I woke up at around 4 PM, feeling a little better. What really picked up my mood, though, was finding a text from Dumont. It read:
Hey there, miss you today. Wanna go grab a bite?
I smiled and started typing something I wasn't planning on.
Actually can we make it little fancy? It's kind of my birthday and I wanna celebrate.
I watched the 'writing' symbol followed by the three dots on the top of the screen just below her name for a while until the message appeared.
KINDA YOUR BIRTHDAY! OMG. Get dressed, I'll make some calls and I'll have you in a limousine within the hour!
For all her faults and fuck ups, I can't say she was never giving towards me. She was generous and uncomplicated with her money. I think she said once that she was used to girls dating her for her money. They were always very attractive women, so she thought 'Meh, it's a fair enough trade'. That's probably why, when I asked her for something fancy, while I was thinking of a nice place drinking coffee or tea, she was thinking of what she came up with that night. I took a bath and tried my best to remove any residue of paint. I also trimmed, you know where, because, well, there was no way we weren't getting private.
I chose my clothes based on what made me feel more attractive. That day it was a gray blouse with a loose V-neck, tight jeans, leather boots and a leather jacket. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I felt confident, and I promised myself I wouldn't let her ruin this day for me. For once, she wouldn't take it away from me.
Ellen texted almost an hour later and said:
Hope you're ready, 'cause I'm downstairs.
I grabbed my wallet, my keys and when I picked up my phone, I decided that... no. I'm not going to take it with me and only to keep looking at the screen hoping she writes, and then feeling shitty because she did. No, I was going to enjoy myself. As I exited the building, an Ellen dressed as a Rockstar, jean jacket, and sunglasses included, with half her body popping up through the limousine's sunroof. She spread her arms with pride. She seemed very happy with herself for being able to get a limousine in such a short notice.
"Wow!" she said when she saw me, got inside the limousine, and then exited through the door to come and hug me. Once she pulled away, she placed a hand on her chest and with a taken demeaner she said, "You are an absolute vision."
I grinned. I can always can on her to say I'm pretty, and smart, and funny. Like I said, for all her faults, she was always giving, including the compliments. I flushed a little and kissed her. "Thanks, that was the idea. So, what do you have in mind?"
She gave me a devilish smile and opened the limousine door for me. "M'lady."
The limousine somehow felt bigger in the inside than it looked on the outside. The was also champagne with a bit of a pink color to it and glasses for Ellen to pour us some. As she closed the door and picked up the champagne bottle, she said to the driver. "Rockefeller Center, my man."
I couldn't contain my happiness. I'd always wanted to go to Rockefeller Center. Mostly I wanted to go in winter, but I never could. However, summer wasn't a bad option either. It was already getting dark by the time we arrived. And the place was stunning, everything I wanted and more. But I didn't get to see it for too long.
Ellen gave me a dark handkerchief and asked me to blindfold. Okay, this could be either very good, or very bad.
She guided me through the place, I could hear people talking and laughing and at some point I'm pretty sure I even smelled what could only be described as orgasmic food, but no matter how much I insisted, Ellen won't let me take the blindfold off. I almost blamed myself for not just doing a bad knot and being able to see through it.
When I was beginning to lose my patience, Ellen finally said, "Okay, take it off."
"So quickly? Alright, fine but I want you to buy me dinner immediately afterwards and my safe word is cinnamon," I said starting to remove my jacket.
"The blindfold!" she replied laughing.
I grinned. "Right."
When I opened my eyes, it couldn't believe them. We were at the Top. Yes, that Top. "Oh my God," I said. "The Top of the Rock." It was deserted, with a single white table, two chairs, and a simple flower arrangement in the center of that table. As the sunlight began to fade, hanging lights began to light up.
"Yeah, I remembered you always wanted to go to the Empire State... I wasn't able to get it, but still. It's right there," she said pointing at the Empire State.
"How did you do this? Don't we need like, tickets? And we're alone."
She smiled and said, "I know a guy."
She walked towards the table and pulled a chair back in a very gentleman-like way. It was very seductive. I could've jumped with happiness in that moment. I ran to her and kissed her before sitting down. After I was sitting comfortably, she sat on her own chair and called out to some guy I couldn't see named Jack. A few moments later, someone showed up with another bottle of champagne and a large tray of mini quiches. What kind of monster says no to mini quiches?
Ellen poured us both a glass each and encouraged me to eat, but I just couldn't. I couldn't believe she'd done something like that. "You don't like it? Shit, did I fuck up?"
It wasn't that. I knew that doing this probably made no dent in her finances. I knew this, but that didn't make the gesture any less heartwarming. It was the effort, the willingness to do this for me what really got to me.
"No! No, no. It's just... why did you do this? I mean, don't get me wrong this is so much more than I could possibly hope but, you're been too kind."
"Puff, I'm just looking to get laid," she joked.
"I mean it, I said. This is... I don't even have words."
She placed her glass down and got serious for a moment, which was not common in her. "Look, I can tell, alright? I think anyone who talks to you for more than five seconds can tell that you are... sad. All the time, you're always sad. And I know it's because of she who shall not be named."
"Riley," I said, feeling okay saying her name, because right now, Ellen was making me feel safe enough for her name to not matter. "Her name is Riley."
"Riley. You clearly still carry a torch for her, and that's fine with me. I'm just trying to make you a little less sad. That's all."
In that moment, I felt something very similar to love for Ellen. Very similar, but not quite. Still, it was a pure, genuine emotion and I wanted to hold onto it. To not let go of that tender sensation in my stomach that went up to my throat and down my back.
I reached and took her hand and smiled. She kissed my hand and said, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I'm better than okay."
After we finished eating the mini quiches while sharing how our week had been, Ellen asked Jack for the main dish. Burgers. Oh, yes; sushi, burgers, I loved my life. We started eating while I complained about how far behind, I was on my deadline.
Ellen rose her hands and with a fake innocent said, "I've got nothing to do with that."
I laughed. "Really? Who told me, 'Hey babe, don't worry about it, you can work later, just come to watch a movie with me, why don't we grab something to eat, why don't we go to the Met, why don't we go visit Lady Liberty?'. It's partly your fault, at least."
"If I say it's my fault, can I get laid tonight?"
I laughed. "Baby, after what you did, you can hit it as often as you want."
"Yas!" she exclaimed.
I kept on laughing, and I could tell she was happy I was happy.
"Ellen?"
"Yeah," she said while having a sip.
"I really like you."
She smiled. It was a soft, sincere smile. "I really like you, too. Honestly, I've never done anything like this before."
"There's no way that's true."
"It is! Really!" Spoiler alert. It wasn't the first time.
"Well, be that as it may, it doesn't take away from the fact that this has been one of the best things anyone has ever done for me."
"One? What on earth can be better than this?"
I grinned, with a certain sense of arrogance. "My ex sang me Fly Me to the Moon with her guitar, on sexy lingerie, after making me my favorite dessert and dedicating a whole day to doing whatever I wanted to do."
"Really, that's better than Rockefeller Center and private dinner?" she joked, but something told me she was partly serious.
"You're underestimating how good my ex looks in lingerie."
She stayed quiet for a moment, before asking. "What happened? If you don't mind me asking, we can talk about something else."
"No, that's fine. I think it's about time you asked."
"Ok... so?"
I sighed, then I regretted it. "Nop, can't do it. Can't talk about it, and there's no way I'm crying for someone else in front of a woman I want to bang."
She laughed and asked, "She cheated?"
I smiled sadly. "I wish. If she would've cheated, chances are we would've handled it better. Or maybe not. I mean, she did something specific. There was this one thing that she did that just broke us. She did a bunch of very bad things but at the end of the day they all piled up to one single thing... she doesn't love me anymore. That's why she fucked up so badly in so many ways. Love wasn't there to make her realize how cruel she was being. That's as much as I'm gonna say tonight."
"Okay, thank you for sharing that with me."
"Sure." I couldn't help it, every time Ellen spoke, I just felt a bit less sad. "What about you? There must be a ton of not so happy endings for you, too."
She scoffed and added, "Me? Of course not! Look at me, I've never been rejected! Not once! Especially not by Amelie Badeaux when I was sixteen. And my girlfriend did not leave me for a guy when I was twenty-one, and my best friend definitely didn't rejected me and pulled away from me after I confessed the love I had being hiding for over two year when I was twenty five. None of that happened! I've always had this huge amount of women begging to be with me. It's totally not the money."
I cackled and said, "It's good to know that even when someone is as successful and great looking as you are, you still have a few heartbreaking stories in you."
"Wanna hear the worst part? I became famous a couple of years after Gina, the best friend, decided she didn't want me in her life anymore because... loving her was apparently a bad thing. Anyway, I featured in the New York Times once and when she found out she looked me up and started texting and calling me to see if we could meet because she was now 'so sorry about the way we'd left things'."
"Bitch!"
"I know, right? Look, all I'm saying is, sometimes things hurt. Sometimes we lose people that we think are fundamental to us and we think we've lost the best thing in the whole world... but sometimes, that's just the universe doing us a favor. I mean, I know the thing about your wife hurts right now, but in five years you're gonna be in a completely different place and it won't even matter anymore. You might even be thankful that it happened."
I thought on that and it did give me some comfort. Thinking that, as horrible, as painful, as shitty all of this was... it happened for a reason, and in five years it wouldn't matter.
And right now, I can tell you, it did matter, but it mattered in the right way. It mattered in the sense that if that wouldn't have happened, I wouldn't be where I am right now. So, if you're going through something horrible, and it feels difficult and overwhelming, and you can't quite understand why something so bad is happening, give it time, give it space, work in yourself, and little by little, you will learn to accept it, live with it, and sometimes, you'll even be lucky to learn from it and understand why it happened, and once you do, you'll notice that if someone gave you the chance to go back in time and change it... you wouldn't.
I wouldn't. I wouldn't change anything. Not even after everything that happened.
And I guess... I guess that includes that thing I won't talk about. Right now, even when it hurts to talk about it, when it still shrinks my heart and makes my chest burn. Even after all that, I love that I can now appreciate how rare, and brief and wonderful it all was, no matter how little it lasted. It existed, it was, and that means everything.
As we finished eating, I felt intoxicated by that moment. The chilling temperature, the breath-taking view, the amazing company. For a few moments, I didn't think of her and that was very liberating.
Once we were done, Ellen took me back to her place for wine. It was a large Upper East Side apartment. However, for as big as it was, the living room was mostly empty. It had a TV, a couch, a dining table, a billiard table and that was it. Keep in mind, when I say big, I mean just the living room was about three hundred square feet, and the full apartment was about seven hundred square feet, so you can give yourself an idea of how empty it felt when I say empty.
I sat on the couch while she went to the equally gigantic kitchen for some wine.
It was probably the fact that it was so big, yet so empty, what made me feel so desolated in that apartment. I couldn't for the life of me imagine how she could live in a place like that. Ellen came back with two wine cups and sat next to me.
"Say it," she prompted.
"What?"
"Say what you're thinking."
"Why do you have a huge apartment, when you keep it empty."
She sighed and said, "I don't know. Honestly, I never liked big places but I didn't choose this apartment. Someone chose it for me and I don't like spending money just you fill up empty spaces."
"I see."
"It feels lonely, doesn't it?"
"Yeah," I said taking a sip. "How do you cope."
She shrugged. "I guess it doesn't bother me as much, but I am aware that it bothers other people."
"Who chose it for you?"
"My ex-girlfriend."
I made an 'O' with my mouth and said, "You kept asking about my ex, but you wouldn't even talk about yours."
She laughed. "It wasn't on purpose. I just never mention her because she doesn't matter anymore. Your ex clearly matters to you."
"No, no, no. I want to hear about it."
"Okay. Well, it was about four years ago."
"Wait, this was your last girlfriend?"
"Yes."
"So you've been single for four years."
"Well, not single 'single'. This was just my last serious girlfriend. After that I just decided that if I would get serious with someone, it would be someone I could imagine staying with for good."
"Interesting approach. So, what happened?"
"I don't know... It's been years and I still can't pinpoint exactly what happened. I guess we just never really saw eye to eye, but there was attraction and affection. She wanted kids, I didn't. She wanted a suburban home, I didn't. She wanted a calm, quiet lifestyle and I just couldn't commit to that. It wasn't a bad break up. It was this thing that we knew needed to happen sooner or later, but we had dragged on for too long because we legitimately loved each other."
"So, you do know what happened."
She grinned. "I guess I do. It sucks, you know? When you love each other and you realize that you need more than that. That love doesn't conquer all, and that sometimes the greatest demonstration of love is to let go."
I looked away. Yeah, it does suck.
"How long were you too together?"
"Six years."
"I see."
She frowned at my reaction. "That's it? That's everything you're going to say?"
"What do you want me to say?"
"I don't know, most people say 'Oh, my god! That's such a long time'."
I laughed. "Sorry, sweetheart. I started dating my wife when I was sixteen so... I guess I'm a little desensitized to six years together. Get back to me when you've been together ten years and we can talk."
"Wow, thank you. I just got my relationship humiliated by yours. Now you need to talk about it."
I sighed. "I fell right into that one, didn't I?"
"It was all you. I didn't do anything."
"Well, I've been in love with her since I'm ten."
"Sorry, what?"
"Yep, you heard that. Ten."
"Wow! Okay, now you do get permission to humiliate my relationship! Holy crap. How do you do it?"
I shrugged. "Honestly I don't know. I mean, don't get me wrong. Love does change. The butterflies go away, the excitement, the little adrenaline, the need to bone each other every time you see each other. It does go away. But the chemistry doesn't. The laughing at the same dumb jokes, the fooling around, the comforting each other, the deep understanding of one another, that peace you feel when they're around, the sense that nothing can go run as long as they are there with you. That deep connection you share... that doesn't. And because you have that really strong friendship, while still finding each other sexually attractive, even after years, sex still comes easily."
"So it's never become boring?"
"Oh, yes. Of course it has, but it's never been unsatisfactory. Also, we have tried a bunch of very nasty things over the years. So yeah, sex has sometimes because predictable, but never empty. Been with her is always very meaningful."
"See?"
"What?"
"You still have feelings for her."
I sighed. "Not as many as I used to. I would've killed myself for her if she would've asked me to. Right now, I feel more like throwing her in front of a bus."
"Yeah, but that's anger, that will go away. Eventually. What are you gonna do when that anger goes away? How much love are you gonna feel when anger is not blocking it? When you remember all the good things instead of the bad?"
At the moment, I thought the question was odd, but now I realize Ellen was trying to figure out if I would go back to her given the chance, and leave her hanging.
"Can we talk about something else?"
"You're really committed to escapism, aren't you?"
"Yep."
She left me be and we talked about how nervous I was feelings with the opening only a couple of months away, how many pieces I was going to be presenting and how I wanted to present them. I told her the truth, A part from painting what I wanted, I had very little saying on that because Caroline was paying for everything, so she had a right to decide everything.
Somewhere along the night, Ellen kissed me. I placed the wine glass down and wrapped my arms around her. She laid me down on the couch and started to remove my clothes. She straightened up and removed her own jacket and blouse and started kissing my neck and down to my collar bone. I sank my nails on her shoulders while I let a moan escape my lips.
When I turned to see Ellen's left shoulder, something happened. I saw a tattoo. It read 'This We'll Defend' and under that the initials JQ were written in capital letters. I pushed Ellen away from me and moved backwards, breathing heavily and shaking.
"Jesus, are you okay? Did I hurt you?" she asked.
"No, no... I just... I remembered there's something I have to do. I'm so sorry."
"Faye!" she yelled while I ran away from her.
I picked up my things as quickly as I could and left. I grabbed a cab and went back to my apartment agitated. I couldn't recover from what I had seen. It shook me to my core. While the cab navigated the streets and the traffic, I thought about the last time I had seen that tattoo.
It had been ten months before that night. We had gone away for a romantic weekend getaway after making sure we'd let my mom home taking care of everything around the house. Something she loved doing. There was no way she'd ever miss a chance to stay at our place. Why she treasured the opportunity is not important right now. The point was we drove to California to a nice five-star hotel with Spa, and pool, and drinks. A lot of drinks. As soon as we arrived, we left our bags in the room, went downstairs and got massages by the pool. It was that kind of hotel.
I noticed she kept looking in the direction of this weird guy that kept ordering Margaritas way past his 'I'm shit-faced' drunk. She seemed to be trying to gather courage to go ask this pretty girl out. We could tell before every time he seemed to be ready, he would stand up, and then immediately sit back down.
"What are you think," I asked in a sighed as this very talented woman massaged my problems away.
"Twenty bucks says he'll fall asleep before even getting up to ask her."
I laughed. "Twenty dollars say, he'll lose balance and fall into the pool."
She turned to me. "That's so mean!" then she smiled and added, "You're on."
We waited for another twenty minutes and two more Margaritas, before the guy finally stood up, and with stupid determination in his face, he started walking towards the girl, who was sitting by the edge of the pool, with her legs in the water.
He stumbled towards her and when he was ready to say something monumentally stupid, he fell sideway, without any resistance to the pool.
"Pay up," I said, but her face had grown serious.
"Wait," was everything she said.
The guy didn't come up, and before I could react, she had removed the towel on her lower back, and jumped into the pool. She pooled the guy out of the water and started yelling for a doctor. The guy had, actually passed out and fallen into the pool completely out of it.
A man claiming to be a doctor started doing CPR on him and asking what happened.
"Drank too much. Whoever was the asshole who kept giving him the Margeritas should've cut him off a long time ago," she said, noticeably angry.
I loved that about her. She wasn't looking at the guy for the bet, she knew he was drinking way too much and she was afraid something like this would happen. I don't actually know what happened to the guy. As far as I could tell, he was aware we she and I left to go have a relaxing jacuzzi bath in a private room all to ourselves.
I sat inside the tub while she promised she'd fine the switches and the buttons and all that jazz to make it work. She kept walking around the jacuzzi looking at the floor trying to figure out how to make it work.
"You know, I know how to do it."
"You always know how to do everything. For Once, I'll do it."
She always kept saying that, whenever we found something weird that neither of us had ever done before, I was the one who always figured out how to make it work. She was good at doing things she'd done before. I was going at figuring out how to do things I had never done before, but when it came to repetitive things, it just wasn't in me.
"Baby, just let me do it."
"No, I can do stuff, too!" She said with her pride on the line.
After ten minutes of not knowing what she was doing, she looked at me with those big puppy eyes and a sad defeated expression.
I couldn't help myself. I stood up and hugged her "Oh, my God! You're so precious! I love you so much!" I went for the wall on the far end of the room and said, "Ry," pointing at the small cabinet in the wall. Behind it were all the buttons and switches.
As I filled the jacuzzi in, she sat inside, laid her head back and closed her eyes as the warm water relaxed her body. I turned on the bubbles and went to join her. I sat on top of her surprising her for a short moment, but as she opened her eyes to look at me with a warm smile, she said, "Hi there, beautiful."
"Hello yourself," replied.
She placed her forehead against me while she my neck and began kissing it softly. "I'm really happy we did this," she said resting her head on my shoulder.
"Me, too," I said, caressing her hair. "A nice little vacation is always a good idea."
It was a good idea, because that time, that vacation, was the last time we were ever truly happy.
I can't keep talking about it. It sucks to remember happier times. Times before any of this had happened.
I arrived at home around 11 PM and found a big bouquet of purple coneflowers in front of my apartment door. My favorite, I thought. What the hell? I grabbed the bouquet and I searched for my keys. As I entered my apartment, I threw my bag onto the couch and sat next to it to find a note inside the bouquet. When I read it, I smiled.
Happy birthday,
Hope you had a great day.
-Scott K.
You thought it had been her, didn't you? Yeah, for a very little moment so did I, but knowing that they were from Scott made me realize how much I wanted for her to be there, to show me in any way shape or form that she had remembered. I picked up my phone, which I had purposely left, and checked my texts, my e-mails, my social media.
Nothing. Not even a happy birthday anywhere.
I smiled again, because for once, something she'd done, or well, failed to do, hadn't brought me to tears. Fine, she won't write, I will.
To: rileybb@[redacted]
From: fayebb@[redacted]
You didn't call. You fucking asshole. It's my birthday and you didn't even write. I know why you didn't. You're a coward. You would rather not show up today than deal with me, with everything you've done. I'm not letting you have that. It doesn't matter if you don't wanna talk. For once, I'll talk, and you're gonna fucking listen.
You always used to ask me when it happened. When I fell in love with you. You kept pestering me about it because you knew I'd fallen in love way before you had so you wanted to know.
Here it is:
We've had been living in Lenberg probably for six months, and I had been going to your school for about five. You and I were friends, but not close friends. You were always hanging out with Scott and Louise. Your 'always friends'. I was having a hard time making any friends so I spent most of my time alone, except for those occasions in which you actually talked to me and tried to make me get to know your friends. I've always been socially challenged, so I just didn't fit.
But something happened this one time, and it changed everything.
There was this really mean kid that went to school with us. Kiran Michael. Rosie Carroll's cousin. For some reason he always had it out for me and always found a way to make me feel like crap. But he didn't try to actually get physical with me, not after that day.
Mrs. Brown left us this book report on Snow White or Red Riding hood. I don't know, doesn't matter. It was a simple Elementary School book report so it was supposed to be hand-written and about three pages long. Nothing super complicated and marked with the symbolism and whatever. We were just supposed to write a summery, and what we'd taken away from the story. Simple enough.
I was really proud of my homework. My dad had stayed up reading me the story and had made sure I had proper grammar and orthography so I really wanted for Mrs. Brown to see it. You remember Mrs. Brown? She was the coolest, most kind teacher either of us ever had.
But before I even got to turn it in, Kiran and his friends pushed me to the mud and tore it to pieces on the space behind the girl's bathrooms. Now as a grown up, I wonder what kind of parents teach their kids that it's okay to gang up on a ten years old girl, and push her so she trips and falls, and tear up her homework? And even worse, how is such a parent even related to the same parents who raised Rosie Carroll? How is that possible?
Anyway, after they were happy, they'd destroyed my homework and left me in tears and sitting on the dirt, they left. I didn't get up. I felt like a weak, pathetic failure that couldn't stand up to these kids and for the first time I hated my parents for bringing me to this horrible town.
I think you heard me, or maybe you were looking for something or someone else, but you showed up. I tried to stop myself from crying when I saw you but that only made my sobs turn into this really agitated breathing that was just as loud.
You stared at the small pieces of paper that the wind hadn't completely taken away with it and knelt in front of me. You were so strong; so brave for a ten-year-old kid, that you didn't try awkwardly to pretend you cared about me. You didn't try to ask what was happening, you didn't even say something stupid like 'Why are you crying? Don't cry'.
No. You used your ten-year-old voice and demanded to know, "Who did this?" I looked up. I remember for some reason I was terrified you were angry at me, but you swept my tears away with your thumbs and asked again. Softly this time. "Who did this?"
"Kiran tore up my-my-my homework," I said trying to calm myself down.
You stood up, with fists clutched and ran away. I went after you but as I turned the corner to get a better look, I saw you punch Kiran Michael to the ground. I don't think he ever saw it coming, because when he looked up, he seemed shocked. I think his nose was bleeding.
As teachers towards you to stop a 'silly kids' fight', you yelled "You know what you did! And you won't do it again!"
By the time the teacher grabbed you both by the arm you just let it happen while Kiran complained he hadn't done anything, and why was he in trouble. You both got detention for a week and Mr. Bonnet sent you back to class, just in time to hand in Mrs. Brown's homework, which I didn't have, so I didn't stand up to turn my paper in.
You pulled out your paper, did something to it and then turned it in. I didn't understand what it was until three days later when she was reading the grades and said, "Faye Burton, B+."
I frowned and I was about to tell her that I didn't turn in my paper when you stood up, grabbed the white pieces of paper and handed them to me. You had erased your name and had replaced it with mine.
"But your grade?" I asked, and you shrugged, like you always do.
Luckily for you, Mrs. Brown had been grading enough of your papers to recognize your handwriting. She knew you were trying to protect me, and even though she tried to help, teachers are remarkably bad at dealing with bullying, so she left it alone. She gave you a passing grade even when you didn't give her any explanation. She was really the coolest.
I waited for you after the final bell rang and asked if I could walk you home. You reminded me that you had detention. I shrugged and said, "That's fine. I'll wait for you."
And that was the moment I knew I would always love you.
I wanted you to know. I wanted you to know the exact moment I started loving you, and for you to also remember that this will be the last time I ever did.
I WANT THE DIVORCE.