MY FIST TAPPED LIGHTLY AGAINST the weathered wood. I stood back, waiting as a guy passed behind me. He was nude, tall, and looked like he could crush skulls like they were cans. My fist tightened around the key I clutched in between my fingers as protection. It was dark, we were in the woods, and I’d watched one too many Lifetime movies.
He nodded hello, but kept walking.
A warm beam of light encompassed me, and I let out the breath I held.
“Hartley,” James said as soon as he opened the door. He was wearing one of those rainbow smiles, full of color and wonder.
I returned a shaky smile.
He moved aside so I could enter.
“I hope I didn’t come too early. I didn’t have much to unpack, and I was beginning to feel stir crazy.”
Truthfully, I just didn’t want to be left alone with my thoughts.
He chuckled, the sound pleasant to the ears. “You should have seen me waiting for the crew to arrive. I’ve already found two thinking spots in the woods.”
Unlike the rest of us, he had a cabin to himself. It was smaller than the rest. There was a twin bed against the far wall, a small table next to it, a chair against the other wall, and just enough space for a tiny closet that wasn’t filled with much. The walls were painted in a bright green, some of the paint scuffed and peeling in different spots.
“How long have you been here?” I asked. The room was lived in. The sheet was hanging half off the bed. I could barely make out the floor beneath the hoard of dirty clothing, crumpled papers, and various paper bags from the takeout he must have ordered.
“A couple of days.” He rushed past me to start picking up the papers that were scattered across his bed. “Sorry,” he said with nervous laughter. “I got caught up in making revisions on the script. I wanted it to be ready for when you got here.”
“It’s okay.” I took note of the picture on the stand next to his bed. It was an older woman with hair like spun gold. I could see James in her eyes, and guessed it was his mother.
“Is that your mom?” I asked, pointing to the picture.
The smile that overcame his face was almost breathtaking. “Yeah,” he said, love protruding from his gaze. “She passed away when I was younger.”
I wrapped an arm across my chest. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
The light in his smile dimmed. He set the papers down on the small table littered with empty chip bags and soda cans, then pointed to the bed. “You can sit on my bed if you like.” I sat as he took a seat across from me, pushing a dirty sock onto the floor. “I’m going to dive right in, okay?”
“Okay?” I laughed at how animated his movements were. He was lively and somewhat anxious, like a puppy wanting to play. It was contagious.
He sat forward, so I sat forward.
He leaned in, so I leaned in, resting my chin on my fist.
“With every editor I work with, I like to play a game of ten questions,” he said. “In this business, we have to see and feel the pain before we can show it. You can’t be any good at retelling a story or showing an emotion if you’ve never felt something close to it. If we’re going to script this story… I need to know you’re in tune with your emotions.”
I felt that squirmy, itchy feeling. I understood emotions. I might not have been as accepting of my own, but empathy had always been my strong suit.
“It might sound intimidating,” he continued, “but it’s a great ice breaker and helps us get a feel for each other since we’ll be working closely together. Are you cool with that?”
“I’m cool with it,” I repeated, trying to push away my thoughts. I didn’t want to blow this. I couldn’t, but talking about myself…
His smile deepened. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something about him that put me at ease. It was that feeling of standing within a forest on a warm afternoon, listening to the leaves sing as the wind caressed the trees. Like an overdue exhale.
“Okay, so I like to start with asking what all your favorite things are. You don’t have to agree if you’re too nervous. I get some people aren’t good—”
“I’m not nervous,” I said quickly. It was a lie, but sometimes bravery was born from the lies we told ourselves. I needed to be brave.
He looked pleased. “Cool. But be warned, I like to dig into the soul to pull out the real essence. You cool?”
“I’m cool.” I eased into a smile. James Dean. That was who he reminded me of. He had this old-school air. This timeless confidence.
“Okay, so what are all your favorite things? And don’t give me the SparkNotes version.”
My stomach slightly twisted as he watched me intently, waiting like an eager beaver. It was weird. It usually took me months to expose the slightest part of myself to someone, yet there I was, about to cram that time into the span of one night. I wasn’t sure why I agreed. Maybe it was his eyes. Or maybe it was because I wanted to punish myself.
Either way, I was in it deep.
“Umm… rainy days. Oreos.” I bit my lip, cutting my eyes to the left. “Laughter. Watching people interact around me.” He was listening with such a caring intensity it made my skin warm. “I like beards,” I said, thinking about the gold tones Hudson’s took that didn’t match his dark locks. I smiled as Bilbo popped into my head, always resting at my feet. “And old, scruffy bulldogs. I like bonfires and meteor showers. And I especially love lakes.”
His eyes grew bright as my heart pattered off-kilter, like a rickety old gear that forgot how to work. I’d never missed someone the way I missed Hudson. Maybe this was the therapy I needed to make it stop.
“How about you?” I asked, desperately needing a change in thoughts.
“Trees. The earth. Humans. Tears, the good and the bad. Emotion.” The expression on his face sliced like a ray of sunshine through the stormy clouds covering my heart. “Oh, and Hot Fries,” he added, glancing down to the many bags that had formed a sort of plastic rug on the ground.
I laughed.
“Okay, we’re going a bit deeper now?” He crossed his hands against his lap, giving off the air of a therapist. “Tell me something about you that no one would have guessed?”
The question had potential, but I could easily give him something one wouldn’t guess without having to expose the darkest parts I hid from the world. I probably should, because the secrets buried within my bones weren’t for the faint of heart. They was splotched with bruises and scars. Blue-hued memories and salted pillowcases.
“Told ya… this is pretty intense,” he added, giving me a look.
I forgot my poker face sucked.
Shit. I took a deep breath, storing courage in my lungs. A poisoned memory surfaced, stinging tip of my tongue. How many times had I closed my eyes, begging for the images to disappear? For the soiled truth to become a lie? I didn’t want to taste it anymore. Didn’t want to keep its secret with only me.
Meeting James’ gaze, I opened my mouth and let the poison escape. “I caught my dad cheating when I was ten. I think he forgot that once a month, I was let out early from school. They were in his office. The door was half open. When I went in to tell him I was home, I saw her on his desk. I saw… them… together.”
My forehead furrowed as I tried to push the images from my head. Him rushing over, pants unzipped and shirt unbuttoned, shutting the door in my face. Listening to him later, after the woman left, telling me she was a friend he was helping her and if I loved him, I wouldn’t mention it to Mom.
“He wrote me a fifty-dollar check for the book fair at school as an incentive for keeping his secret.” I paused, anger and disgust ripping at my lungs. “I didn’t want his money. I gave it to a friend who had less than me. It didn’t feel right spending it on myself.” I looked down at my hands. They felt grimy, like they needed to be washed. Heart swelling with acid. “To this day, I still haven’t told my mom. I think it would be pointless now. It’d only bring up the past hurts.”
He shook his head, his mouth marred with a frown. “It’s bullshit that he put you through that.” His fists tightened. “I can’t… I can’t even form the right words except that I’m sorry you witnessed that.”
I shook it off the same way I’d did since that day. “I didn’t realize what I saw. Not until he left us two years after for that same woman.”
I’d never told anyone that before. Not even Hudson. To be honest, I hardly ever thought about it. But it felt good to speak it out loud. To share the weight of the secret with someone else.
I lifted my chin. “How about you?”
He inhaled deeply, ruffling a hand through the back of his hair. “Well… to relate to fucked up fathers, my father stole my car and sold it for drugs. We were staying at a cabin in the woods. He was supposed to be clean. I guess he could only stay that way for so long before the need took over. I had to hitchhike back to town. I found him under a bridge, blasted. When I confronted him about the car, he lost it. I walked away with a broken rib and a promise he’d kill me if I ever came around him again.”
The disappointment in his tone kept mine company. No parents were ever truly perfect but, the good ones, they tried to be for the sake of their children. My mom made mistakes, but so have I. But our fathers… they were a planted seed and nothing more. A wisp of a thought in the dust of our childhoods.
A bitter memory overshadowing all others.
“I’m sorry that happened to you.”
He shrugged, the movement lonely and sad. “It was a long time ago.” He paused, taking in another breath, and then said, “Why don’t you ask the next one?”
I looked down at his gray comforter and thought about it for a moment as the memories of our fathers began to fade. He wanted grit. The best way to dig that up was to start from the beginning. Before the mess and loss of innocence. Before the world put its hands on us and crushed us into unrealistic expectations and shattering disappointments.
“What do you miss about being a kid?” I had a list. I think everyone did.
He looked up and to the left for a moment, and then smiled. “I liked to climb trees. My mom would freak out when I did. She hated heights. I’d wait until it was dark and she was upstairs reading, and then I’d go out back and scale the tallest tree in our backyard. I’d go as far up as I could, high enough I could almost stick my head through the top, and sit there for hours watching the sun fall.”
The nostalgia in his words brought a curve to my lips.
“How about you?”
“This might sound weird, but I miss the sound of coffee brewing, right before it’s done. That popping, firework sound. There was a time when I lived with my nona. It was right after my father left, after we lost the house. She took us in. Lived in a small motor home inside a trailer park for the elderly. There was a small table in the back where the kitchen was that converted into a bed big enough for me and my mom. Every morning, I’d wake to that sound, the edges of my dreams filled with a glorious firework show just before reality had a chance to lift my lids.”
“Why don’t you buy a coffee pot and set it to brew as your alarm clock?”
“Why don’t you climb trees?”
His eyebrows rose.
“Some things should be left to nostalgia,” I said. “Otherwise, we’d never appreciate anything.”
Our smiles met, and then went lopsided like a seesaw, taking turns lifting each other with every story.
He regarded me thoughtfully. After a moment, he asked, “Are you religious?”
“Not really,” I said. “I’m more superstitious than anything. Are you?”
He shook his head. “Religion has too many limits for me. Too many hands in the pot dictating how life should be lived. Though, I do respect it.” He paused a beat, and then asked, “What do you wish someone would ask you?”
“Are you okay?” The words shot from my mouth. I wanted to pull them back in. When spoken, they felt like they had a power over me. A way to break me down.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his tone shifting to concern.
I shook my head.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I shook my head again, knowing if I did, I’d surely have to wrestle with my tear ducts. “Just… you answer,” I managed to say. “What do you wish someone would ask you?”
“Why can’t you forgive him?” he said without a moment’s hesitation.
“Why can’t you?”
He shrugged, a sadness blanketing his eyes. I felt like I knew him then. I had the same response when I thought about my father. Maybe we were both in the same boat of asshole dads.
“Okay, so let’s rapid fire through the next four, and then end with a bang. You cool?” he asked as he took in a big inhale.
I laughed again, nodding. That must have been his catch phrase, setting him apart from others.
“What’s something you’ve had to overcome in your life?”
“Abandonment, and I haven’t overcome it just yet,” I admitted.
“Loss,” he said, eyes dimming again. “First-kiss high or long-term intimacy?”
It used to be first-kiss high. I almost said that out of habit, but I didn’t know what I was anymore. I was somewhere in the middle, the edges of a love so real beginning to curl in on itself.
“I’m in the middle,” I answered honestly.
“I’m still stuck on the first-kiss high. Haven’t met a woman who could hold my attention long enough. Are you emotionally reactive or methodical?”
“I’d like to say methodical because I do take time to think, but I definitely have my emotional moments.”
“I’m emotional. Too emotional sometimes. It’s something I’m still working on,” he said.
I liked that he could admit it. I liked that he was receptive enough to see it in himself. I felt an easiness growing between us, as if we’d had conversations like these a thousand times while laying on our stomachs watching a movie or strolling through a park during a lunch break. It was the unspoken in his words. The shared hurt that had backpacked with us our whole lives.
“Here’s a fun one, spicy or sweet?”
“Spicy and sweet.”
“Spicy,” he said. His last question steamrolled from his mouth. Punched me in the gut. “And now for the big bang… Do you have any regrets?”
The ghost of Hudson caressed the cheek of my heart. His words echoed between my ears. I’ll be here, waiting.
James took my sudden shock of silence and formulated his own answer.
“Was it true? What happened with Wesley?”
The name jarred me. It had been so long since I thought of him. Hudson’s kisses had seared him from my memory.
“That’s more than ten questions,” I replied, my mouth turning into a desert.
The light in his eyes dimmed. The game was over, but I didn’t want it to end with him thinking I’d regretted anything that happened with Wesley. If anything, without the dickhead, I would have never run off to Florida.
“It depends on the version you heard,” I said. He lifted his head. “I’m sure the story has many heads.”
“He cheated with your assistant. Is that why you weren’t at the premier?”
I shook my head. “No, but I’m sure the dickhead would like to claim that as the reason. I had the flu,” I said as a fiery lick of anger whipped across my chest. “What I had going with Wesley was nothing more than sex. He knew that, and it bothered him that I didn’t want to get serious when he asked me to be more than a hookup. His retaliation to my rejection was to fuck who I thought was my friend. But not only that, to fuck her where we used to meet up. He wanted me to find them. To try to pull some kind of emotional reaction from me.”
“Did it work?”
I snorted. “I sat a condom on the table, wished them luck, and then went on my merry way.”
He was smirking.
“What?”
He squinted his eyes at me, as if he were searching for something.
“What?” I asked again, feeling the same way I did when exposed on a cold table at a gynecologist’s office.
He pointed to my eyes. “There it is.”
“There what is?”
“The truth.”
“What truth?”
“He hurt you.”
I rolled my eyes. “I just told you. It meant nothing to me. He was—”
“Just a lay. Sure. And maybe you’re being honest about the part of not caring about him. But you were hurt, nonetheless. Maybe not by the betrayal, but by the sheer will he had to attempt to hurt you.”
My mouth clamped shut. Damn, he was good. And damn, this was bad. I didn’t like how quickly he wiggled inside my head. It was always the other way around. I pegged people.
“Okay. Yes. It hurt that someone would go that far to get a reaction from me. It pissed me off that my decision wasn’t respected, and that he lied when he agreed it would never be anything more.” I stopped and flinched back. “And why am I telling you this? We just met, and you’re my boss.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not your boss. I’m your coworker, and what’s wrong with talking? We spend too much time trying to filter everything we say so we appear a certain way, rather than simply speaking our truth.” He leaned forward, a sudden burst of energy pulsing from his eyes. “That’s why I chose this place for my next film. I know between the both of us, we can dig that way of thinking out of these people, and maybe spark a change in our society.”
“A change is definitely in order.”
“What do you want to portray with your work?” he asked.
This was a standard question, and one of my favorites.
“That the best parts of life are those moments that can’t be explained on social media. In an age where phones in hands are the equivalent of a best friend, I see life getting lost in all the noise.”
“And what do those moments look like?” he asked, head tilted to the side.
The answer was already there, dancing on the tip of my tongue. “It’s the hidden smile he gives you, or the shared joke that has you both dying in laughter, or the way he puts his arm across you when you sleep because he can’t ever sleep without touching you. Those are the moments I yearn to capture. To edit. To present to the world so they see true beauty,” I said, my heart crumpling in my chest.
There was an ache there I feared would never go away. An ache I didn’t want to go away, because keeping it meant Hudson was real and what we shared would remain close to me.
“So you have a boyfriend then?”
“Had,” I said, dropping my eyes. “We… umm… I decided to end it when I signed on board with this project.”
Why, why, why does it hurt so much?
“So you’re one of those then?”
The question rattled a memory loose. It made me think of that day with Hudson at the diner when I confessed my love for dessert. He’d said the same thing to me, but it didn’t come off as arrogant or put off. It was intrigue, and a yearning to know more about me.
Just like James.
“One of what?” I asked, trying to play off the pain.
“The kind who puts their career before love,” he said. “Don’t worry,” he added when he noticed my face. “I’m married to mine. I get it. True passion requires sacrifice.”
“Sacrifice,” I repeated. I reached for the script and started penciling in ideas and scratching out the stuff that didn’t fit. He continued to watch me with that crooked grin, and it unnerved me.
“I think we should start with the interviews,” I said, trying to get back on point. “We’ll find our story there.”
“Agreed,” he said. “I already spoke with the owner, and she said she would meet with the guests tonight during their bingo activity and post a sign-up sheet for those who want to participate. Janice already has the waivers ready to go for tomorrow.”
There were no more questions after that.
SARAH AND MATT WERE FAST asleep. Sarah was a snorer. Wonderful.
My finger hesitated over Hudson’s number. I should call him. He’d want to know that I made it safe. And I wanted to hear his voice. It would be my first full night of sleep without him, and I wasn’t sure I could handle it. I used to be annoyed by the prickling stubble of his beard, but now I longed for it. For the sandpaper feel against my lips as I ran them over his.
I opened the Facebook app, and then pulled up his page. The profile picture was still the same. I clicked it, feeling my heart writhing against me. I missed him. It was undeniable, and I was growing weaker by the second.
I dialed his number and drew my thumb to my lips, chewing on the nonexistent nail.
“We’re sorry. The number you have reached is no longer in service.”
I hung up. Pushed the phone away from me as the room blurred. As my heart gasped, and then fell to its knees. Why would he disconnect his phone? It was the only form of communication he used.
Maybe he changed his mind. I couldn’t blame him.
I was the one who left.
And for the first time in fifteen years, I let myself cry over a man.