Undone, Volume 3 (18 page)

“No, no.” Ash was
in the kitchen with him. Ash. I loved hearing his voice.

“Thought you might be
about to quit the band!” At Connor’s words, I froze. This
suddenly seemed like a conversation that I maybe shouldn’t intrude
upon. Maybe he and Ash were talking through something important.

“No,” Ash protested
again, and I could almost see him shaking his head, though I stayed
outside the room, unseen.

“It seemed like you
might be thinking about it,” Connor insisted. He kept his tone
light, but I could tell that he was dead serious. “Seemed like you
were about to head out to the suburbs with that librarian. Bang out
five kids and start working in some sort of a shop.”

That librarian? I
stopped breathing. Connor was talking about me.

“Yeah, right.” Ash
laughed in derision, like the whole idea of starting a life, a family
with me was a preposterous joke. I brought my hand to my mouth,
unable to stop a slight gasp, though it didn’t seem as if they
heard. I felt like I’d been kicked in the teeth.

“What size do you
wear?” Now Connor’s accent sounded more British as he pretended
to be someone working in a shop.

“Seven and a
quarter,” Ash replied, also in a British accent. Laughter flowed
through both of their voices.

“I think we have
that,” Connor replied, the helpful shop assistant. Then they both
broke into hysterics, cracking up like school boys.

“Aw, man,” Ash
said. “
Spinal Tap
.
Always so good.”

“The best.”

Spinal
Tap
? I had no idea what they were talking about. Maybe
they were quoting a movie or something. But I did know what they were
doing. They were making fun of me, and the kind of life Ash would
live if he were to choose to be with me.

“Good to have you
back,” Connor said, full of feeling.

“Good to be back,”
Ash agreed. My heart sank straight down to somewhere below the
floorboards.

Connor continued in a
whisper, but I still heard it. “I think she went to bed at six
o’clock last night.”

Ash chuckled. “No, it
wasn’t that bad.” But his laugh said otherwise. He thought I was
ridiculous, laughably lame.

“Seriously,” Connor
insisted. “The sun had yet to set.”

“C’mon now.” More
laughing.

“Hey, how about the
tits on Kristie?” I knew I should leave. I didn’t want to hear
Connor ask about some woman’s breasts, and I definitely didn’t
want to hear Ash’s response. But somewhere along the way I’d lost
my power to move. I stood, stone still, engulfed with shame and
sadness.

“Was that her name?”
Ash asked. “I thought it was Stacie?”

“Does it matter?”

More laughter. I winced
and wished I could vanish, somehow transport myself right out of that
cabin Harry Potter-style. But when I opened my eyes, I was still just
a Harry-Potter-loving nerdy librarian standing in the hallway
overhearing people make fun of her. Still overhearing things I
shouldn’t.

“So you’re heading
back to S.F.?”

“Yeah, I guess.”
Ash sounded reluctant.

“Leaving at the crack
‘o dawn today? That’s in about an hour.”

Ash groaned, “Shit.”

“Right?”

“That’s not gonna
happen.”

“Ooh, the librarian’s
gonna be pissed.”

“Shut it,” Ash
responded, but he was laughing as he said it.

“You’re gonna be in
trouble!”

More laughter, more
muffled giggling. They were talking about me like I was the school
principal. The buzzkill.

“You’re my boy,
Blue,” Connor declared. I heard some scuffling and I could picture
a sort of chummy wrestle/hug. The kind of thing guys did to express
affection without really engaging in a warm embrace.

“Good to have you
back,” Connor said.

“Yeah, sorry I’ve
been—”

“Such a wanker?”

“That’s not exactly
what I was going to—”

“A pansy? An
asswipe?” Conner had a full supply of insults. Was I the only one
who could hear how angry he was at Ash? I could hear such jealousy
and venom in his joking tone.

“Thanks for that.”
But Ash still sounded like he was laughing.

“OK, how about MIA?”

“Yeah,” Ash agreed.
“Sorry I’ve been MIA. This whole Mandy Monroe bullshit has been
driving me crazy.”

“Mandy set you up.”

“She did. And now
Lola’s been all up my ass.”

“Bitch be crazy.”

“Bitch be crazy,”
Ash agreed, throwing his PR rep right under the bus. “She’s had
me on this tight schedule.”

“With the ball and
chain.”

Ouch. I winced again,
standing alone in the hall. But Ash agreed without missing a beat and
kept right on complaining. About me. “It’s been rough. We’re
here. We’re there. Got to get all the right shots from all the
right angles. It’s sucked.”

Oh shit. I now wished
more than anything that I hadn’t gotten out of bed. Or at least I
wished I’d knocked over a lamp or something in the living room when
I’d walked through it. That would have alerted them to my presence
and they wouldn’t have started having this conversation. I wished I
were anywhere other than standing there hearing Ash describe the last
three weeks with me as rough. While I’d been looking at him with
stardust in my eyes, apparently he’d been counting the minutes
until it was over because it sucked so much.

“It’s almost over
now.” Connor comforted him.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll drink to
that.”

The clink of their
glasses, toasting to the end of me, set me in motion. I regained the
ability to move and tiptoed over to the bedroom again, closing the
door without discovery. I walked back to the bed, climbed back in
under the covers and shut my eyes. Maybe I could pretend the whole
thing hadn’t happened? Like it had just been a bad dream.

But then I opened my
eyes and still I knew, I’d heard it. I’d heard every word. There
couldn’t be any misunderstanding here. He actually had been
standing in the kitchen having a heart-to-heart with his oldest,
closest friend about how he really felt.

So now I knew. Ash was
happy that this farce with me was almost over. And it really was
almost over. The clock was ticking. According to the original
agreement, I was supposed to break up with him after a month. It
would be exactly four weeks on Saturday. Today it was Monday. No,
sorry, Tuesday very early in the morning. So we really just had a
handful of days left. And he felt relieved and grateful that he had
so little time left with the ball and chain.

I felt like I’d
gotten kicked right in the gut, all the wind knocked out of me. It
was almost hard to breathe, but I focused on that, just that, closing
my eyes and telling myself everything was going to be OK. This was
the worst of it, right now. This was the bottom, scraping down so low
you wondered how you’d ever swing back up again.

It hurt so bad. I’d
felt so close with Ash, as if we’d stripped everything away there
in that cabin, just the two of us. It had felt so real, as if I’d
gotten to know the real man behind all the stardom and celebrity.
Hadn’t I just told him that last night? But, come to think of it,
it was me telling him. He hadn’t said the same to me. Or confirmed
he felt the same way.

The past few weeks had
been like a fantasy, and I guessed that was just what they were. That
was all they were ever supposed to be. I’d signed a contract
agreeing to it. I guessed that was why we should have stuck to the
no-sex clause. If we hadn’t gotten in so deep together, I probably
wouldn’t feel like vomiting right now. If I hadn’t given myself
to him so completely, I might not feel like I’d just had my insides
scooped out with a melon-baller.

I’d never fallen for
anyone the way I had for Ash. I’d tumbled head-over-heels in that
mad, raving way you read about. I’d lost my mind and heart. When he
touched me, I felt it though my whole body. And it wasn’t real. As
many times as I’d tried to remind myself of that fact, it had
gotten away from me. I’d tried to keep my guard up, protect myself,
remember he was a player and we lived in separate worlds. But I’d
failed. I’d fallen for him completely, and now I felt myself
falling and falling further and further down with that sickening,
lurching feeling low in my stomach.

He wouldn’t be there
to catch me. Worse still, he might come in here in the bedroom and
act like nothing was wrong. He might climb into bed, pull me into his
arms and try to make love to me. Oh God, I still had to share a whole
car ride back to S.F. with him. How was I going to do that?

At least I hadn’t
told him I loved him. I’d realized it, but I’d kept it locked in
my heart. Where it would stay, and hopefully dissipate over time.
Because even though I’d heard him talking shit about me, I couldn’t
rouse myself into hating him. That would have been easier. It would
have been a lot easier to just flip the switch and feel angry over
having been tricked and betrayed.

But lying there in the
dark, I just felt awful. Tears spilled out of the corners of my eyes,
though I tried to stop them, snuffling under the covers. The last
thing I wanted was to be there in the dark, pathetic and crying,
should Ash walk right through the door. I needed to pull my shit
together. I needed to erect a facade, somehow adopt a poker face, and
play this out for a little while longer.

I didn’t think I’d
make it until Saturday, though. I’d have to end things sooner than
that.

I bet Ash would feel
grateful to me for it, too. And I bet Lola wouldn’t have any
problem with it. I’d already served my purpose. I’d given them
tons of juicy photo ops, from corny romantic rom-com shots to
X-rated, forbidden moments nearly captured on film. Titillating and
suggestive, they’d really gotten their money’s worth from me in
Paris.

The world had already
seen Ash propose to me. He’d done it up on a freaking stage,
televised on a giant screen. How had I gone and let myself believe
any of it?

Well. I was an idiot.
But the idiot had woken up.

It was a good thing I’d
awakened and overheard Ash and Connor. They’d done me a real favor.
Had I not heard them, I almost definitely would have made things much
worse—for Ash and for me. In a long car ride to S.F., I probably
would have started babbling about how I’d never felt that way
before and I really, truly loved him. The silence after dropping that
bomb would have pretty much killed me.

No, it was better this
way. This silence was at least all my own. I didn’t have to add a
whole bunch of humiliation into the mix. A broken heart was enough.

Somehow, I had to make
it back to S.F. Once we were there, I’d find a way to end it
exactly the way our contract demanded. I’d find a horribly public
spot to do it. I was sure Lola would help arrange the necessary
cameras in place to capture the moment. I’d break up with Ash and
fling that outrageously large rock he’d given me right in his
handsome face. He’d pretend to be broken-hearted.

Then I’d fly back to
New York and begin the process of tending to my own truly broken
heart. The thought of it all nearly drove me into sobs, but I told
myself to wait on those. There’d be plenty of time to sob into my
pillow, night after night without Ash to sob to my heart’s content.

Right now, though, I
had to deal. I’d never been a good actress, but I just had to get
through the next day or so and then I’d be able to go back to life
as it had been before I met Ash. I just wished the thought didn’t
rip me to pieces.

Ash

Hungover as hell, I
woke with a groan the next day. Around noon, I had to guess, with the
way the sunlight shone in full and brash, burning my eyelids. Someone
had pulled apart the curtains in the bedroom. Was it Ana?

I reached for her in
the bed but found nothing but tangled sheets. Where was she?

Groaning, I threw my
hand over my eyes. What the fuck? I hadn’t felt this way in a
while. A month, to be exact. I couldn’t remember a time in my life
when I’d gone that long without parting to the max. I also couldn’t
remember why it was exactly that I used to do this stupid shit to
myself all the time. Ugh. I felt like I’d swallowed a mouthful of
ashes from the fireplace.

Padding to the
bathroom, I managed to get myself some water. How had I ended up
getting so shitfaced? Bits and pieces from last night flashed dimly
through my slow-moving brain. Ana with a large plate of pasta. Some
girl’s boobs. Connor swinging off the chandelier.

Connor. We’d had a
good talk last night, hadn’t we? But something felt off. Something
still needed sorting out.

But first I needed
water and some Advil. Lots of Advil. Like a truckload.

Staggering into the
main room of the cabin, I found various other members of our crew
draped across furniture like discarded items of clothes after a
striptease. One of the girls sat on the floor, her legs stretched out
across the wooden planks, her back resting against the couch. Johnny
lay strewn across the couch, his sunglasses firmly in place.

“Ugh.” He groaned
over to me.

“Hmg.” I groaned
back. More water and a palmful of Advils later, I shuffled back into
the main room searching for Ana. She hadn’t been partying with us
last night, so surely she was already up. Just as I was about to ask
anyone if they’d seen her, the door burst open letting in a sharp,
cold blast of wind and, worse, blinding sunlight glinting painfully
off of the endless snow outside.

Like vampires scalded
by the light, we all put up our hands and shrank away. All Ana needed
was a Holy Bible and a cross and we would have looked like the set of
an epic monster movie.

“Oh, good! You’re
up!” she cried out in an unnaturally loud voice. I cringed and she
saw it. “Sorry,” she faltered, and thank God closed the damn
door. Quieter, she added, looking at me. “We have enough gas in the
car to get us to the nearest gas station. I don’t mind driving. If
you want, we could—”