Chapter 11
Colton
“If you love somethin’, settin’ it free makes you a damned fool.”
~ Papa Duke
As I pulled up the driveway to Bella’s grandfather’s farmhouse, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There were production vehicles everywhere. People were hustling from trucks and vans to bring equipment inside.
I stepped out and it occurred to me this might not be the show that I’d signed up to do. Mia had talked about her company producing a prank show last year. It was a Candid Camera, Punk’d type of show. That had to be what was going on. Why else would production be here.
My mind started racing with theories and conspiracies. Bella mysteriously showed up out of the blue last week. She wouldn’t talk to me when I came over. But she promised that she would be here when I got back…
Was Bella in on this?
She had to be.
This was her house.
None of this made any sense. Why would she have any involvement with this? Before last week we hadn’t seen or spoken to each other since we were teenagers.
My heart was thumping hard in my chest as I stepped over cables and around the sound cart that was blocking the path to get to the back of the house. I needed to find out what was going on. I had to get to the bottom of this, whatever this was, before any cameras started rolling.
I couldn’t help but feel betrayed as I made my way down the path to the kitchen door. I pulled out my phone to text Mia. I considered her a friend. I’d agreed to do this show as a favor to Mia and whatever she had up her sleeve wasn’t going to happen.
My relationship with Bella was not for public consumption. It was real. And there was no way I was going to exploit it for anyone or anything.
I hadn’t even typed the first letter of my text when I heard Mia call my name.
“Colton!” Looking up I saw that she was rushing towards me. “You’re here! That’s awesome! But you can’t be here.”
“What?” I had no idea what she was talking about. “What’s going on?”
She threaded her arm through mine and tugged me back the way I’d just come. When I didn’t budge, she motioned her head towards the front of the house. “We have a trailer for you out front. You can’t see the contestants until—”
“What the hell is going on?” I jerked my arm away from her.
“What do you mean?” Mia blinked, clearly in shock at my out-of-character behavior. “Are you okay?”
No, I wasn’t. But I tried to stay calm and be very specific with my questions so that I had the best chance at getting answers. “Mia, why is everyone here? At this house?”
“Oh, because this is where talent is staying.”
“Talent?”
Mia’s head tilted and I could see concern flicker in her eyes. “Yes, talent. The twelve contestants that are—”
“I know what talent is,” I gritted out through clenched teeth as frustration boiled just beneath the surface. All of the anxiety and tension that I’d been suppressing this past week was about to reach its tipping point. “Why are they here?”
“Colton…” The flicker of concern turned to a full-blown bonfire. “Are you sure you’re okay? Let’s go talk in your trailer.”
This was ridiculous. This conversation was like a dog chasing its own tail. We were going around in circles. There was no way in hell I was going to my trailer, or anywhere until I found out exactly what was going on. “Where’s Bella? Isabella Connor, she owns this property.”
“She’s inside.” Mia spoke slowly as she motioned to the back door. “She’s doing the girls’ makeup.”
What?
It wasn’t that I didn’t hear the words that were coming out of Mia’s mouth, I just didn’t understand them. Not one thing she had told me made a lick of sense. I’d never taken drugs but I imagined this might be what it felt like, like I was in a fun house mirror version of my life.
I resisted the urge to just repeat her words since that had been getting us nowhere. Instead, I asked the real question that I needed to know. I spoke as clearly as I possibly could. “What involvement does Bella have in all of this?”
Mia’s soothing and gentle tone reminded me of someone trying to calm down an upset child, a mentally unstable person, or a wild animal as she explained, “Bella owns this property. Last week, while you were gone, I leased this property for the contestants to live in during filming.”
“Bella is living with the women from the show?!” I blustered. “Why the hell is she doing their makeup?”
Her voice remained steady and reassuring as she serenely responded to my outburst. “Bella is staying in the back house. The girls are staying in the main house. This morning she overheard me on the phone when the makeup artist was a no show and she offered to step in, for today only.”
“And she knows that this is my…” I spread my arms out. “What this show is?”
“Yes. She does.” Mia’s forehead wrinkled and she stepped forward, lowering her voice. “Colton what’s going on? I saw the two of you at Cara’s reception and I thought there might be something between you. I was even going to ask her to be on the show—
“You did what?!” I shouted.
“I didn’t do anything.” Her words were barely above a whisper. “I saw that she was married before I asked.”
All of the panic that had been coursing through me instantly drained from my system at the mention of Bella’s marital status. My limbs felt heavy. My head was pounding.
I’d never been a very emotional person. I’d always had to be the one that others leaned on when they were going through a crisis. I was the strong one. When the storm raged I was the fallout shelter. I was a rock.
Always there. Always reliable. Always stable.
But the past few months I’d been feeling so restless and this past week I’d been all over the place. I’d been erratic and irrational. It was unsettling to say the least. And exhausting.
We both stepped back to make room for a couple of crew members carrying equipment as they walked between us.
After they passed, Mia asked again, “Can we please go talk in private?”
“Fine,” I agreed.
Thankfully, the walk to the trailer was short.
“What’s going on Colton? And don’t tell me nothing, or that you’re fine,” she demanded as the door clicked shut behind us.
Mia didn’t waste time getting right to the heart of the matter.
My paranoia had gotten the best of me when I first arrived. The truth was that I trusted Mia. She was more than just someone I worked with, she was a friend. Not only did I believe that she deserved an explanation for the way I’d been acting, I could actually use someone to talk to.
Lowering down on the small sofa, I leaned forward resting my elbows on my knees. “Bella and I were together. We were only kids, teenagers, but it was serious. It was a real relationship that lasted almost five years and I believe would’ve lasted forever if life…hadn’t…happened.
“She …” I took a deep breath as I paused, not sure of how much I should reveal of Bella’s history—“had some family trouble and had to leave town when she was fifteen. She wanted us to stay together, but I knew that if we didn’t make a clean break it wouldn’t work. I was scared she would run away and try to come back to me. I wanted her to go live her life and finish high school. My plan was to graduate from college, by then she’d be an adult and I’d have a degree so I would be able to support us.
“The night before she left, I told her that we couldn’t be together. She argued with me, told me that we’d find a way to make it work. She was crying and I just…I let her believe that she’d changed my mind. Then the next day at the bus stop, right before she got on, I told her that I didn’t think I could wait for her. That I was young and I wanted to date other people. That I loved her, but the distance was just too much to ask of me to wait for her.”
My eyes watered and I took a deep breath, trying to compose myself. Clearing my throat, I pressed on, “None of that was true. I loved her more than anything in the world. I would’ve waited forever for her. I have waited for her. But, I needed her to believe it was true so she would be free. I figured that she would be sad, heartbroken even, but that she’d be better off not pining away for me, being miserable because we weren’t together.
“She tried to argue with me, called me a liar, said that she knew I didn’t mean any of that, but then the bus driver yelled that she had to get on or he was leaving without her.” I wiped beneath my lower lids as memories of that painful day came back to me. “I’ll never forget the way she sobbed, the way her back shook more and more violently with every step she took up into the bus.
“I wanted so bad to yell out that she was right, that I was lying, that I loved her. But I thought I was doing the right thing. That I was doing what was best for her. That I was being mature. I convinced myself that that old saying, ‘if you love someone, set them free, if they come back to you, they’re yours,’ was true. I honestly believed that we would be together. There wasn’t a single doubt in my mind that we would get married, have babies, and grow old together.
“It was really hard right after she left. Those first few weeks, months…every day, every minute, every second, I wanted to pick up the phone and call her. I could barely function without her. It was like I was missing a part of myself. But I didn’t give into it. I stayed strong because I wanted her to have a shot at happiness.
“Then, Cara got sick. At first we didn’t know what was wrong with her. She went back and forth to the doctors. There were so many times that I picked up the phone and dialed Bella’s number but then hung up. I just wanted to hear her voice, to tell her what was going on, how scared I was. Then, the day that we got the call with Cara’s diagnosis, I finally got my chance to do just that. About an hour after I found out, the phone rang and I picked it up. I’ll never forget the sound of her saying my name like she couldn’t believe that she was actually talking to me. She sounded so far away and unsure as she said, ‘Colton?’
“I’d thought that hearing her voice would make me feel better, but for some reason it just made me…mad. Mad that she wasn’t there when I needed her. Mad that she wasn’t there when I was terrified that I was going to lose my baby sister. Mad that she wasn’t there so I could pull her into my arms and hold her until I wasn’t so scared anymore. I told her that we weren’t together and not to call me anymore and I hung up.
“The next few years were a blur but I never stopped loving Bella. Missing her. Wishing that I hadn’t said the things that I had. When Cara finally went into remission and started college just as I graduated, the first thing I did was get on a plane to go find her. To get my girl.”
My gut twisted. “It didn’t take me long to find her, but when I did I realized she wasn’t mine to get back anymore. I set her free and she got married and had a baby with someone else. She had a family. A life. And there was no place for me in it. I got back on a plane and came home without ever even talking to her.
“That was six years ago and not a day, not an hour has gone by that I didn’t think about her, miss her, and love her. I didn’t see her again until last Sunday when she walked into Cara’s reception.”
Mia’s expression was blank as she stared at me. I realized then that I might’ve overshared and she’d gotten bored and stopped listening, but then she breathed, “Holy shit.”
“Yeah.” I nodded.
Slowly her head turned back and forth in disbelief. “Have you talked to her? Explained why you did what you did? Tell her how you feel?”
“I tried at the reception, but she left before I could. Then I went to her house that night and she didn’t want to talk to me, but she promised that she’d be here when I got back. That’s what I needed to take care of before filming, but you said that the crew was waiting and then when you gave me this address to come to, I had no idea what was going on. That pretty much brings you up to speed. You said I’ve seemed distracted and that’s why.”
“Holy shit,” Mia breathed again.
“Yeah,” I repeated.
We sat in silence for a moment, just staring at each other. Both of us processing what I’d just laid out. When a loud knock sounded, we both jumped, startled.
Shaking her head slightly Mia turned back into producer mode as she called out, “Come in.”
The door opened and my body responded even before my eyes processed what I was looking at. My heart swelled in my chest and a tingling awareness shot through me. It had always been that way, since the day I’d seen her standing in line for kindergarten. I wondered if there was ever going to be a time that I didn’t fall deeper in love with her at first sight.
“Heidi sent me.” Bella’s face was tense as she stood in the doorway, wearing a T-shirt and cutoff shorts that had my mouth watering instantly. Her large blue eyes peering beneath a dark bed of lashes and her full lips looked the exact shade of my favorite fruit, raspberry. Sunlight bathed her, causing her wavy blonde hair to shimmer like silk as it fell around her shoulders.
She looked like an angel.
An angel with a black cosmetic case.