seven year old Elias, wanting to make up with me.
“We’re good.”
We hug and hold onto each other for a long time.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
