by C.M. Kars
“Maddie, come on, we talked about this. Stop blurting out everything that goes on in your head.”
Maddie grins, a flash of white teeth, and puts a hand under her face, as if presenting an award. “Yeah, but this is who I am as a person, and I’ve been a riot during practice. All of my teammates love me to pieces.”
Raleigh laughs, but sobers when she leans closer to her laptop, getting closer to the camera. “Hey, Aria? What’s wrong? Aria?! Shit, shit, she’s crying. Jesus, Maddie, what the hell did you say to her before I got here?!”
Maddie makes a wheezing noise, like she got the ball in the gut while she’s on her period and has world-ending period cramps, and leans closer to the camera, too, while I struggle to catch a hold of the tissue box and swipe at them until I’ve got a handful to mop up my soaking wet face and leaking nose. Jesus Christ, I didn’t want this to happen, but I miss them so freaking much, and it’s hard being back here, working in corporate Toronto when I miss everything about Montreal and living with these girls. I miss Maddie hating the mornings while Raleigh zoomed through them, crashing early in the night. I miss learning how to juggle a soccer ball from Maddie and learning all the bad words in Korean from Raleigh that I don’t have a hope in remembering right now.
I missed them so much, it’s like they left behind Maddie- and Raleigh-shaped holes in my heart, and there’s nothing that I can do to fill them back up, to make something fit in their places. Maybe that’s just the way it goes.
“I’m okay,” I gurgle, laughing wetly, and gulp down audibly. I swipe at my face, trying to get rid of the tears but more just keep on coming and coming. “I missed you guys.”
Maddie leans close to the camera and points at it sternly, lip curling. “Those are not ‘I missed you’ tears. Tell us what’s wrong, and we can help fix it.” Maddie’s eyes skitter to the side. “I don’t really know how we’re gonna help being on three different continents and all, but there’s gotta be something.”
I wave them off and pull in a couple of deep breaths. “I…I met someone, and I’d like some advice.”
Raleigh nods at me, all serious and ready to get down to business while Maddie screeches at the top of her lungs, throwing pillows around on her couch. “Are you kidding me?!” Maddie shouts, getting up close to the camera so all I can see are her eyeballs. “Are you fucking kidding me?! ARIA! Why didn’t you lead with that? Who do I have to kill to make you stop crying, tell me, tell me!”
“Holy shit, I forgot how loud you were, shut it, Maddie and let her talk,” Raleigh rubs at her temples, wincing from all the noise. “It’s super early here, keep your voice down, would you?”
“Why? Should I speak louder so you can hear me across two oceans by way of Toronto? Hmmm?” Maddie snickers, but backs off the camera so she’s sitting down on her couch, like a normal person, elbows planted on her thighs, huddled down close to look at the both of us. “Okay, spill it. What happened?”
I tell them everything, as much as I can tell in a way that doesn’t necessarily implicate Ayden as the person I was seeing/dating—whatever—but there’s a strong insinuation once Maddie figures out what my favourite show is, the one I started watching last year, our schedules never really meeting up to spend our Wednesday nights together.
“Hold on, hold on,” Maddie says, doing something on her phone, thumbs flying across the screen, biting at her bottom lip. “Oh, oh, he’s super hot,” Maddie says, nodding, giving me two thumbs up after she drops her phone in her lap. “Good job, Aria, wow.”
Raleigh coughs, clears her throat. “Nope, that’s a hot guy. Are his eyes actually that colour or are they contacts?”
“No,” I croak. “They’re real.”
Maddie pretends to faint damsel-in-distress style, back of her hand on her forehead, tipping to the back and side of her couch pseudo-gracefully ’cause this is Maddie we’re talking about; the only time I’ve seen her being elegant and graceful is when she has a soccer ball between her feet, aiming for the opposing net, there’s just no in between. She straightens up, like she never went through all of the theatrics in the first place. “So? What gives?”
I run it through, the whole stalker online bullshit, the whole toxic part of the fandom that feels entitled to say what they want to say about whomever Ayden chooses to spend his time with outside of the studio, outside of filming.
“I can send some mean comments on those fan sites if you want me to,” Maddie suggests, raising her hand, volunteering for the job when I haven’t said anything.
“No, no, I don’t want that, honestly.” I sigh, blowing my nose into a tissue. “I just don’t know what to do now.”
“Simple,” Maddie says.
Raleigh rolls her eyes. “Oh, here we go.”
“I heard you, but I’m choosing to ignore you, Raleigh. Just like, flip a coin. Heads for yes, tails for no. Come on, do it right now, and we’ll be here for it!” Maddie claps her hands together, but I think she’s applauding herself rather than being excited for what’s to come.
“That’s actually…that’s not a bad idea. Huh. Madelyn Chase, who knew you’d be giving Aria advice on relationships?”
“I know, right?!” Maddie laughs, clapping excitedly, looking like a seal. “I can think of other things beside football. Like, maybe only sometimes. Okay, like five percent of the time.”
Raleigh grins. “Look at our Madelyn,” she says, pretending to squish Maddie’s cheeks halfway across the world. “Our little baby’s all grown up.”
“Oh my God, stop it, there’s more to life outside of getting dicked down, you know?”
Raleigh groans, clutching her forehead. “Yeah, we know. But it’s fun nevertheless if you have a trusting partner who listens to you and you listen to them.”
“Yeah, Mom, I get you.”
I gasp, pointing at Maddie’s image on my laptop screen. “You’re blushing right now?! Why are you blushing right now?! Maddie? Maddie?”
Maddie freezes, she’s so still in fact that I wonder if her connection froze and we’re getting nothing but a still image, but then of course she goes and blinks and it’s just her trying to pull a fast one on Raleigh and me. “I have zero comment, and I think we should get back to Aria’s little problem.”
“He’s not little,” I huff, and Maddie groans in embarrassment and Raleigh laughs and asks for details. “Just tell me what to do!”
Raleigh nods her head. “Flip a coin. Do it right now, in front of us.”
I slump. “Do I have to? It sounds so dumb.”
“It’s not actually, so just do it, but really think about the question you’re gonna ask,” Raleigh says, leaning in close, while Maddie yells out that she needs a bathroom break and makes a bolt for it, leaving behind just an empty couch for both Raleigh and me to look at.
I grumble but get up and go to where I’ve hung up my purse, getting a quarter out of my wallet and looking down at it—Queen Elizabeth II on one side and an image of a caribou on the other side for tails. I sit back down at my couch, looking into the camera, waiting for Maddie to get back.
“I know this is hard,” Raleigh says. “I’m kinda going through the same thing myself.”
“Oh?”
Raleigh nods, throat bobbing. “Yeah. He’s, uh, well, he’s the kid I knew back in high school, the one I was practically inseparable from back then. He was my best friend, like, just completely got me, you know? And I know we were young, I know, but it doesn’t feel any different now that so much time has passed.” Raleigh looks to the side, twirls her hair around the tips of her fingers, playing with the ends. “It feels right, and it’s scary, to have this kind of conviction when there’s no real basis for it, you know? I just…I know I really, really like him, even if I don’t know if I can be with him.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s complicated, and this call was meant to be about you.”
I roll my eyes. “We can talk about a multitude of things, but right now we’re talking about guy pr
oblems ’cause they’re a pain in the ass and it’s okay to want an outsider’s point of view. So tell me, tell me what’s going on.”
“I’m just getting some snacks!” Maddie yells all the way from London, still not sitting on the couch, but probably puttering away in her kitchen.
“You know how she is, we’ve got twenty minutes before she comes back, so tell me, tell me what you need to,” I prompt, nodding along like it’s going to convince Raleigh to talk to me more easily.
“If I have the choice between him and his lifestyle, his job really, I’d like to think I’d choose him, but I don’t know, I haven’t been put in your situation and I understand why you need to think about it. It’s a lot to ask of someone, to be in the spotlight when they don’t want to be,” Raleigh says on a sigh.
“Sounds to me like you’ve kind of made your decision, too.”
Raleigh shrugs, and Maddie comes back in frame, bouncing on her couch, a bag of carrots in one hand, still wet by the way she’s shaking it, and a bowl of what looks to be hummus being scooped up and stuffed in her mouth. “What did I miss?”
“Nothing, I’m gonna toss the coin now.”
Raleigh leans in closer, and Maddie shakes a carrot at me, like a cheerleader with a baton.
I think about the question I want to ask, about my comfort zone, about my high (unattainable) expectations and how they’ve led me here, to this very moment, the one where I’ve felt miserable and lonely for the past two weeks, hardly eating or sleeping, having Ayden Stone on the brain when he shouldn’t be.
I think about all the fictional characters I have ever fallen in love with because they’re safe, they don’t exist, and none of this ache in my chest would exist either if I kept my fangirl crush on Chrisander Gage instead of on Ayden.
I think about all the dates we’ve been on, the respect and trust he’s shown in me time and time again, in the way he waits for permission, in the way he lets me talk about the show I love, the characters I love, even if it’s not his favourite thing in the world; I think about the way he looks at me when I talk to him about it, and he’s not turned off by how invested I am in people that don’t exist, that only exist in my imagination.
I think about his gentleness around me, so unusual from all my ex-boyfriends who now feel more entitled in their brashness, in their demand for attention. Ayden’s different, I know this, I know he’s different even than the character he portrays. I think about all of him and all of me, and how we can make that work in this lifestyle he’s chosen for himself, in what capacity I can be by his side, be his girlfriend in a fandom that feels entitled to know every little single thing about him.
I think about shielding him from some of that chaos and uncertainty, from some of those harsh comments, and knowing, knowing that he’ll do the same for me, on those days when I’m weak and have to look up what people might be saying about me, about him, about us.
I flip the coin in the air—heads for going back to Ayden, tails for telling Ayden that I can’t do this, I can’t be the person he needs.
I hold my breath as the coin spins in the air, end over end over end, and then I finally catch it, flipping it down to the top of my hand, covering its surface, letting out my breath in a heavy gust of air.
Maddie and Raleigh look at me, blinking slowly, waiting, patient as always.
I keep my hand on the coin, and Maddie, the most impatient out of all of us, looks like she wants to come through the screen and shake me, make the coin drop and take a look for herself.
But my friends are an ocean away on either side of me and I have to do this for myself.
I have to do this for me, and for Ayden, too.
“I think…I think I have some explaining to do,” I say to both Maddie and Raleigh’s grinning faces.
ELEVEN
The people on set sort of know me by now that I’ve been here so often over the past few months, braving the Canadian ‘spring’ and walking the few blocks over from my bus stop to the studio, getting passed right through when I show my phone with the digital visitor’s pass I’ve had since Ayden and I started seeing each other back in the fall. It could be just my imagination but there’s definitely some stony look, and cold left and right shoulders as I walk through, nodding my head in hello to some of the PAs, making sure I’m out of everybody’s way, and finally exiting to where Ayden’s trailer still sits, the one he’s going to have to abandon for a real-life apartment now that Leviathan has been picked up for another season and production in Toronto is going to keep on happening.
It’d be super cool actually, if he finds an apartment in my own building, and then we could be neighbours. Now that would be a story.
I stand in front of Ayden’s trailer, his name clearly printed in block lettering that’s a font I should know but don’t, and all I have to do really is raise my hand and knock, just knock, a rap of my knuckles against the door, a one-two-three combo like I’ve done so many times before.
I clasp my hands together, steeling myself for what I want to say, even though I agonized over word choice and what to really say behind it all that has me all tangled up inside. I could say the wrong thing, I could say something mean, or trivialize my feelings or his feelings and make a whole big-ass mess of the whole thing.
But what I really want to say is this, the bottom line—Ayden, you’re not your job, and the only person I want to be dating is you.
So why is it so hard to raise my hand, to knock against the door, like I’m being dragged by a Hummer and fighting to keep my place.
If I stare down at my boots any longer, I’m going to question my whole existence, so without looking up, I just lean forward and move my knuckles along the not-so-hard surface that feels a lot like a— “Oh, oh, shit!” I blurt, trying to take a step back, sizzling in my winter coat from the walk over here but knowing I’m going to freeze in two seconds, the night sky starting to get inky dark the way it does later on in the day now until we change the clocks again. “How did you even get here, and how did I not hear you?” This is bad, like mega bad, I’m not ready to pour my heart out. Maybe I should go home and re-think about what I want to say, maybe write it down, type it out on my phone, just something.
I shouldn’t be here, I’m not ready, I’m not.
Is anyone ever ready to spill their heart out?
“Uh, hi. Hi, Ayden.” I wave, like an idiot, when he just keeps staring down at me, his cheeks flushed from the cold, a tuque pulled over his head, bearing the Toronto Maple Leafs logo, blue and white, and a blue pop-pom on top, moving around in the wind. “Hi,” I say again, in case he didn’t notice that I was here.
Jesus, this isn’t going how I planned out at all.
Then that’s the problem, isn’t it? Always expecting things to go one way and they end up going another?
“Aria,” he says my name on an exhale, like he’s been holding it in all this time. “Would you like to come in for some hot cocoa?”
Wow, hot cocoa and Ayden? Yes, please!
“Do you have marshmallows?” I ask, not knowing why I ask, as if I’m forestalling the inevitable.
“Yeah, I’ve got some of the ones you like. Come on in, get out from this wind, right?”
I follow him into his trailer, feeling the space enclose around us when the door shuts behind me, the smell in here like fresh linens and day-old coffee and the sandalwood scent of Ayden’s body wash coming from the bathroom. He takes off his coat before looking to me, and I take mine off, too, just to be polite, not wanting to look like I’m ready to bolt for it at any given second. That would be rude, especially when I came here to say something.
“Let me get the cocoa on,” he says, turning to his kitchenette, pulling out a saucepan, and some milk from his mini-fridge, and getting to work at putting it all together, the bag of marshmallows placed in front of me, ready to get ripped into and eaten. It’s like he knows me.
I squirm while I wait, shifting from side to side, running over my speech in my head, knowing wha
t I want to say, but not really knowing how it’s going to come out. I’m terrible at winging everything, unless there’s been a week’s worth of preparation, but while I know that winging it has its time and place, I feel like I should go back home and regroup, talk to Maddie and Raleigh again, just for good measure.
Finally, Ayden sits across from me, handing me my own steaming mug of hot chocolate, and I carefully blow on it, intent on that first, scalding sip, but push myself back into the seat, waiting for Ayden to get comfortable.
And now that he’s comfortable…now what?
“How are you?” I ask, as if it’s the real question I want to ask and not just filler, but I am interested. There’s a hollowness to his cheeks that wasn’t there before, and the circles under his eyes have gotten more prominent as the days go longer now for the final sprint until the end of production. Or maybe it’s because he’s been as miserable as I’ve been, too? I point out the circles under his eyes, then point to my own cheekbones, too.
“I haven’t been sleeping well,” he says, voice rough, his knuckles flashing white, cupping his mug.
I hand over a peace offering of marshmallows after putting five in mine and watch him select three to put in his own mug, watch him accept it, and something in my chest loosens, makes it easier to breathe. “I’m sorry to hear that. I haven’t been sleeping so good, either. And I think…” I pull in a deep, deep breath, making sure I’m looking at him, looking at this man who has turned my fangirl life upside down and around and somehow wants to be part of it, wants me to be part of his. Ayden always seemed more sure of me than I was of him. “I think you’ve been incredibly patient with me, for all this time.”
Ayden just blinks, mouth parting in surprise.
I nod to myself, a little mental pep talk to keep going. “You’ve been waiting for me to see you, instead of your character; you’ve been waiting for me to get used to the job you have by showing me how it works, how you kissing other people works; you’ve been waiting for me to be more open with you besides my love for the show, my love for the work you do on the show.” I sniff a little. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry for making you wait so long, I was…I was scared. It didn’t help that those fan sites are truly awful, and the people on them are awful, but there’s nothing I can do about that, and there’s nothing you can do about that, either, and I think I was blaming you for them, when it’s just as much out of your control as it is out of mine.”
