“God, Britt, you want to know why I got so drunk at Astrid’s party? I was trying to get up the nerve to talk to you. I was surrounded by Michael and the rest of the guys I always hang around with, but then I saw you and I knew I wanted to spend that night with you. I want to be with you, each and every night.”
I glanced forward. “Light’s green.”
“Thanks.” Sam slammed the car into gear, and we jerked away from the intersection. He didn’t speak again until the next red light.
“I meant everything I said to you yesterday,” Sam said. “About wanting a life with you. I can’t get you out of my mind, Britannica Lynn.”
“Don’t call me that,” I said, sinking down in my seat. I hadn’t activated the heat, and the leather was cold. “It’s not my name.”
“Fine, I won’t call you that. Instead I’ll call you baby, darlin’, woman I’ll love until the day I die.”
I slid down a bit further. “Don’t call me any of those, either.”
Sam pulled into an empty parking spot that was nowhere near my building. “What are you doing?” I demanded.
“We’re going to sit here until you talk to me,” he replied.
“I’ve said everything that I need to say.”
Sam dragged a fingertip across the back of my hand, and said, “Help me, Britt. I need to know how to make this right.”
I caved and flipped on the heat; if I was being forced to do this, at least I could be warm. “It’s not just that you lied to me,” I began. “You lied to everyone in your life. Your parents, your friends…everyone. How can I ever know if you’re being honest with me?”
“I didn’t mean to lie,” Sam said. “Once I got older and understood how wrong it was, I didn’t know how to end it. Since I couldn’t be with women anyway, I figured it didn’t matter.”
“It matters.”
“I know that now. I’m sorry.”
“I know you are.” I looked at him then, his mournful face nearly breaking my heart. “But I don’t know if I’m in love with the real you or the fake you. I can’t be with a man that doesn’t exist.”
“Only you know the real me,” Sam said, putting his hand on the back of my neck and drawing me close. “When my gran gave me that bracelet, she said—”
“It’s on your dresser.”
Sam blinked. “Pardon?”
“The bracelet. I left it on your dresser.” When his brows peaked, I added, “Obviously, you’re supposed to bestow it to your one true love, or something like that. Well, you shouldn’t waste it on me. Give it to someone who’s sure she—or he—is in love with the real you.”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to take them back. Sam’s face fell, then his blue eyes went hard. He checked the road, then he put the car into gear and pulled away from the curb. We didn’t speak for the rest of the journey.
When we got to my building I leapt out of the Beemer, but Sam was there in an instant retrieving my bag from the back seat. When he handed it to me, he grabbed my hand.
“Britt, I will fix this,” he said.
“I really don’t see how you can,” I said.
I entered my building without another word. Once I was inside my apartment I looked out the front window, and saw Sam standing there on the sidewalk, staring up at me. Then I threw myself on my bed and cried.
Chapter Nineteen
Sam
My Sunday morning was rather craptastic. After dropping off Britt at her building, I returned to my apartment and sat on my couch in a near catatonic state, wondering how I’d handled myself so badly. I mean, who gets punished when they decide to improve themselves and tell the truth, leaving all their lies behind? Me, that’s who.
Of course, Britt had a point; being that I’d lied to everyone for over half my life, how could she know whether or not I spoke the truth? Well, I’d just have to prove it to her, wouldn’t I?
Not that I had the slightest idea how to do that.
A little after ten a.m. on Monday morning the icon jumped in the bottom right corner of my laptop’s screen; someone wanted to video chat with me. My heart leapt, hoping it was Britt. I opened the window, and saw my mother staring back at me.
“Hey, Momma,” I greeted, trying to hide the disappointment in my voice. “What’s the good word?”
“You okay, Sammy?” Momma asked. “You look tired.”
“Been working a lot.” I didn’t add that I’d been up since Britt walked out, intermittently crying and raging. Momma didn’t need to know that.
“You’ve got to take care of yourself, Sammy.”
“I know, Momma.” I picked up my camera, and scrolled through the pictures I’d taken of Britt for the millionth time. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
I scrolled to my favorite shot of Britt, the one of her topless straddling the kitchen chair, her hair tossed to the side. “If someone you loved lied to you, how could they fix it?”
“I guess that would depend on the lie,” Momma replied.
“It was a whopper.” I scrolled ahead to one of the last pictures, the one of Britt naked in my bed. “A real whopper.”
“Hm.” Momma sat back in her chair, considering. “In that case, I suppose it would depend on why they lied in the first place.” I nodded, and went back through the images of Britt, all I had left of my angel. “So, who’d you lie to?”
“Everyone,” I whispered. “Everyone, except one person, and she doesn’t believe that I told her the truth.”
“Her, huh?” Momma said. Trust my mother to catch all the pronouns.
“Yeah, her.” I scrolled to an image of Britt where she was fully clothed, the one I snapped right before we left for her cousin’s wedding. Man, Jorge knew how to make a dress. “This would be the her in question,” I said, holding my camera’s display up to the laptop’s video camera.
“She’s beautiful,” Momma said. “So, what was the lie?”
I shook my head. “If it’s all right with you, I need to fix things with her before I can fix them with anyone else.”
“All right, then.”
I stared at the image of Britt, then it dawned on me that Momma had called me. “Listen to me with my sob story,” I said as I set the camera aside. “What’s happening in Iowa these days?” I grabbed my coffee mug, filled to the brim with crappy coffee to match my crappy life.
“Well, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Momma began. “Your Aunt Sophia died yesterday.”
The mug crashed to the floor. “What?”
Chapter Twenty
Britt
After Sam dropped me off on Sunday morning, I stayed in bed for the rest of the day, alternating between crying, fuming, and beating my pillow and wishing it was Sam’s heart. What’s that they say about being careful what you wish for? I had wished and wished and wished for Sam to not be gay, and presto, he wasn’t. My perfect gay man was gone, and a liar had been left in his place.
It was late afternoon on Sunday before I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower. The tears started up again when I saw my cheap conditioner, so I threw the bottle against the tiled wall. “You’re a bastard, Sam MacKellar,” I sobbed as the pink liquid dripped down the wall and into the drain. “Nothing but a fucking bastard.”
After I finished showering, I put on my ratty old robe and raided my cabinets and refrigerator for alcohol. All I could find was a half empty bottle of Chardonnay I’d used for a sauce a few weeks back; being that I don’t care for white wine it had been minding its own business in the fridge door rack, but broken hearts have the tendency to make all alcohol look delicious. While Chardonnay wasn’t my favorite poison, it sure did the trick. The fact that I hadn’t eaten since the wedding helped the booze go straight to my head, and I was passed out before nine.
So my heart has splintered into a thousand pieces and I’m embarking on a new career as an alcoholic. Awesome.
Monday morning dawned bright and sunny and gorgeous, and I hate
d everything about it. I was hung over, starving to the point I was digesting my own stomach, and my heart hurt so much I thought it might kill me.
I found a box of crackers and shoved them into my face while I thought back over my few past relationships. I realized that I’d never been heartbroken before. Oh, sure, guys had broken up with me, and I’d dated my fair share of losers, but no break up had ever hurt this much. Even when my one long-term boyfriend and I had parted ways, I hadn’t felt this gutted.
God, Sam MacKellar, I don’t know if I can live without you—but I’m equally certain that I can’t live with a liar.
Around noon I stumbled across my phone, dead battery and all. I plugged in the charger, then I powered up my laptop and checked my email. Nothing yet from Marlys about all those jobs I’d supposedly been offered, but it was only Monday morning. I guess even agents needed weekends off. There was an email from my mother, with a subject line that read “Patrick has really lost it this time.” I pretended not to see that one. I had plenty of my own drama going on, and no time to worry about his nonsense.
My phone buzzed, then buzzed again. I shut my laptop and went to investigate, and saw more pending text messages than I’d ever gotten in one sitting. There were three from Ben, which meant that I’d forgotten to block his number. I deleted those without opening them, then I saw two from Astrid, five from my mother, one from Melody, and a whopping seven from Sam—and that wasn’t counting the voice mails.
Against my better judgment, I opened the text messages from Sam first. The first three, all sent the night before, read thusly:
Sam: I love you, baby. Talk to me.
Sam: I can’t stand the thought of you sad. I’m going to fix this, baby.
Sam: Britt, baby, I need you. Please, talk to me.
Seems like I hadn’t been the only one drinking on a Sunday night.
The next four were all from Monday morning, and all of them had been sent within the last hour.
Sam: I need to talk to you.
Sam: Something has happened.
Sam: Come on, baby, write back.
Sam: If you don’t reply I’m coming over.
“No, you’re not,” I muttered. I pushed the shattered bits of my heart aside and called Astrid.
“Hey,” she greeted. “How was the cousin’s wedding?”
“Horrible,” was all I got out before the waterworks came back on. Somehow, I choked out that Sam and I had gone together as planned, that I was head over heels in love with him, and that I never wanted to see the rat bastard again.
“Hold up,” Astrid said. “You mean to tell me you fell in love with a gay man?”
“He’s not gay,” I snuffled.
Astrid was silent for a moment. “Exactly how do you know that?”
“Trust me, I’m pretty positive.”
“I’m coming over,” Astrid declared. “Want me to pick anything up?”
“Lobotomy in a box?” I suggested.
“Ha. Be there in an hour.”
I spent that hour making my apartment presentable, if not my person. I splashed some cool water on my eyes, but it did little to help the puffiness. Eventually I made some tea, then I stuck the waterlogged bags on my eyes. At least the warmth was nice.
I fell asleep on the couch with the tea bags plastered to my eyes; thus, they were as cold as my cold dead heart when I woke to a knock at my door. I tossed the bags in the trash, looked through the peephole and did a double take.
“Melody,” I said as I opened my door. My newly married cousin was standing in the hallway, surrounded by stacks of matching hot pink luggage. “Shouldn’t you be on a honeymoon or something?”
“I’m not having one,” she said, jumping up and down and clapping her hands. “I did just like we planned!”
“Uh, what plan was that?”
“I didn’t sleep with Darryl! He’s furious, and he wants an annulment!”
I stared at my cousin, wondering if all the Sullivans and Moores shared a brain, and if my stepfather had been hogging it for the past few years. “You what?”
“Remember? My part of the plan was for me to not fuck Darryl, get an annulment, and live out my dreams just like you do.” Melody tilted her head to the side, and asked, “You did keep up your end of the plan, right?”
“What end would that be?” Astrid asked as she strode into my apartment; in my shock over seeing Melody I’d forgotten to shut the door.
“Britt was supposed to fuck Sam,” Melody said.
Astrid froze in place. “Sam MacKellar? You fucked Sam MacKellar?”
Melody’s eyes narrowed. “You did fuck him, didn’t you?”
“Will everyone please stop saying fuck,” I shrieked as I slammed the door. “Astrid, meet my cousin, Melody. Melody, meet my friend, Astrid. I’m going to go sit in the corner and die.”
I flopped onto the couch and hugged one of the throw pillows to my chest. Astrid sat down beside me. “I brought wine,” she said. “Merlot, your favorite.”
“Won’t help.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“That won’t help either.”
“Maybe not, but I’m dying to know what happened,” Astrid said.
Since I’m not one to disappoint my best friend or sort of best cousin, I talked. I gave Astrid and Melody the annotated version of my relationship with Sam, leaving out his nightmares and whatever had happened with his aunt; just because I was furious with him didn’t give me the right to spill his darkest secrets. After all, I was not the jerk in this scenario. When I was finished, they both stared at me, slack-jawed.
“So all this time he’s just been pretending to be gay?” Astrid asked. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“He claims that something happened to him when he was younger,” I said. When they both looked at me expectantly, I added, “It’s not the sort of thing I should out him on.”
“Yeah, I suppose being outed as a heterosexual is more than enough,” Astrid muttered.
My phone rang, the name on the screen making my heart beat a mile a minute, happy and terrified all at once. “It’s Sam.”
“How many times has he called?” Melody asked.
“A few.”
“And how many times have you called him?” Melody pressed.
“None,” I admitted. “Not once, but maybe I should—”
“Let me,” Astrid said, taking the phone from me. “Sammy baby, it’s Astrid,” she greeted. “Britt’s right here. She’s…yeah, she’s pretty upset. Hang on, I’ll ask.” Astrid put down the phone and asked, “Would you like to talk to Sam?”
“No.”
Astrid put the phone back to her ear. “I’m sorry, Sam, Britt doesn’t want to talk right now. Um, okay, I’ll tell her.” Astrid ended the call and set my phone on the coffee table.
“What are you supposed to tell me?” I asked.
“He wanted me to tell you this: I love you, Britannica Lynn.”
I shoved my face into the throw pillow, while Melody asked, “Britannica Lynn? Why is he calling you an encyclopedia? Oh, is that his way of saying you’re smart?”
“My name is Britannica,” I said. “Britt is a nickname.”
“You’re named after an encyclopedia?” Melody asked. “No offense, but that’s a little weird, even for you.”
“I thought you two were related,” Astrid said.
“We’re step-cousins,” I explained. Desperate to change the subject, I asked, “So, Mel, what happened with you and Darryl?”
“Oh, well,” Melody began, “I never really wanted to marry Darryl.” She turned toward Astrid. “I have this uncle—he’s Britt’s stepfather, that’s how she and I are related—and he arranges things for the family. When he arranged a marriage for me, I just figured it was time.”
“Wait,” Astrid said, holding up a hand. “In twenty-first century America, this man is arranging marriages?”
“That’s Patrick,” I said. “Why do you think I stay here in the city, far away fro
m him?”
“It wasn’t a bad arrangement,” Melody said. “The pre-nuptial agreement provided very well for me. I’d never want for anything for the rest of my life, so long as I followed the stipulations in the agreement.”
“But,” Astrid prompted.
“But she’d have to be married to Darryl,” I supplied. “How did you describe him, Mel? Cold and clammy like a fish?”
Melody shuddered. “The thought of having sex with him was revolting. However, I’d just accepted that it would be my life, at least until Darryl and I divorced in a few years. Then I saw Britt and her date, Sam. At first, I couldn’t believe Britt brought that man from those horrible internet pictures to my wedding.”
“Hey, those pictures are hot,” Astrid said.
“Sure are,” I chimed in.
“Then I saw how Sam looked at Britt,” Melody continued, “and I realized that Darryl had never once looked at me like that.”
“How was Sam looking at Britt?” Astrid asked.
“Oh, like this.” Melody retrieved her tablet from her bag, and called up a folder. “The photographers have already sent me all of the wedding pictures. They took numerous shots of those two lovebirds. Really, you’d think it was Britt and Sam’s wedding.”
Astrid moved to sit on the arm of the couch, looking at the tablet’s screen over Melody’s shoulder. “Britt, that dress is stunning,” Astrid murmured.
“Thanks,” I mumbled. “It’s the one Jorge made.” Since I’d left it at Sam’s, I figured I’d never see it again.
“Here’s a good one,” Melody announced. Astrid took the tablet from Melody, and whistled.
“Damn, girl,” Astrid said. “Could he be any more in love with you?”
I frowned and grabbed the tablet from Astrid. The image was of Sam and I on the dance floor; he had one of his hands on the small of my back, while his other hand held mine over his heart. My face wasn’t visible, being that the photographer had been behind and to the left of me, but Sam was looking down at me as if I was the center of his world. “I remember this exact moment,” I said, a hot tear slipping down my cheek.
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