Carter
I CAN’T GIVE her an excuse because I don’t have one.
Earlier, when I walked into my house and saw Tori in my living room, I felt like I’d climbed a mountain and reached the summit. She was here. She’d come on her own. She was willing to try to make our relationship work. I’d planned to take her for a ride up Mulholland Drive, where we’d eventually head to my secret spot near the overlook and I’d tell her I love her.
My own stupidity pushed me off the mountain, and now I’m free-falling. All I can do now is tell her the truth. “I contacted Evans yesterday.”
“Why?” she says. “Were you trying to influence my pitch?”
The confusion in her voice guts me. I shake my head, realizing only at this moment how she could have made that assumption. “No, just the opposite. I called him after I got your text. I knew it hadn’t gone well, so I didn’t think I’d be influencing it in any way.”
She shakes her head as she speaks. “But just because I thought it was a crappy interview doesn’t mean they thought it was, too. You hadn’t even talked to me. So you could have influenced the outcome.”
Fuck. She’s right. This is a mess. “Yeah. I’m not trying to excuse what I did.”
She throws up her hands. “What did you do, Carter?”
“I asked him if you’d mentioned me. If you’d used my name to promote your pitch. I just . . . I needed to know.”
Now that I’ve said that out loud, the idiocy of my thought process mocks the fuck out of me. I know in my heart that Tori wouldn’t have betrayed me like that, but I let my own insecurities guide my actions. I convinced myself a quick call would confirm that my trust in Tori was well placed. That a person in my position couldn’t be too careful and there’d be no harm. I was wrong.
She stares at me, unblinking, her lips parted in an O. Then she drops her chin and studies the floor. She’s disappointed in me, and that’s the worst part. “You were checking to see if I was using you.”
She’s not asking. She’s telling.
“Yes. It was a stupid thing to do. In here”—I pound on my chest—“I know you’d never do that, but I let my head get in the way. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
She straightens and looks around the room. Then she drops on her hands and knees and drags her white jeans from under my bed. “I don’t understand any of this,” she says as she struggles into her pants. “Did Evans tell you I nearly bitch-slapped him for trying to get to you through me?”
“He didn’t describe it that way, but yes, that was the impression he gave me. I—”
She lets out a heavy sigh. “You asked me to trust you, and I did. I even held it together when I saw the photo of you with that woman. Because you’d earned my trust. Now I realize I haven’t even earned yours.”
I stride to her and place my hands on her shoulders. “You have my trust, Tori. It was a momentary lapse. Please forgive me.”
Her eyes are cold, and her mouth is pressed into a thin line. She shakes my arms off her. “You had one pass, remember? I have none left to give you.”
She’s shutting down on me, trying to put me in her past. “I know what you’re doing, Tori. You’re pulling away. What’s your go-to phrase again?”
She tilts her chin up and looks at me defiantly. “Siempre pa’lante, nunca pa’tras. It’s fitting for this situation.”
“I’m not a situation, Tori. I’m your boyfriend, and I want to be with you, and I want to make this right. Tell me how to do that.”
She says nothing for what seems like an eternity. When she finally speaks, her voice is calm, eerily so. “This was always going to be a bit of a gamble, you know. My fear of being in the public eye guaranteed that. And I thought I could meet you halfway, at least try to work through this because I thought you were worth it. But if we don’t have trust, Carter, none of this works.”
“We do have trust, Tori. Please don’t take this instance of stupidity and make it the poster child for our relationship. It’s not.”
“Carter, you’re not getting it. For weeks, I’ve been operating as if I’m the reason our relationship can’t move forward, but I’m not the only one who needs to work through some issues. I know people have used you before, but I don’t think you even realize how much it’s affected you. You don’t believe in yourself, in your own abilities, in the qualities that make you special. You’re on this quest to be taken seriously as an actor because you don’t think you’re enough. You assume everyone’s out to take advantage of you because you can’t possibly imagine that people could want you for anything other than your fame. I didn’t fall in love with Carter Stone. I fell in love with Carter Williamson. But as long as Stone is running the show, you’re bound to make choices I can’t live with.”
She’s so right I don’t know what to say. Too many people have fucked with my head—Simon Cage, ex-girlfriends, the paparazzi, the freaking doctor—and I’ve been on the lookout for the next person who’s going to hurt me. But I want to work through this. With her. For her. For us, dammit. “Help me make the right choices, Tori.”
“These aren’t my choices to make,” she chokes out. “I’ve done nothing to warrant your distrust, yet here we are.”
“So what? You just move on?”
“I don’t know. I need time.”
She means time apart. But I know this is just a stopgap measure for her. She’ll run back to Philadelphia and stuff me in the closet of boyfriends past. She honestly believes that’s the right way to go, just as much as I honestly believe it’s not. “Fine. But while you’re figuring things out, think about this. That phrase you love so much is bullshit.”
She narrows her eyes and flares her nostrils.
Yeah, get mad, Tori. If it takes getting her angry, then so be it. I pace the room as I speak, unable to remain still as I fight for us. “Listen, part of moving forward is embracing your past, not ignoring it. Part of life is working through your problems, not searching for a problem-free existence. Think about you and your family. You can’t talk to them about your fears, and it’s killing you. You think you’ve moved on from that? You haven’t. The whole You Are What You Move concept is practically an homage to your father.”
She’s been following me with a wary gaze. Now her eyes widen and her breath hitches.
Because she knows I’m right. Hell, I know I’m right regardless of what she thinks. “You can’t help him, so you’re helping others like him,” I continue. “But you’re never going to be truly happy unless you work through that issue with your family.”
She folds her arms over her chest. “You’re right. Which means we both have issues to get through. We should take the time to do that.”
Fuck. In her head, she’s already gone, and I can’t do this alone. My chest deflates, and I sigh heavily. Then I scoop up my T-shirt off the floor and slip it on. “I’m going to head out and give you space. Let me know if you need a ride somewhere.”
As I’m walking out the door, she whispers, “I’ll be fine.”
Great. That makes one of us.