Falling Into You (40 page)

“Chris,” she says, shaking my arm. The t
aste of her in my mouth is sour
. I had been trying to stop it when
Hallie
saw us, naked and pooled together on the bed.

“
This isn’t going to work,
”
I said.
“
I just don’t want you
.
”

S
he had continued her assault on my body
like I hadn’t said a word. Just as I was ex
tracting myself
from her vise-like grip
,
Hallie
walked in the door
.

“Chris,” she says, more urgently. “I need to talk to you.”

“No.
You don’t. In fact, you never need to speak with me again.”

“No, I really do.”

I’m falling apart, I think. And before I even realize what’s happening,
Sophia
’s grabbing my arm and we’
re in the elevator to the roof. W
e’re sta
nding and the sky is all lit up and it would be beautiful, but
the only thing I can think is
to ask myself what
Hallie
might have said when she saw this
.

She seems to be waiting for me to say something, so I say the only thing in my head.

“I love her. And I never even got the chance to tell her.”

She nods, as if this was the expected response. “Yeah. I think I figured that
one
out.”

She puts her head in her hands and looks back up at me. The seductress
Sophia
that I had been with
just minutes
before in that stupid bedroom is gone, a
nd she’s
years younger and her face is sad. For a fleeting moment, I remember that the girl standing in front of me
had been stuck in my head for years and that I had been waiting for what just happened in that bedroom since practically forever. All I feel now is sickness at the sight of her face.

“What?” I ask. “You said you needed to talk to me,
and here I am. With
you,
the reason that the girl that I am completely in love with will never speak to me again.”

“I didn’t realize…” she starts. “I thought…”

“Spit it out,
Sophia
.”

“If I had known…”

I turn to leave but she ca
tches my arm and drags me back.
“This is fucking important, asshole. I didn’t know that you were in love with her, ok? I like
Hallie
, she’s the only real friend that I ever had, and…”

I cut her off by laughing bitterly. “Well, that makes sense, doesn’t it?
If you go ahead and fuck all of your friend’s boyfriends,
I think I
can
see why you don’t have too many of those.”

“Shut up, Chris.
And you’re not even her boyfriend.”

“That’s beside the point.” We were together, I thought in my head. We hadn’t had the talk yet, but I had been willing to do anything—follow her to Atlanta, give up the James Ross movies, fly back and forth—whatever she needed to make it work. That’s what people did when they were in love with each other.
Before I saw her with him.

Sophia’s
saying some
thing and I think I hear her but the words don’t make sense
.

“
Sophia
, what did you say?”

“
I’m trying to tell you that she’s not with
Ben
.”

I shake her and it isn’t gentle. “You told me that she was
with him. You
told me that she was in love with him, damn it
.
”

Her eyes are focused on
the ground, so I grab her face and force her to look into my eyes.

“
You said
that they were
together.”

“I lied.”

“You little fucking manipulative bitch.” It comes out in a growl, and god help me, I’ve never hit a woman but
Sophia
Pearce is about to be the first. “Tell me what happened. Now.”

“I thought was just a little fling
with you and her
, okay? But then s
he kept going on and on
about how you were Mr. Perfect.
I got angry. I
wanted;
I don’t even know what I wanted…”

“
Sophia
,” I warn.

“I thought you were going to use her and throw her away so I thought it would be better for her to see who you really were first.”
She doesn’t even believe her own words. I can see it in her face
, but I focus on her other statement
.

“You don’t even know who I really am! You don’t know me at all!” I’m shouting now
,
but the roof is deserted and there’s no one to hear us.
Sophia
covers her ears like I’m hurting her
.

“
I do know you, Jensen. I remember all of those parties in high school and those girls and the little games we used to play. We’re two of a kind.”

She wasn’t entirely wrong. “People change, Sophia. I changed.”

She tries to defend herself again, but her face doesn’t match her words. “S
he’s my friend and I didn’t want you
to dick her over, you know
…”

“
We both know that’s bullshit.
You don’t give a shit about her. You were thinking about yourself.
You are always thinking about yourself.
About movie premieres. About Hollywood. Don’t make it out like you were trying to protect her, because we both know tha
t’s the biggest load of
…”

“Fine.” S
he cuts back in. “Ok. I was pissed. I was
jealous
. I didn’t know what you saw in her.
She wears argyle sweaters.
She’s from Ohio.
She’s supposed to be my
wingwoman
. You were supposed to be her tour guide.
I
know that you’ve wanted this…” She gestures between us. “For years. Years, Chris. And then I saw you with her and I was jealous. I’m human.
”

“
That’s debatable.” I see in her eyes that the words have hurt her, but I don’t care. I want to punch her in the face. “
Finish your story,
Sophia
.”

“When she came home from being with you
last night
, I could tell that something
had happened
between the two of you
.
She said that
it was nothing
, but then
she asked if Ben could stay with us for a couple of days, and I
assumed that your little fling was ending. I thought everyone could win. Ben would finally realize that Hallie is the girl of his dreams and they would be together forever and make perfect little babies in a perfect little small town, and I would step in to her shoes.
I tho
ught I saw a chance to
...”

“You saw a chance to fuck me. In more ways than one.”

She shrugs helplessly.

“And
so
you started lying.” I wasn’t asking a question.

“I wasn’t lying about her
being in love with
him, you know.
She does. Or did.” She shakes her head and takes a deep breath. “I don’t know. They’re not together. Not yet.”

“She told you that?”

“She told me that,”
Sophia
confirms. “But i
f you ask me, he’s he
ad over heels in love with her.”

Of course he was in love with her. That had never been a question in my mind, particularly not after I had felt the weight of his punch. And shit, I had just sent her
running straight into his arms.

Sophia’s still talking
. “He looks at her the way you do.
You both have the same expression in your faces when you stare at her
, like she’s some unearthly being deserving of worship
She always said that he didn’t even know that she was a girl,
and I don’t know whether it was the thought of you and her that finally changed his mind, or if she really is that blind, but it appears that Hallie Caldwell might know what she’s doing after all
.
” Sophia
is
surprised at her own words.
“No one’s ever looked at me like that.”

I feel sorry for her for just one second before remembering that she’s the reason why I feel like I’ve been broken into a million pieces. Sophia will be fine. People like Sophia are always fine until the day that they’re not.

“I have to find her.
” I shake
Sophia
again
. “Where would she be?”

“I doubt that she’s coming back to my apartment.”
Sophia
sighs. “If you find her, tell her I’m sorry, okay?”

I don’t say anything, but I do give her a withering look that makes it perfectly clear that I won’t be delivering apologies any time in the future, either near or far.

“For what it’s worth,” she adds, touching my arm again as I twist away. “I am sorry.
I didn’t realize…” She trails off, because, really, there isn’t anything left to say.

I leave the roof and sneak out the side door
of the building to ignore the paparazzi. I flag down a cab
and take
it back to my apartment,
because there really isn’t anywhere else to go. The entire time, I’m
dialing
Hallie
’s number
like a madman
, even though it’s going straight to voicemail.

I will find her, I tell myself.
As I walk in, I notice
an ambulance leaving my building, and I brush past the uniformed people, pushing the elevator button frantically.

I see Diana, making her way to me through t
he lobby, pushing people aside. H
er face is covered in tears and I know in the same instant that
my father is
gone. I feel nothing.
I have nothing left to feel for him, that broken and withered man on the couch who was a shadow of a shadow. The only thing I can muster is a sense of relief that he won’t cause Diana any more pain.
The whole
night, the
anger at
Sophia
and pain at all of the hurt that I caused
Hallie
, is crowding out anything else I could feel and I doubt that there would be anything else anyway
.
He was a bastard and I despised him.

But there’s Diana to think about and I shove the rest of it aside. I will find her, I promise myself.
I pull
my sister
into my arms and my phone clatters to the floor.

“Chris,” she manages.

“I’m sorry, Diana. Just now?”

“About an hour ago,” she says, choking back a sob.

And we’re in a heap on the floor and she’s crying and I’m crying, not for my father but fo
r the mess that I made and will
never be able to fix.

***

I’m wearing a dark suit
at the reception
, and someone is saying something to me and I nod politely. I buried my father today,
but I feel but emptiness and a vague sense of pity for the pathetic, shriveled man in the coffin.

My mother showed up at the cemetery, kissing Diana and I on our cheeks before ducking out to make her matinee. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t even muster a few tears, even for appearance’s sake. She’s probably already thinking about the will and redecorating the apartment.

In his death, my father became a tragic figure. He would have liked that, I think. Producers and actors are coming out of the woodwork to “pay their respects,” and the apartment is crawling with people trying to tell me what a wonderful man my father had been, a creative genius cut down by Hollywood cruelty.

They say how proud he would have been that his son was following in his footsteps and ask, in hushed voices, about the movie. The alarm on my bullshit meter is ringing off the hook.
Marcus makes his way through the group of mourners to come talk to me.
He doesn’t even bother with the formalities. He’s here
to protect his
newest cash cow, and something about it fills me with a sense of relief
.

“Phone’s been ringing off the hook. They keep replaying that interview that you did with the entertainment reporter. To be crass, Chris, your old dad dying was the best thing that could have happened to you. Women go nuts over the wounded heartthrob.”