Chapter Seventeen
@candygirllll: where was this taken? In NY? X
@Fischerwoman88: Dunno… I don’t recognise it. Maybe Brooklyn?
@candygirllll: and who is she??!!! Does Hale have a gf??!!! X
@RachHeart435: cant be. She’s not even pretty!!!
@Fischerwoman88: I know, right? Maybe she’s his cousin, lol
@RachHeart435: only explanation!!!
And so it went on.
For five hundred and eighty comments.
Relentlessly.
Unceasingly.
I knew I should have stopped reading; I knew there was no point in me continuing to scroll down the page, that there was nothing in that endless diatribe that I’d want to read, but I couldn’t stop myself. I spent the afternoon running down that list, and then when I finally reached the bottom I found myself going right the way up to the stop and starting again. Every cycle through was just as crushing.
So plain.
Not even pretty.
Who even is she?
Maybe she’s his cousin…
What does he see in her?
That’s the one that stings the most, even after I manage to put my phone down, because it’s the one that hits closest to home. What does Hale even see in me? I’ve never been able to figure it out, not really. I wasn’t the only person interested in him in high school, not to mention the fact that he was a year older than me. I wasn’t especially good looking, didn’t put out at the drop of a hat like Kitty Ellis. And now what? Now he’s an up-and-coming music star, and I’m… what, exactly? I mean, I’m not bad looking, but it’s hard to look like a catwalk model when you spend all day working your ass off in a diner.
And then there’s Meredith, of course. She’s more his speed, and she knows it. God, she seemed to enjoy rubbing it in my face. I can still hear her smug British accent ringing in my ears: every sweetie, every honey, every good girl. The goddamn nerve of her, to come into my restaurant, to try and pick away at my happiness. And for what, eh? So the woman who has everything can take the last little scraps away from the woman who doesn’t have much of anything at all? Even a vulture wouldn’t go that far.
The doorbell buzzes, but I don’t get up to answer it. There’s no one I’d particularly care to speak to at the moment. Not my mother, who’s already called three times, no doubt to see if I was OK after I ran out of the diner in tears. Not Pete, even though I don’t think he’s in the business of making house calls on his boss after work.
Not even –
‘Hey! Hey, Carrie! You in there?’
Shit.
Hale’s voice carries through from the street and sails right into my open window. Yesterday, I would have killed to have him turn up randomly on my doorstep, but now, after everything…
‘Sorry I’m late. I stopped off to pick up Chinese food. You interested?’ There’s a long pause, a pause in which I know I should be running to the window and throwing aside the drapes, but instead I just sit there, numb and motionless on my bed, cradling my phone in my hand until the screen turns black. ‘Carrie!’
Just ignore him. Ignore him and he’ll go away eventually. After all, didn’t he ignore you for ten years?
‘Carrie!’
Jesus Christ…
It’s almost more effort than I can stand to pick myself up and head to the intercom, but I somehow manage to buzz him in anyway. He bounds up the stairs with all the enthusiasm of a puppy, kisses me tenderly on the lips and slips his hand around my waist with no self-consciousness whatsoever. And why shouldn’t he? If there was anything startling about last night, it was how easy it all was – how well our bodies still fit together, even after a decade apart.
It’s almost funny how quickly things can change.
‘Hey,’ he says. ‘I hope you don’t mind me coming over. I would have called, but…’
But no phone. No way for him to know there was anything wrong, even if I’d thought to tell him. ‘No,’ I say. ‘No, I don’t mind.’
I can still feel his hand on my stomach, the kiss that lingers even after he walks past me and into the apartment. They don’t feel the way they did that morning. Now they’re tainted by Meredith, and by everyone else who’s come before.
You don’t think you’re special, do you?
No. No, it’s safe to say that I don’t think I’m special at all. Not anymore, at least.
‘Plates?’ he calls over from kitchen counter, where he’s already arranging cartons of takeout.
‘Hmm?’
‘Do you have plates?’
‘Oh. Yeah, sure.’
‘I didn’t know what you’d like, so I got a bit of everything.’ He tosses a piece of shrimp into his mouth and makes an almost orgasmic face. ‘God, that’s good. Really good. You fine with chopsticks?’
‘Sure, I guess.’
Five minutes later, we’re eating. Hale is gamely doing his best to cheer me up, telling me about his day, trying to raise a laugh or a smile, but none of it sticks. The problem is, he’s still trying to impress the woman he left that morning, and I’m not entirely sure she still exists.
‘What’s up?’ he asks at last.
‘Hmm?’
‘When I left you this morning, you were a goddamn sex kitten, and now you’ve barely said three words to me since I got back. What gives, Carrie?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Is it something I said?’
‘No.’
‘Because if you don’t want me here, I can go.’ He’s standing already, quick on his feet, the food in front of him half-eaten and all-forgotten. ‘I mean, I don’t want to, but I’ve still got the trailer keys for another couple of days. I can always –’
‘Stay,’ I say. I don’t know what I want right now, but I sure as hell don’t want to be alone. ‘Please.’
‘Then talk to me, Carrie. What’s wrong? Honestly, now.’
And how the hell am I supposed to tell him that, exactly? Oh, by the way, your ex-girlfriend was in the diner today and she oh-so-casually pointed out that I’m just one of a long line of floozies you’ve used to get your rocks off over the last ten years, no big deal. How was your meeting?
‘Meredith came into the diner earlier,’ I say.
‘Oh yeah?’
‘She mentioned that you two used to be a thing.’
He pauses, sets the chopsticks down on the side of the plate. ‘She said that, did she?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And that bothers you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Carrie…’
I shrug. ‘I don’t know, really. Yes. I guess. A little. I know it shouldn’t, but…’
‘But it does.’
‘Yeah.’
The look on his face tells me everything I need to know. She wasn’t lying – and if she wasn’t lying about that, how do I know she’s not lying about the rest of it?
‘We weren’t a thing,’ he says eventually. ‘That’s really overselling it. It was one night, about a year and a half ago. She was really busting her hump trying to get people to notice me, and… Jesus, I can’t even remember what we were celebrating, but we went out for a few beers and one thing led to another, and the next thing I knew I was waking up in her apartment. But it wasn’t a thing. If she made you think that…’
He doesn’t finish the thought, and I’m not sure how it would have ended. ‘Then she’s talking shit’? ‘Then you misunderstood’?
So I say nothing. It’s easier that way.
‘It’s not like I can undo it, Carrie. I know that. But it meant nothing. It was just two people blowing off some steam, that’s all. And then, in the morning, they realised it was a mistake and moved on. Are you telling me you don’t know what that’s like?’
I can feel hot bile rise up in my throat – not at the thought of Hale and Meredith, but at a long-suppressed memory of my own. Yes, I know what that’s like. I know only too well.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I know, it shouldn’t bother me. It’s just…’
‘Just what?’
‘Nothing. Really. Just me being dumb.’
He puts his hand on mine, the way he did at the restaurant, slipping his thumb against my palm and giving a gentle squeeze. ‘Don’t say that, Carrie. You’re one of the smartest women I know, and something’s got you spooked. I don’t think you got all riled up over me and Merry. It was ancient history. One night, a long time ago. Didn’t mean anything. So what gives?’
Something in that squeeze loosens something inside me, quiets the little voice that tells me not to worry, that I’m being ridiculous, that Hale and I are a lost cause. He’s here, right now, and that’s not nothing. That matters more than anything she might have said.
And so I tell him. I tell him about the photo Meredith took, and about her posting it online, and the comments that followed; that’s enough to strip the smile from his face. ‘Show me,’ he says, and I do. He holds my phone delicately, as though he doesn’t want the grime of what I’m showing him to rub off on his fingers.
‘She shouldn’t have put this online,’ he says eventually. ‘Not without checking with you first.’
‘What about checking with you?’
He shrugs. ‘I know what I’m getting myself in for. It’s my career she’s helping. You didn’t ask for any of this. It’s not right for her to just throw you into it.’
‘It’s not about the photo,’ I say. ‘Not really. She…’ He doesn’t prompt me to continue, but he keeps his gaze fixed on my face, waiting for the dam of my reluctance to burst and let it all come flooding out, for better or for worse. ‘She told me about the other women,’ I say at last. ‘All of them. That I was just one in a long line. That it was pointless for me to think this was anything else.’
‘And you believed her?’
‘I don’t know, Hale. I know that’s not the best answer, but I just don’t know right now. I wish I did.’
‘Right,’ he says. ‘Right.’ Already, he’s pulling on his jacket, and there’s a look of steely determination in his eyes; when he leans down to kiss me on the cheek, it’s as though he’s looking through me rather than at me, suddenly barely aware that I’m even there in front of him.
His coldness scares me. I’ve seen him at his most charming, and at his most hot and angry, but this… this is new.
‘Where are you going?’ I ask.
‘To see Merry. We need to have a little talk, just the two of us.’
He doesn’t wait for me to try and stop him.