In the Unlikely Event

God, Callum.

“I bought another one in London, because the first one was left in that godforsaken dumpster in Ireland, and I wanted to propose as soon as possible.” He stops, looks down. “But not soon enough, apparently.”

My eyes are full of tears. My head hurts. I’m losing it. I’m breaking apart, and suddenly, all I want to do is make him feel better, no matter the cost. I take a step toward him, but he shakes his head. He punches the button to call the elevator when the doors begin to close, not quite done hurting me.

“This is the line.” He juts his chin to the threshold between the elevator and the corridor. “You don’t get to pass it anymore. We’re done here, Rory. We’ve been done from the beginning. I was always temporary, a starter to pass the time until the entrée arrived.”

I fall to my knees, letting out a sob.

He slings the camera into the elevator, and it lands next to me.

“You’re always so obsessed with taking the perfect picture. Well, I took photos of your little threesome. That’ll keep your slimy boss happy. You’re welcome.”

I look up, my eyes blazing with shame and anger.

He is going far.

Too far.

Twisting the knife in my chest, watching me bleed.

Yet I’m full to the brim with guilt.

“I know we should break up. I know. But if it’s the right thing to do, why does it hurt so bad?” I ask, feeling snot running down to my mouth.

Nothing about this situation is pretty, me included.

“Holding on to something that never existed is far more painful,” he spits. “Trust me, Rory, I’ve tried.”

A NOTE FROM SUMMER

 

Time to air the dirty laundry, and boy, there’s a suspicious-looking stain the size of Alabama on my conscience.

Okay—insert deep, cleansing breath—here goes.

A month after Rory and Callum started dating, he dropped in unannounced while she was at work. It was supposed to be a surprise. He brought flowers and champagne and sashimi from her favorite sushi place and wore a bowtie—and not even in a hipster, looks-good-with-skinny-jeans kind of way. Rory was supposed to be home, but Ryner had called her in—some emergency about a pop star who lost a bunch of weight and decided she wanted a reshoot of her album cover.

Rory never turns down work. I think she’ll die clutching her camera to her heart.

Anyway, so Callum knocked on the door with all this stuff, and I happened to answer it. I’d just broken up with the guy I’d been dating for three years who had cheated on me that day. Suffice it to say, I was not in a good headspace.

Callum stuttered, apologized, and said he’d drop in at her work. I laughed, knowing she’d probably take the opportunity to dump him if he did that.

We ended up sharing the bottle of champagne Callum brought. He wasn’t much of a drinker. That’s what he told me, anyway, but he said he was feeling really on edge. He said he knew Rory was going to break up with him. He thought she found him boring and too straightedge and overtly proper.

He thought correctly.

Rory did find him boring. And she always compared him to Mal. Which grated on my nerves, because yes, Mal was awesome, gorgeous, and great in the sack, but that was over, and it was time to move on.

When she came back from Ireland all those years ago, she showed me the pictures she took of him. I had a brilliant idea of how to help her get over him. I told her to come up with negative things about Mal and write them on the back of the pictures, so every time she thought about hopping on a plane and begging him to be with her (which happened more often than logically acceptable), she’d remember.

But all we could come up with was that he was a flirt and tried (and succeeded) to be really good in bed. It was useless. He was perfect. Other than, of course, the fact that he’d let her go.

Anyway, back to Callum and me. That night, one bottle of champagne led to two others.

“I don’t get it. I have demons, too, you know?” he said. “I’m not the squeaky-clean bastard she thinks I am. I can be a horrible person, Summer.”

“I don’t believe that,” I said.

“I’m selfish,” he replied.

“We all are.”

“Me more than most.”

That was the last thing he told me before his mouth descended on mine.

We slept together.

He cheated on her.

I cheated on her.

It was brief, quick, four-minutes-and-he-came sex. So anti-climactic in every sense of the word. I still consider it the worst thing I’ve ever done. And I wasn’t even close to climaxing. I didn’t enjoy it, but Callum had always been the fantasy—well-bred, well-endowed, and well-hung. Not to mention, the guy in a suit was the eighth wonder of the world, I’m pretty sure. It was a moment of weakness.

“See?” he said as he put his shoes on in a hurry. “I told you. Selfish.”

I said nothing to that.

“But I thought she’d be different, you know? I thought she’d get me out of that behavioral pattern. I don’t know. Maybe I have a sex addiction.”

I stopped answering him because I didn’t pity him. I had my own problems, my own issues with life.

The thing is, I didn’t know she would come back home, plop down next to me on the couch, notice the roses and sashimi on the counter, the traces of the masculine cologne he’d left behind, and say: “You’re right. I’m so stupid. I should just get over Mal and give this thing with Callum my best shot.”

That’s what she said when I could still smell the rubber of her boyfriend’s condom wafting from my pajamas, even after I took a shower. And Callum wasn’t doing much better guilt-wise. I’d watched from the window half an hour earlier as he shoved himself into the back of an Uber, on the verge of sobbing.

“I think you should,” I told Rory, thinking, but please don’t.

So now you see why I’m carrying five tons of guilt on my shoulders.

I never thought it would pan out this way. And even though I want to throw up every time the three of us are together in the same room (which doesn’t happen often), I just can’t be the one to let her break up with Callum.

My conscience can’t handle the failure of their relationship, no matter the reason. But secretly? If you asked me in a closed room—padded and soundproof—what I thought, I’d tell you my best friend, whom I love to death, is a brat.

She should just choose a guy and put everyone out of their misery.

I wish I had a pouty napkin boy who would rip the world apart to be with me.

I wish I had a rich, selfish-but-irresistible boy who would do anything he could to make sure Napkin Boy couldn’t.

Present

 

Mal

 

It is worth mentioning how I ended up writing songs for a living, when initially, I made having people beg to buy my songs somewhat of a competitive sport.

The answer—as it is to many questions—is Rory.

After she left, I worked through the pain. I wrote songs about love, and about hate, and about indifference. About loneliness and alcohol and the dark corners of my soul that frequently sent a hostile breeze through the rest of my body.

Hundreds of songs became thousands of songs, and thousands of songs became something bigger than me. Like a monster in my closet, lurking every night. Every song became a demon, and each demon was out for my blood.