Chapter 13 – Carly
“Have you seen how many people are out there?” my mom asked, coming into the office-turned-bedroom that I stayed in. “It’s like in the movies.”
I frowned and got up, following my mom to the front door. She opened it, and I looked out.
There were swarms of them outside. Vans were parked on the curb, men with cameras walked around like the equipment was a part of them, and women and men with mics and boom mics stood in small groups, talking.
“What’s happened?” I asked. “It looks serious.”
“I don’t know,” my mom said. “I didn’t hear anything.”
I thought about Brad calling it off last night. He’d said the press had found out he was in town. Could this be what he’d been talking about? I had thought that he would be harassed by a reporter or two when he’d said it, but this was obscene.
“Brad is famous,” I said to my mom. “Maybe that’s all it is.”
“Well, I would hate to be followed around with an entourage like this,” she said, and I agreed. It was overkill.
I guessed I understood a little more why he had canceled on me. If this was what he had to deal with, I couldn’t imagine it being romantic or anything. But I still felt hurt that he’d decided to cancel on me. It felt like he was trying to hide me, to stop the press from seeing me, like I would be a bad mark on his image. Was that how he saw me? Surely, being seen out with me wouldn’t do something terrible to his social standing?
Maybe he didn’t want the world to see me. Maybe he wanted to keep me a secret, the way he always had.
I was being silly. I knew that. I had been the one to ask for our secrecy when we were kids. Even when we had gone out the other night, I had preferred that people didn’t know so that I didn’t have to confront my dad. But this? It felt like the tables had turned, and now Brad didn’t want anyone to know that he had a relationship with me. Which was stupid because we weren’t in any kind of relationship. We were friends.
Which he still wanted to hide. So, it made me feel that much worse. I wasn’t anyone that needed to be hidden, was I? I had a good track record, and I was an ordinary woman.
Maybe that was the problem; me being ordinary. Maybe he wanted a supermodel or an actress or something. Someone that could be on those shows that they did on television about the wives and girlfriends of athletes. Maybe he didn’t want me at all.
Stop it, I told myself. I was letting my imagination run away with me. But it was hard to keep calm about it and act like it was normal when Brad had appeared out of nowhere, shown me the best time, and then canceled plans with me so that we didn’t see each other.
I ignored him. He tried to call and text, but I didn’t answer him. I had no idea what he wanted, but I wasn’t going to speak to him to find out. I was hurt that he had insisted on being with me only to push me away.
It was getting harder and harder to ignore him. One or two calls and a few texts had been fine, but he was calling constantly as the day dragged on, and finally, I answered.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said.
“I have,” I answered, being honest about it.
“Why?”
I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “Why did you cancel with me last night?”
“I told you, I couldn’t go out with the press being what they are. You can’t have missed them right outside your front door.”
“Oh, no. I saw them. But I thought that after the years of fame you already have behind you, you would be used to it all.”
He sighed. “I am used to it. You’re right. But you’re not. I didn’t want to take you out and then have people speculate about you. It can be very damaging. You have no idea how hard it is to kill rumors once the press has started them.”
“And what would they say about me that would be so terrible? That you are involved with someone from your past, from your hometown? That you have a life? God forbid.”
“Carly, don’t be like this,” he said. He sounded exasperated. Maybe I was being unfair, but I was upset, and I had never been very good at hiding it.
“Should I accept it, instead?”
“Look, I didn’t expect it to happen in Laramie, okay? They weren’t supposed to find me here. Someone tipped them off, and now my relaxed vacation is ruined because I have to make sure I keep putting my best foot forward. It’s not something I wanted to drag you into. It’s not something you deserve. You’re acting like I did you in, but I did you a favor.”
I barked a laugh. “You canceled on me last minute, making me feel like I was something you needed to hide, and now, I should thank you for it?” It was absurd. “It’s a pretty sad excuse, Brad.”
“Carly,” he said, and he was getting angry. I could hear it in his voice. That voice went with eyes that turned evergreen and mouth corners that turned down instead of up.
“No, Brad,” I interrupted him before he could say whatever it was he’d wanted to get out. “It feels like you’re ashamed of me. I don’t like being treated that way. Not now.”
“That’s rich, coming from the girl who had dated me secretly for over a year.”
I swallowed hard. He was right, and he was wrong, and it was so close to each other that they almost blurred.
“It’s not the same,” I said.
“Isn’t it?”
I didn’t answer him. I tried to swallow down a lump in my throat that had appeared out of nowhere. We were fighting. One date, and we were fighting. God, we really hadn’t changed at all, had we? This was something we’d done back then, too. And about the same things as well.
“Listen,” Brad said after a beat, and the anger had drained out of his voice again. “Will you meet me? I do want to see you. I’ve wanted to be with you from the moment you arrived next door.”
I hesitated. “Where can we get away from them?” I asked.
“We can meet at our spot.”
I hadn’t been back to our spot since we’d broken up. It had held all of our memories, and going back there had hurt too much. I had written the place off, told myself I would never go there again.
“I can’t,” I said. “I’m busy.”
It sounded like a rejection, and it was. I didn’t want to go there with him. What would it mean if we did?
Our spot had been where our love had grown, where everything else had fallen away, and it had only been the two of us. If we went back there and we were friends, nothing more, it would be wrong. And if we were more, Brad wouldn’t hide me. I was confused, and I was upset, and our spot was the last place I wanted to go.
“Come on, Carly. You can’t push me away.”
His words solidified my resolve. “Really?” I asked. “Watch me.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said that.” Brad knew that if anyone told me I couldn’t do something, it was exactly what I would do. “Please, I’m not asking for much. Meet me there tomorrow night.”
God, I was torn. A part of me wanted to meet him so badly. I wanted the days back when we were in love, our future was bright, and everything was perfect. But those days were gone, and I wasn’t going to get the happily ever after I had dreamed about once upon a time.
Those had been the dreams of a teenager, and I was an adult now. So, a part of me was sure that I wouldn’t go to meet him, that our story had ended long ago and all we were doing was reminiscing and thinking about a past that was long gone.
“Please,” Brad added.
He had always gotten me with please. He had always managed to convince me because I hadn’t been able to say no to him when he asked me like that. When my big, strong man became a pleading puppy dog for me. He knew just how to play this game, and it turned out that he still knew me well enough that he could try his tricks on me.
Tricks that I had always complained about, but had to admit, I secretly liked.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
It made me want to say no.
“It’s a maybe.”
He chuckled. “You’re as stubborn as ever.”
I was getting irritated with him and how easy he was about this, how comfortable. He laughed about it when I was angry. I felt like he was pushing me to do something because he knew how to get me to want it. I hated that he had that hold over me because of our past. Because of what I might still feel for him.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Brad said after we argued back and forth a few times before he hung up.
“We’ll see about that,” I said to the dead phone in my hands. I didn’t want to give him what he wanted, purely because he demanded it. But I wanted to see him again. I wanted him to prove to me that he didn’t want to hide me, that I was someone he wasn’t scared to be seen with.
I hadn’t been to our spot in years. Something about going back there was enticing, but I wouldn’t go because he had demanded it. He had no right to me or my life. Not after he had done nothing to stop my dad from dragging me away. Not after he had walked away from me at graduation when all I had wanted to do was tell him I missed him.
I walked into my room to find something to do, something to distract me. My thoughts were driving me mad. I had to talk sense into myself and leave it at that. I had to make a decision and stick to it.
I wasn’t going to meet Brad at our spot, and that was final. No matter what I felt. No matter all the memories that swirled around in my mind and the urge to see him again that grew by the minute. I had gotten over him and lived six years without him because I’d had to.
I could very well do it again.